OVA Governing Documents Progress Report – 2025 August 5

The OVA Governing Documents Ad Hoc Committee (GDC) meets on the first Tuesday of each month at 10 am in Suite B of the OVA offices. The Committee web page, with links to all posted agendas and meeting minutes, can be found at https://oakmontvillage.com/article/author/bylaw-revision-committee/. For the August meeting, the agenda is posted HERE.

Minutes provide the official documentation of Committee activities and decisions and will be posted on the OVA website after they are approved at the succeeding month’s meeting. Minutes of the August meeting should appear soon after the September 2 regular GDC meeting.

All seven GDC members and the OVA Board liaison were in attendance. Guests included three OVA directors and myself.

Revised draft charter — GDC Chair David Simpson had earlier circulated a revised draft of the committee charter. After addition of a word to one of the provisions, it was approved unanimously for submission to the OVA Board for approval at the next OVA Board meeting on August 19. Because the draft charter has not been circulated beyond the committee, we can’t know what has been changed since the previous version, but it should be included in the Board meeting packet which will come out at the end of next week.

Workgroups — Committee members volunteered to serve on the workgroups announced last month, with two to five committee members on each. The list of workgroups is unchanged:

• Regulatory/Legal Compliance
• Administrative Issues
• Resident/Community-Oriented Amendments
• Voting Thresholds
• Communications Strategy

Zoom recording of GDC meetings — This was first suggested during the July meeting. After discussion, a motion was approved to recommend to the OVA Board that, as a pilot, GDC meetings should be recorded and posted on the OVA website. The meetings will also be broadcast to the community via the Webinar mode of Zoom, but remote interaction will not be allowed. Members wanting to participate during Open Forum segments of meetings should attend GDC meetings in person.

Timeline for first governing documents amendment — David presented his thoughts on what the GDC needs to do leading up to the first amendment election by the community. The first such election will almost certainly include an amendment to reduce the voting threshold for approval of future amendments, because the current threshold for amending the Bylaws is so high (“a majority of the voting power of the Association” or around 1600 affirmative votes) that it will be a challenge to pass even the simplest, least controversial amendment. With an approval threshold of 75% of the voting power of the Association, amending the CC&Rs is even more difficult.

In order to have the highest probability of amendment approval, David believes, and there was general agreement, that (1) the vote should be held concurrently with the next Board election, to achieve maximum turn-out, and (2) the election should allow electronic voting, to further enhance voter turn-out. Calculating dates that are determined by state law, this means that what is to be on the ballot must be decided by the OVA Board no later than early January, 90 days prior to the close of voting for the election. Given the schedule of regular OVA Board meetings, and the need to allow the Board time in case they wish to make any changes, the GDC should (ideally) propose what is to be on the ballot by the November Board meeting. The GDC also intends for there to be a major town hall, both to educate the OVA membership about the governing documents revision needs and process, and to solicit their input on what amendments should be proposed.

In order to support this timeline, i.e. to facilitate the first governing documents election concurrent with the Board election, the GDC unanimously approved the following resolution:

That the Board greenlight holding a governing documents Town Hall within the next 2-3 months (aimed at informing the community and soliciting input from the community about potential changes to the governing documents and with the intent of setting up a vote on certain government documents issues by April 2026, concurrent with the next Director’s vote) and that the Board correspondingly authorize the GDC to coordinate directly with OVA’s Board, staff and communications team on the timing, format and content of that Town Hall and various surrounding communications.

The next regular meeting of the Committee is scheduled for September 2 at 10 am in Suite B of the OVA offices. When it becomes available, you will be able to find the agenda for the August meeting linked from HERE. If you would like to see first-hand how the Committee 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.

FINALLY — If you were at the meeting and believe that I have misstated anything above, please let me know (bbon@earthlink.net). I will happily correct any errors. And if you have any opinions to express, feel free to state them in Oakmont Observer comments.

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