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DRAFT & APPROVED MINUTES

Within 30 Days. Open meeting board minutes, draft minutes proposed for adoption that are marked to indicate draft status, or a summary of the minutes of any meeting of the board of directors of an association, must be made available to members within 30 calendar days of the meeting. (Civ. Code § 4950.)

Corrections. Once a draft has been prepared, the Secretary or Recording Secretary can distribute the minutes to the board for review and feedback to the Secretary on any corrections that need to be made. This does not violate the Open Meeting Act because it’s not an email discussion. Instead, it is feedback from individual directors to the secretary on corrections and revisions. The draft minutes then go into the board packet for the next meeting for board discussion and approval.

Distribute Upon Request. The minutes, proposed minutes, or summary minutes must be distributed to any member of the association upon request. Associations may charge for copying costs. Failure to provide minutes can result in penalties against the association. (Civ. Code § 5235.)

Unauthorized Publication. Without board authorization, management companies do not have a "right" to publish draft minutes. As managing agents, they take their direction from the board. If the board instructs them, for whatever reason, to hold on the publication of draft minutes, the management company does not have a right to ignore the board's direction. The board must make minutes available in draft form for review by the membership within 30 days of the meeting. If there is concern about publishing draft minutes that may contain errors, boards should have the minutes sent to them for review and feedback to the minute-taker for corrections before they are posted.

DRAFT Minutes. As noted above, there is no requirement that draft minutes be posted. There is, however, a requirement that they be distributed to members who request it. If and when draft minutes are posted or distributed, they should have a large "DRAFT" stamp on the page or marked "DRAFT only--not approved by the Board" or something similar to indicate the minutes have not yet been approved by the board and may contain errors.

Recommendation. Once draft minutes have been approved by the board, they should be distributed to the membership in some fashion--either by summarizing them for the newsletter, posting them on a common area bulletin board, posting them in a password protected place on the association's website, and/or mailing them to the membership. Approved minutes must be permanently available for inspection by the membership.

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Adams Stirling PLC