Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Fiduciary Responsibilities - Taking Care of the Community

[Norman Gauss (normangauss]

With only 15 households, that is much easier to do than when a community has
36 households.  Some of our members don't even live here.  Their units are
leased out to tenants.  Some of our tenants attend business meetings but are
not allowed in the decision making process of financial issues.  We would
have great difficulty in making the entire community a fiduciary body.
There are even confidential decisions affecting individual members that must
be made in closed session.

Norm Gauss

-----Original Message-----
From: oz [mailto:oz [at] ozragland.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, July 04, 2012 9:59 AM
To: Cohousing-L
Subject: Re: [C-L]_ Fiduciary Responsibilities - Taking Care of the
Community


Many cohousing communities, Songaia included, have a board which includes
every adult member of the community - so the board and the community
membership are one...

On Wed, Jul 4, 2012 at 9:40 AM, Norman Gauss <normangauss [at] 
charter.net>wrote:

>
> The whole community does
> not have fiduciary responsibilities for its members and cannot be held 
> liable for negligence or purposely making decisions based on personal 
> preferences of a few members.
>
> The Board of Directors, being a fiduciary body, legally cannot let 
> personal interests of its members be a basis for its decisions.  It 
> must have the welfare of the community in mind rather than the welfare of
its members.



> Our membership is uncomfortable with the Board making unilateral 
> decisions and is not willing to give the Board leeway to act in the 
> best interests of the HOA.
>
> Does this type of conflict exist in other cohousing communities?
>
> Norman Gauss
> Oak Creek Commons
> Paso Robles, CA
>
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