Category: Uncategorized

Issues Study Committee Handbook

Advocate Leaders,
The following is a quick look on how this Handbook will be used in today’s VCL-HOA Research
Valley Citizens League (Phoenix, AZ). The policies described in this Handbook are designed to achieve those goals. (See below for private group reform legislation selection.)

GENERAL ISSUE SELECTION PROCESS
PURPOSE: The issue selection process is designed to maximize fairness, openness, and objectivity in determining the League’s agenda for examining public policy matters.

PROCEDURES:

  1. Suggestions for issues to be considered for study by the League can come from any source.
  2. To facilitate communication and understanding, the issue suggestion should be specific and clearly defined.
  3. Issue suggestions must be submitted, in writing, to the Executive Issues Board.
  4. The Executive Issues Board collects, organizes, and presents the suggestion(&) to the appropriate Issue· Committee via the committee chairperson.
  5. The Issue Committee reviews suggestions, conducts meetings necessary to get adequate information regarding proposed issues, eliminates those suggestions determined to be inappropriate, and submits the recommended issue(s) for study to the Board.
  6. Following the approval by the Executive Issues for study, the Issue Committees may begin their work.
  7. Upon completion of each Issue Committee’s work, its recommendations are forwarded to the Executive Issues Board for action.
  8. The Board has final authority over all recommendations coming from each Issue Committee list

Social media private group legislative proposals
There are several FB private groups that have proposed a number of HOA reform bills along with a lengthy description and arguments in support of the proposed bills. With all due respect to the hard work of these groups, these proposals should be made part of an instructional and educational podcast program with each session covering one proposed bill. Each proposal must be taken down a level to focus on what reality demands. It must be instructive in an educational setting. The homeowners, and especially the advocates, must also be made aware of the legalities and judicial process to achieve success.

The Issues Study Committee methodology set forth by VCL-HOA is a means to improve the credibility of advocates going forth before the legislatures and in the courts. The groups can use the materials they already presented and structure the podcast in accordance with the VCL-HOA approach. That’s a pro-con analysis. Con? Yes! It will be needed to address the CAI/HOA attorney responses that, in the past, has left many advocates unprepared to rebut the opposition.

In my active days before the AZ legislature, I’ve witnessed CAI getting 5 -10 minute times while advocates got just 3 minutes, and they had the sequence of speakers arranged so advocates could not rebut their arguments. What is necessary is to a planned group of advocates, one group to carry their arguments and the other to come after to rebut CAI.