Social Media, Resident Speech and OVA Governance
A Response to the OVA President’s Message
OVA President Steve Spanier’s recent President’s Message, “Social Media and Oakmont,” is ostensibly about Nextdoor. But it raises a more important question: how should OVA leadership respond when residents criticize its decisions?
Spanier is certainly right that social media is imperfect. Nextdoor is not a scientific survey. Its participants are self-selected, strong opinions can dominate, and information can be wrong.
He offers good advice: “Distinguish information from advocacy.”
That standard, however, should apply to official OVA communications as well as Nextdoor.
Information Versus Advocacy
Spanier’s own message demonstrates the problem. Under the heading “The Loudest Voices Can Keep a Community from Enhancing Itself,” he writes that a 2005 Central Area Complex proposal was “scaled way back due to push back from some community members.”
That is an interpretation, not simply information. Residents who opposed the project might say they successfully stopped something they considered too large or expensive. Whether that prevented Oakmont from “enhancing itself” depends on your point of view.
It is also worth noting that this happened in 2005. Oakmont residents were organizing and opposing major projects long before Nextdoor.
Spanier similarly calls Oakmont 2030 “arguably the best organized and most thoughtful assessment of community needs in Oakmont’s history” and says it “was largely shelved by recent boards in the face of withering criticism from social media denizens.”
But Oakmont 2030 was not a representative survey of Oakmont either. Participation was self-selected. There was no membership-wide written or online preference survey and no independent financial analysis of OVA’s ability to undertake large-scale redevelopment.
The process eventually produced three architectural concepts, including Option 3, “A Walk in the Park,” a potentially substantial redevelopment of the Central Complex. By then, a planning process that began with conversations had progressed to architectural concepts and cost modeling without first obtaining a comprehensive measure of what the full membership wanted—or what it was willing to pay.
If self-selection is a reason to discount Nextdoor, the same caution should apply to other self-selected forms of community input.
And describing residents who criticize OVA on social media as “denizens” is unnecessarily dismissive. These are Oakmont homeowners, dues payers and voters who ultimately pay for Board decisions.
The Gmail Request Deserves an Explanation
The most troubling part of Spanier’s message is the Gmail address created in connection with his discussion of social-media misinformation and his invitation for residents to respond.
To be precise, Spanier does not explicitly ask residents to report neighbors, provide names or send screenshots. The problem is that the request is open-ended and its purpose is unexplained.
When subsequently asked what he intended to do with the information, Spanier responded:
“I’ve merely asked residents to respond in whatever way they decide to respond. I’m not sure what exactly I’ll do with the information.”
That answer raises more questions than it resolves.
If residents can respond, “in whatever way they decide,” does that include forwarding another resident’s post or identifying its author? Who receives this information? Is it retained or shared with directors or staff? And what will ultimately be done with it? Is Spanier creating a database for OVA?
The institutional context matters. This invitation appeared in a President’s Message published on OVA’s official website, will be published in the Oakmont News, and was distributed through OVA’s email system. Although the response address is a Gmail account, the solicitation itself came to residents through official OVA communications.
An OVA President asking residents for information related to social media “misinformation,” while saying he is unsure what he will do with what he receives, deserves a clear explanation.
There is also a basic question of definition. A wrong meeting date, quotation or budget number can be corrected. But disagreement about whether Oakmont should spend millions on the Berger Center, repair rather than redesign a facility, borrow money or prioritize one project over another is not “misinformation.”
Those are disagreements about cost, priorities, risk and values.
They should be debated, not classified.
Nextdoor Is Not a Poll
Spanier is right that Nextdoor cannot tell us what all of Oakmont thinks. Neither can Open Forum, a Board workshop, a town hall, an email campaign or Oakmont 2030.
All involve self-selected participants. All can provide useful information. None is a representative sample of Oakmont.
Nextdoor’s value is not that it functions as a poll. It provides another place where residents can ask questions, find documents, challenge claims and debate how their association is being governed.
If OVA actually wants to know what Oakmont thinks about a major issue, there is a straightforward solution: ask Oakmont.
Not every Board decision requires a membership vote. But when OVA is considering millions of dollars in capital spending, substantial changes to facilities, borrowing or other long-term financial commitments, a community-wide survey can provide information that neither Nextdoor nor a Board meeting can. Or a balloted membership advisory vote can be authorized.
Directors can retain their decision-making authority while still asking the people who will pay for those decisions what they think.
California Law and Resident Communication
California Civil Code §4515 provides important context. It expressly protects HOA residents’ use of “social media or other online resources” to discuss matters of concern, “even if the content is critical of the association or its governance.” The statute also prohibits retaliation for exercising the rights protected by the section.
California’s public policy is clear: independent communication among HOA residents—including criticism of association governance—is legitimate activity worthy of protection.
OVA should be especially careful not to create an atmosphere in which residents wonder whether criticism of association decisions is being collected, categorized or monitored.
Trust Comes from Transparency
Criticism of OVA is not opposition to Oakmont. Questioning a Board decision is not an attack on the community. Residents who oppose a proposal may simply disagree about what constitutes an improvement, what should take priority or what residents should pay for it.
Board members deserve respect for taking on difficult volunteer responsibilities. But election to the Board confers authority; it does not mean every Board position represents the views of the entire community.
Social media can be messy. The answer to bad information is better information. If a number is wrong, publish the correct number and cite the budget. If a Board action is misstated, provide the minutes. If residents reach different conclusions from the same facts, let them debate those conclusions.
That brings us back to Spanier’s own excellent standard:
“Distinguish information from advocacy.”
Apply it to Nextdoor. Apply it to resident publications. Apply it to directors. And apply it equally to the President’s Message.
Nextdoor cannot tell us what all of Oakmont thinks. Neither can Open Forum, a workshop, Oakmont 2030—or a President’s Message.
If OVA genuinely wants to know what Oakmont thinks, ask Oakmont. Residents questioning, investigating and debating how their association is governed are not a problem to solve. They are part of accountable community governance.
Sources
Oakmont Village Association. “President’s Message: Social Media and Oakmont,” September 1, 2026.
www.oakmontvillage.com/article/presidents-message-social-media-and-oakmont/
Oakmont Observer. “Oakmont Central Area Complex Redevelopment Project: Years of Discussion and Planning,” March 23, 2025.
www.oakmontobserver.com/oakmont-central-area-complex-redevelopment-history/
California Legislative Information. California Civil Code §4515.
www.leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=CIV§ionNum=4515
California Legislative Information. AB 1410 (2022), Chapter 858.
www.leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB1410
It’s recently gained acceptance that the CAC remodel was reduced in size because of strident opposition, and oh what a mistake that was. Let’s not have a repeat. Well, opposition was a factor, but not the only one. The city’s price for permitting and planning was based on a project’s size. Ours had crossed a line that added considerable cost and review time to the project. The board decided a downsize was appropriate. The above is from a conversation with Sue Millar then a board member and principal of project.
As to why the 2015 proposal by the Berger Improvement Committee to throughly upgrade Berger was not approved, opposition came from those seeking a new and larger auditorium.
There is an easy way to settle this issue. Let’s do what cities and counties all over America do when schools or parks need a bond issue. They hold a vote.
I’ll throw in a hypothetical scenario. Suppose that, in 2015, there had been a ranked choice vote of the membership, choosing among (1) Berger maintenance but no improvements (no loans or special assessments needed), (2) Berger renovation with capital improvements, as proposed by the BAC (at some cost impacting member assessments) and (3) capital improvements, as proposed by the BAC, PLUS expansion of the auditorium and parking as required (at some substantially higher cost impacting member assessments). The membership would have made a clear decision for one of these three options and the project would have long since been completed. Sure would be nice!
Barriers to that approach: First, neither membership voting on large projects nor ranked choice voting on anything are provided for in our Bylaws; the Board would have first had to present an amendment for a vote to the membership, which would almost certainly fail with the ridiculously high requirements for making any amendment. Second, neither the 2015 Board nor any since has shown any inclination to allowing the membership to make such decisions.