Proxies

What do your documents say? That's where you should start - the Bylaws usually dictate how the association is to be run, so there may be something in there about the use of proxies.

You might also try Googling your questions (it can be faster) - in this case, you could take a look at this: https://m.flsenate.gov/statutes/720.306

Regarding your question, you don't say how long was "months ago" or if "not enough votes" means not enough people voted to create a majority percentage saying yea or nay and/or if everyone who did vote said nay (there is a difference). Since there was an end date and it appears the response is no, for whatever reason, I would say the board should either start over or drop the idea (apparently not enough people are sold on the idea for whatever reason). They can't count the non-voters as an automatic approval or denial, so if they want something more definitive, they should go ahead and call for another vote with new proxies.

(all of this said, why would homeowners have to vote for new mailboxes? I would think that would have been a board decision.)

Shelia, you asked a good question as to why there is even a vote on mailboxes. Our Association board made a decision to upgrade our mailboxes and had them installed without an owner vote. The money came out of the Replacement Reserve.

There is a duplicate thread on this issue. Both threads have replies.

Here is a link to the other thread:

https://www.hoatalk.com/Forum/tabid/55/forumid/1/postid/374081/view/topic/Default.aspx

They could call for a new vote with new proxies and deadline (stick to it this time), but what's the point if you didn't get enough votes? You still haven't said what that means - not enough votes cast, not enough votes leaning one way or another - which is it?

Regarding the "poor decision making", that could mean anything. It's one thing if the board didn't get enough bids for a project or didn't do enough due diligence to select a vendor, but "poor decision" is subjective. Sometimes you do everything possible and the decision turns out to be a bad one. This happens to all of us, so the best you can do is learn from it and move on. Or it could be tbe board made a decision that was necessary, but people got mad (for example, more rule enforcement of some CCRs can get people riled up if previous boards let people do what they wanted, regardless of the CCRs and now this board is trying to turn things around.) This can happen when the board decides to act like adults.

No one said HOA board member service is easy, but good leaders know they have to make decisions in the community's best interest. It's OK to poll the homeowners on what they think and since your CCRs call for votes on expenditures over $5k, that's what they have to do. If homeowners make it clear what they do or don't want, thats what you go with. Time will tell who's right.