HOA member motion

[Guest Steven Wallace]

At our annual member meeting 4 members made motions, seconded, for a member vote. The Board president only allowed a vote on ONE of the motions. He tabled the other 3motions without comment, there were no other pressing matters as this happened early in the meeting and were not re-visited before gavel.  Member sentiment is that he was afraid the 3 tabled motions, which a Board Majority oppose, would have passed. Two regular monthly meetings have passed. I have pointed out that the motions were inappropriately tabled and do NOT disappear. Our board parliamentarian as asked me to prove it. Can any one help, Am I wrong? thank you

[Gary Novosielski]

If it is an annual meeting, that makes it longer than a quarterly interval, so I'm afraid those motions improperly laid on the table do die.  But there's nothing to prevent their being renewed (moved again) at a future meeting.  If the membership can call special meetings, it might not have to wait for the next annual meeting. 

You say two monthly meetings have passed.  If these are membership meetings, then the rule is that motions on the table die at the end of the meeting after the one during which they were laid on the table, so that train has sailed.  If these monthly meetings are board meetings, they are irrelevant, since the original motions were made by the membership.

My question is how the chair was able to "table" these motions without anyone raising a Point of Order, and if necessary an Appeal.  Unless you have unusual bylaws, this is a shameless power grab.

[T]he motion to Lay on the Table is not in order if the evident intent is to kill or avoid dealing with a measure.  [17:2]

If you let the chair do things that are improper, don't be surprised if improper things get done more and more often.  There is ample proof of all of this in RONR 12th ed. §17, but you never need to prove anything to the parliamentarian.  Parliamentarians advise the chair, they do not make rulings or issue decisions on their own.  It is the membership, and not a single officer or employee that makes the final decision on any question.  Besides, I can't help but question the expertise of any parliamentarian who did not know this basic rule. 

 

[Josh Martin]

On 9/20/2022 at 12:29 PM, Guest Steven Wallace said:

At our annual member meeting 4 members made motions, seconded, for a member vote. The Board president only allowed a vote on ONE of the motions. He tabled the other 3motions without comment, there were no other pressing matters as this happened early in the meeting and were not re-visited before gavel.  Member sentiment is that he was afraid the 3 tabled motions, which a Board Majority oppose, would have passed. Two regular monthly meetings have passed. I have pointed out that the motions were inappropriately tabled and do NOT disappear. Our board parliamentarian as asked me to prove it. Can any one help, Am I wrong? thank you

The facts presented certainly do appear to suggest that the motions were inappropriately laid on the table, both because the President lacks the authority to unilaterally lay a motion on the table (a majority vote is required) and because the motion to Lay on the Table is used to temporarily set aside a motion in order to take up some other urgent business, not to postpone a motion to a later date or to kill a motion without a direct vote. (There are other motions for these purposes.)

Notwithstanding this, a Point of Order (and any subsequent Appeal) regarding a breach of the rules must generally be raised promptly at the time the breach occurs. As a result, the motions were laid on the table (albeit improperly) and the time limits for taking a motion from the table have passed. So the motions are indeed "dead."

It would, however, be in order to make the motions again, at least so far as RONR is concerned

Edited September 20, 2022 at 06:08 PM by Josh Martin

[Richard Brown]

On 9/20/2022 at 1:06 PM, Josh Martin said:

It would, however, be in order to make the motions again, at least so far as RONR is concerned

And if the motions are indeed made again, do not let the chair arbitrarily lay them on the table or refuse to deal with them. Raise a point of order and then appeal from the ruling of the chair if necessary.