Making the Most Out of the Open Forum Portion of Board Meetings

State laws and association governing documents commonly require that a portion of time at board meetings that are open to the association members be devoted to an HOA open forum where the members may be heard on various topics that are of concern to them. As one might expect, giving association members the opportunity to verbalize their feelings at board meetings frequently results in chaos that creates a hostile environment. It is not uncommon for board meetings to be transformed into shouting matches with name-calling and threatening behavior that sometimes results in physical altercations.  As a result, the board meeting is disrupted and the directors are not able to properly address all of the items of business that were on the agenda for that meeting. As a consequence of bad experiences with homeowners at board meetings, directors often dread the notion of homeowners being present at their board meetings and the open forum that gives them an opportunity to be heard.