OVA Board Meeting – November 18, 2025
This will just be a short note to encourage everyone in Oakmont to attend this very important meeting. If you are an OVA member, you may access the meeting packet here, including agenda and resolutions to be voted on.
Of particular interest to all of us should be the report of the Governing Documents Committee (GDC), beginning on page 41. The report proposes that two Bylaws amendments should be put to a vote on the Spring 2026 ballot, and it provides detailed justifications for each and for making the amendment election concurrent with the Spring OVA Board election. It also provides the exact language they propose for these two amendments. The Board may still modify this language, so it behooves us all to read it carefully and to communicate to the Board any changes that we think desirable.
I have covered this activity in earlier Oakmont Observer articles, and it was well publicized during the October Town Hall meeting. The work of the GDC, since Dave Simpson took over as chair in July, has had my full support. The committee members have spent a great amount of time trying to plot the best path forward, and the report in this month’s Board meeting packet presents their proposal for the first Bylaws amendment election to be held since 1992!
This is only the start, of course. Provided that the first amendment proposal, which will reduce the current barrier to almost any future amendment, is enacted in the Spring, then they will move on to considering such things as one vote per paying member of OVA, and membership votes on expensive capital improvement projects. If, on the other hand, not enough OVA members turn out to approve that first amendment, then the next step will be for the Board to decide whether to try again with another membership vote, or to petition a court to order an amendment to reduce the voting threshold, or to do nothing, as happened after the Board met resistance to their attempt, in 2020, to reduce the voting threshold and take away the option for member-initiated Bylaws amendments.
In addition to routine reports, one other issue that may be of special interest is the proposed overhaul of the Long Range Planning Committee (LRPC) charter, on page 48 of the meeting packet. This one-page document shows a lot of red-line changes, but the one change that stood out to me as I read it was the removal of the authority of the LRPC to hold closed, executive-session meetings. It appears that the LRPC will no longer be routinely authorized to hold closed-door meetings with contractors, such as Archilogix, although the Board could still authorize such meetings whenever they find it desirable. Even so, I think this will foster more transparent deliberations by the LRPC and thus is a very good thing.
The OVA Board meets on the third Tuesday of each month at 1 pm in the Berger Auditorium. Minutes provide the official documentation of Board discussions and decisions. If you would like to see first-hand how the Board operates and what progress they are making, or if you would like to express your opinion about their activities or goals, then you should consider attending or connecting via Zoom at the link provided on the Agenda & Resolution Packet page.
FINALLY — If you have any opinions to express on this topic, feel free to express them in Oakmont Observer comments.
A question for the community — and for those supporting the two GDC-recommended amendments.
The Oakmont Observer article highlights the two proposed Bylaws amendments moving forward for the Spring 2026 ballot.
That’s good progress. But many Oakmonters have been working for years to secure something equally essential: a membership vote requirement for major new building projects and long-term loans.
Given the scale of the “2030” proposals and the uncertainty about future boards, it’s reasonable to ask:
Will the writer of this Observer piece — and others supporting the GDC’s work — also support adding a third amendment that ensures members, not just seven board directors, have the final say on major new construction and large financial commitments?
If not now, then when?
The idea that future boards will voluntarily choose to give the membership this power is not guaranteed. In fact, history suggests the opposite — this community has been trying to get this type of pro-democracy amendment onto a ballot for a very long time.
To ignore it now, when the bylaws are already being revised, is a huge risk.
If we don’t secure this right in the governing documents during this update, there is no assurance a future board will ever offer it again.
For those who support transparency and community control, this is the moment.
I fully support a third amendment requiring that OVA members “have the final say on major new construction and large financial commitments”. In fact, that is my motivation for having followed this effort since 2018 — https://oakmontobserver.com/the-ad-hoc-bylaws-revision-committee/, dated September 6, 2018, was my first article covering Bylaws revision.
You seem to suggest that we should vote on an amendment to require membership votes on major new construction, and that such an amendment should be on the Spring ballot. If OVA put such an amendment on the Spring ballot, then it would fail unless it received affirmative votes equal to a majority of the “voting power” of OVA, or just over 1600 votes, no matter how many or few OVA members took the trouble to vote. This is the same standard, of course, as is required for enacting the two amendments that the GDC hopes are on the ballot, but it is a difficult standard to meet, given that the top vote getters in the 2024 and 2025 OVA elections received only 1221 and 1065 votes, respectively. The average total number of ballots cast in the past 15 years has been less than 50% of OVA “voting power”. I am not critical of those who don’t vote — many may be too infirm to vote, and for the others, it is understandable that OVA politics might not be among their priorities, as long as the facilities seem to be well maintained. But the current majority-of-voting-power standard means that it is so difficult to make any change at all that there has been no Bylaws amendment election for 33 years and counting! That is not a functional system.
My fear is that, should an amendment be put on the ballot to require a membership vote on large capital expenditures, under the current majority-of-voting-power standard, it would fail, because the faction opposing such membership votes would be strong enough to ensure failure, and such a reform would be tabled for a generation! But if a reasonable standard is enacted, such as the one proposed by the GDC, then I have fairly strong confidence that such an amendment could achieve the super majority of those voting, as would be required. Admittedly, no one can be certain of the outcome without actually holding a vote, under whichever standard, but that is my judgement on where things stand.
The big spenders are still with us, of course, though currently out of power. And they will still be exerting their political skills, ultimately opposing membership votes on large projects. Those of us who want OVA to be more democratic and/or more frugal need to pay attention and to elect directors who are “on our side”. This coming director election will be as important in that regard as were the previous two elections. I do believe that the present GDC is well-intentioned and that one of the first proposals they make to the OVA Board *after* the Spring election, will be an amendment to require an OVA membership vote on large projects. I have heard this discussed in GDC meetings, so this is not just wishful thinking. But it won’t get to an actual ballot unless the 2026 Board approves it, so the Spring directors election is extremely important.
Bruce
Thank you Bruce. Your perspective and knowledge is always respected, welcomed and appreciated by me.
Passing the two Spring 2026 Bylaws Amendments recommended by the GDC may be actually MORE difficult without the third amendment on the ballot.
An amendment that empowers all members to actually vote on expensive and expansive projects like A WALK IN THE PARK may lead to increased interest and participation. High base turnout through motivation is important,
Affordability and pocket-book issues are being keenly felt in our community and nationwide.
If this third pro-democracy amendment is on the ballot, I am ready, willing and now physically able to write up a flyer and do neighborhood canvassing to get it passed. Others may also feel the same way.
We have to move beyond social media like we did several years ago with high participation in the board election.
I simply do not think that the majority of the community supports multi million dollar projects without a referendum amendment added to the BYLAWS.
I also have no idea what future boards will do regarding a pro-democracy BYLAWS amendment being sent out to membership on a ballot. And we know that what some board candidates promise during a campaign isn’t always how they behave once elected.