Is this unethical?

Seems black and white, however, when you have several differing opinions it sure can be difficult to say. We have a few homes in the front of our neighborhood whose mailboxes face a busy street and often get creamed by cars. Should they have to have the same high-cost mailboxes as the rest of the neighborhood? Again, up for interpretation.

Your restrictions may state that deviances from the norm can be authorized by the board. Do yours state that? Guess all you can do is go with the majority rule. But if your president really isn't doing her job at all, and is lax in her duties, seems like your anonymous letter writer should have mentioned her specifically. At the least, you might want to make sure your voice is noted in the meeting minutes.

I'm curious how often this board member had the gall to sit in judgment of and enforced the rules against other "violating" members. Amazing how they know the rules are black and white when enforcing it against others, but think their situation is "grey."

Our board isn't like that. If anything, we're overly cautious. None of our board members would hesitate to tell me if I was in violation. In fact, one of my neighbors was in violation and I got asked why I didn't say something. I didn't notice!! Wasn't trying to hide anything. Amazing how oversights can be so quickly interpreted as favors.

We have a rule that we don't assign messenger service to board members who are friends with the offenders. Keeps our friendships out of the mix, but the job still gets done.

I do think all board members have to be cautious not to fall into the trap of being injustice collectors. Keeping community peace can sometimes get lost in the attempts to adhere to the restrictions. It's definitely a hard balance, which likely isn't recognized or appreciated by homeowners who haven't served.

The biggest problem I see is that our board has made exceptions IN FAVOR of offenders. This has seriously caused problems. Processes really need to be as automated as they can, and opinions removed. When our board members have bent over to give leniency, the offenders somehow still wound up taking offense and raising cane.

Anyway, you do the best you can and that's all you can do. It is what it is.

When this comes up in our meetings, I just call them on it. "So you're saying that even though you agree that it is against our CCRs, we should make an exception?" Then they say their peace and I do my "at this time we don't have the authority to exclude this resident from abiding by our governing documents. But the issue of planters/dividers can be adressed when we rewrite our docs."

My thing is - these are our rules and we must follow them. We CAN however change the rules if this is an issue that needs to be updated. Of course, nobody wants to put the time into amending them. They just want to continue shooting from the hip.

In the OP's case, maybe an alternative would be for the association (or homeowner) to plant foliage to block the view of the hotel.

I WANTED TO UPDATE YOU ALL....

The president who ran for another year ( 8th consecutive serving) barely made the cut on votes. She made it by 1 vote.. so here we go another year.

BUT! There is hope. We as a group could not select positions last meeting as one of our newly appointed members is out of town until next meeting. I and another member made it really clear we are requesting someone else take the presidential role.. and asked her to kindly let someone else serve in this role. I futhered it by saying although I do appreciate all her hard work that the communication from her has been rated what I would say as POOR. I am hoping to ante up or steop up things to higher level and standard... she was offended, but believe me I had support from other members! THE FACT SHE ALMOST GOT VOTED OFF THE ISLAND MADE IT REALLY CLEAR PEOPLE WANT A CHANGE.

The ex to be president had no problem with updating her "freinds" who serve on the baord, but not the rest of us and I also told her that. I felt huge elephant was off my chest and she got a dose of reality.

Despite the board all being voluntary.. some peoples positions get STAGNANT! .................. AND IT'S ONLY RIGHT TO TAKE A BREAK.

Yay Irene! Sounds like you were quite successful in getting your point across.

This may go on a deeper level, lol, but I am sometimes amazed how men can just say things to each other in a normal tone of voice, and carry on like nothing happened. I've tried harder to be like that, although it doesn't come naturally. I think women are wired differently and can tend to keep their traps shut until they are ready to blow, and then the outcome can be much messier than it might have been if something had been said at the time, the first time, and all along the way.

I'm learning not to get baited as much either. I got baited by a homeowner a few months ago and lost my cool. Funny thing was, I didn't really have much of a problem with the content of her argument. It was everything else that set me off, delivery, demeaning tone, sarcasm, unrelated issues, exaggerations, accusations, elitist attitude, credentials waving, etc. I was caught off guard and I did apologize later for my mini-meltdown. Now, I just keep my eyes on the most level-headed gent at the meeting and do as he does, keep the words to a minimum.

Part of the problem that I see is that the Board's credentials can vary as much as the credentials of the entire neighborhood. Who has HR training, team-building skills, conflict resolution training, etc. So the Board can often be labeled with an all-inclusive swipe of "power mongers", but the individuals can vary greatly. Luckily, our Board members are pretty much all on the same page. However, we have some major haters in our neighborhood who act like grade school bullies. There is no pleasing them on any level. They are threatening to run for the board. Funny thing is, everybody WANTS them to run so they can see what it's like. I'll be tickled pink if our group of mutineers takes over the board. That will be squarely the 10% of dissenters who continue to wreak havoc in our neighborhood.

And when that happens, I'm going to toss out all the conflict resolution training I've had, grab my binkie and raaaaaiiiissssseeeee hell!! lol, actually, probably not.

Wow Michelle, sounds like you've heard it all.

We have a new family in the neighborhood. Apparently one of the mutineers got to him first. He's concluded numerous negatives about the Board members as a result. So, with zero provocation, this guy has now threatened to park his trashcan permanently in the middle of his driveway and trash his own house before selling, just to drive the value down... hence supposedly bringing down home values across the board here.

How's that for level-headedness?? The guy has major PMS. Funny thing is, he's a stay-at-home dad and his wife is a professional negotiator. Wonder if she knows about his threats.

Regardless, I am going to have to remind myself, both as a female and a human, who I'm dealing with (and their mindset) before jumping to react.

Claudia the way we've dealt with things like this is in the newsletter we take the statements and make them sound as petty and childish as they are without naming names; yet people still seem to know to whom we are referring.

I'm a board member and our president is very selective on who follows the rules of our condoplex. Our members don't get along at all. She tries to get "around" the bylaws by selectively not noticing illegal activities being done--especially by her neighbors. Two of her neighbors finally had to get rid of their window a/c's because I made such a ruckus. I've had to go to extreme measures by telling the homeowners (through flyers or our web site) that we have board members only enforcing the bylaws for some people and not others. Since she knows I will go "public" if she does something she shouldn't be doing, things have settled down some and the rules are being enforced. Now we have a homeowner who has installed an outdoor electrical fan--without asking board permission AND it is against the bylaws. The president is trying to "ammend" a bylaw (illegal) by making up her own rules so the homeowner can keep the fan and for any other homeowner that wants to install an outdoor fan. I, however, have a top unit and would have to install an over hang, which I said I would if she let this homeowner keep his fan. She has not replied back yet. Rules are made for a reason. Board members are supposed to follow and enforce the bylaws. I've come to the conclusion that I'm not on the board to make friends. If the board member is not following the rules, make it public and ask for their resignation. If you don't enforce the rule for everyone, you're opening yourself up to a lawsuit.