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.)
Posting Minutes. There is nothing in the Davis-Stirling Act requiring boards to post minutes. Instead, the statute requires that associations provide members with both draft and finalized open meeting minutes upon request. (Civ. Code § 4950.) Since there is no requirement that minutes be posted, they can be posted without attachments. As provided for in Civil Code § 4950, minutes proposed for adoption that are marked to indicate draft status, or a summary of the minutes must be made available to members within 30 days of the meeting. If the minutes have attachments that are filed in the association's minute books, members can review and copy the attachments.
Recommendation. Once 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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