Presidential Powers

Started by RickN • 6 replies • 1668 views

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RickN (Florida)
Posts: 27

Posted:

Greetings,
I wanted to follow up on LisaP who was asking about limits to Presidential powers. Our docs read basically the same as LisaP. Recently, our President fired the manager without consulting the Board, and is using Association moneys to pay for our current administrative assistant to go take a CAM course and test(we do not have a line item to pay for such expense). In my opinion, the President has violated proper protocol. The day-to-day operation of the Association does not include the firing/hiring of people/contracts. Am I interpreting Presidential powers incorrectly?
RickN
Silver Falls FL

RogerB (Colorado)
Posts: 5,067

Posted:

Rick,
The authority of the President and the Powers and Duties of the Board are usually listed in By-laws. Meanwhile, some actions need to be taken promptly and the Board normally allows the President to handle such items.

Approval and termination of contracts should be done after a vote approving such action by the Board. The action may be taken by their authorized representative (often the President). BTW, I suggest your HOA look into hiring independent contractors if you have employees.

LisaP (Florida)
Posts: 32

Posted:

Things have gotten worse at my Association. The president has continued to act under a theory of absolute power and has stopped respsonding to questions via email (our meeting is next week). I think she might be right in doing so because no resolutions exist to stop her. However, if a resolution doesnt exist, where does the "power" derive from i.e. shouldnt one be made, excluding day to day, where none exist?

LisaP (Florida)
Posts: 32

Posted:

RickN (Florida)
Posts: 27

Posted:

Greetings Lisa,
One thing I forgot to mention in my posting was that I am the Vice-President of our Asociation. In saying so, I agree that the President can not exercise absolute power unless the BOD allows him to. And there may lie your only hope. Since documents and statutes are somewhat vague, your BOD can motion to curtail the Presidents powers at a duly noticed meeting. Worse case scenario, either a recall process from your BOD or even the membership may be in order. Regardless, elections are once every year. Therefore, you must organize a grass root effort to insure that this "dictator" does not get elected again.
Sincerely
RickN

LisaP (Florida)
Posts: 32

Posted:

Hi, Rick:

Im the Vice President for my Association as well. While I have absolutely no problem with the President taking a more active role (despite literally doing next to nothing for the past 10-11 months), I do have a great problem with the absolute power the President has been exercising either because she thinks this is reality or due to the failure of a proper and documented resolution defining roles.

In any case, no power (aside from day to day) should be exercised by any officer unless expressed in the docs and agreed to by the Board. If the Pres is to operate as a dictator, whats the sense of having five Board members?

I appreciate your feedback and support. I feel like Im fighting an uphill battle alone sometimes (one of our other Board members resigned last night because of her and another is on vacation until later this month).

Thanks,
Lisa

BradP (Kansas)
Posts: 2,640

Posted:

Rick and Lisa:

Check your documents, your board of directors may be able to remove someone from office, just not the board. I am not sure, I would have to read ours to see how it is worded. Otherwise I would as a board send them a letter stating that they do not have absolute power and cite your documents, most say the board of directors has to approve, not the president. Ask them to resign their position.

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