A board that talks with the neighborhood, not around it.

Our rules are ambiguous about permitted court use — I want a written legal opinion before the board decides

Rule B-21 is unclear about permitted court use, making it difficult to apply consistently. Three of its subsections call the facility a “tennis/sport court” and refer to “tennis and appropriate sport equipment.” A fourth says it is for “playing the game of tennis only.” The CC&Rs and the subdivision map describe the parcel more broadly still, as a “Private Recreation Facility.” Two neighbors can read our documents in good faith and reach opposite conclusions.

My reading is that the facility should be treated as tennis-only — that “recreational” and “sport” describe a tennis court rather than authorize other sports on it. But that's an interpretation, not a plain fact, and a board shouldn't impose one on a divided community without having it checked. It's also the sound answer operationally: multi-sport play accelerates surface wear, and the noise carries to the homes along the court.

So I've put a motion before the board that would take the decision in two steps:

How I chose which firm to recommend. The first option reached us through our management company, which had used that firm for years — a fair place to start, but worth comparing rather than defaulting into. I asked for a defined scope and a fee estimate up front, three times over about six weeks, and nothing came. So I brought two more firms to the board, obtained engagement agreements from both, and arranged a call every director was invited to join. The one I'm recommending gave us a scope and an estimate before asking for a dollar, and builds its practice around keeping boards out of litigation. I'll name it once the board has voted.

The board didn't reach this in August, so it's expected on the October agenda.

The door stays open. The draft resolution says so explicitly: neighbors who want multi-sport use can petition, and 5% of the voting power triggers the membership vote the Davis-Stirling Act provides for. I'm not trying to end this conversation — I'm trying to make sure that if the answer changes, it changes through a process nobody can call rigged.

Fair treatment isn't a statement of values — it's a process, and ours doesn't exist yet

No resident should be treated differently at our shared amenities because of who they are, who they know, or how well they know the board. No resident should be sidelined from a decision that affects their own home. And nobody should have to wonder whether a rule applied to them would have been applied the same way to their neighbor. I don't believe a single person on our board would argue with any of that as a statement of principle.

The problem is that we have no process that makes it true. This association has no written procedure for reporting an incident at a shared amenity, and no defined response the board owes in return. So when something goes wrong, we improvise — and improvisation is exactly where unequal treatment creeps in, whether anyone intends it or not. It's also where good-faith conduct gets misread, because afterwards there's no record of what standard was applied, or why, or to whom.

Values don't protect anybody. Process does. A board that decides case by case, under pressure, without a written standard will eventually treat two similar residents differently — and will have no way to demonstrate that it didn't.

And process protects the board, not only residents. Volunteers cannot absorb obligations that arrive as a fresh emergency every time. A defined intake and a standard response turn a member request, a conduct complaint or a safety report from something somebody improvises through into a checklist item. Written process isn't bureaucracy. It's what makes an association's real obligations affordable to meet, year after year, by people doing this in their spare time.

One standard, applied to everyone. Whatever the board eventually decides about court use, it has to decide it the same way for every sport. If our documents are read to permit one sport besides tennis, that same reasoning has to be available to the next sport that asks — or the board needs a reason it can state out loud for treating them differently. Deciding amenity questions one at a time, according to who happens to be asking, is precisely how a board loses the community's confidence.

What I want in place:

1. A written procedure for reporting an incident at a shared amenity, and a defined response the board actually owes in return.
2. A graduated response path, so the board can match its action to the seriousness of the report instead of improvising from scratch each time.
3. Before the board acts, a record of what it knows, what it does not know, and what rule or authority it is relying on.

Better services, responsible spending, and good long-term planning belong together

As Treasurer, I supported changing landscape vendors because homeowners deserve both good service and good value. The new contract is expected to reduce landscape maintenance costs by more than $40,000 per year while improving service expectations. Good stewardship means pursuing savings when they can be achieved without sacrificing service quality.

The reserve study identified important long-term financial considerations for our community, including major future repair and replacement projects. At the same time, the study was completed before the landscape contract change that will take effect this year. Because that change materially affects annual operating costs, I believe the board should evaluate updated reserve projections before committing homeowners to long-term assessment increases.

Some directors favor increasing monthly assessments now, while others prefer maintaining current levels. My view is that those decisions should be based on the best information available. I would rather review an updated reserve study that reflects actual budget savings and operating experience before deciding whether assessments should increase and, if so, by how much.