Governing Documents Advisory Committee
The Governing Documents Committee is asking members for feedback on the proposed 2023 Bylaws during the month of May.
Here are three different versions of the 2023 Bylaws (you don’t have to read all three!)
- The 2023 Bylaws, Committee Draft, which is the Committee’s “official” version of the proposed 2023 Bylaws. Later in May, following member review, the Committee will ask the Board to approve this version (with possibly a few additional changes) and put it up for a member vote in June.
- But wait! Before you jump into the official version, there’s a more user-friendly "unofficial" version, the 2023 Annotated Bylaws. In the margins of this document the Committee’s explains, on a section-by-section basis, how the 2023 Bylaws are different from the 2007 Bylaws (the HOA's current Bylaws) and why.
- And if you are interested in seeing all the changes the Committee has made to the 2021 Proposed Bylaws, here is the 2023 vs 2021 Redline.
Once you’ve read your preferred version of the Bylaws, please feel free to give the Committee your feedback in any of the following ways:
- Use Contact Us above at any time.
- Attend a Homeowner Discussion Group on May 13, 15, 16 or 18.
- Answer a Bylaws survey coming to you soon.
Some History
On September 21, 2021, the Creekside HOA Board created the Governing Documents Advisory Committee to lead the process of revising Creekside’s governing documents. The Committee’s charter, which is posted under the green tab at right, was approved February 23, 2022. And in July 2022 the committee itself was reconstituted. When its work is done, the Committee will present its recommendations to the Board and, having served its purpose, will then be dissolved.
To guide its work in revising the Creekside governing documents, the Committee set goals based on concerns members expressed in 2021 about the proposed documents. Click here to see Committee Goals. The following - posted October 10, 2022 - is the Committee’s first progress report to the community.
Your Comments, Please!
Focussing first on the Bylaws, the Committee has created the following tools to present more clearly and in greater detail the differences between the Bylaws currently in place (the “2007 Bylaws”) and new Bylaws that were proposed in 2021 (the “2021 proposed Bylaws”).
- The Redline Equivalent, a detailed provision-by-provision comparison of the 2007 Bylaws with the 2021 proposed Bylaws.
- The Mandatory vs Discretionary Chart showing which provisions in the 2021 proposed Bylaws are required by law and which are discretionary.
The Committee invites you to view the Redline Equivalent and the Mandatory vs Discretionary Chart at this time. It is recommended that you have the 2007 Bylaws and the 2021 proposed Bylaws handy while reading these materials. You may find these additional resources helpful as well:
Please use CONTACT US above to email the Committee by October 31, 2022, with your questions and comments regarding these materials. The Committee is currently working with the lawyers to further revise the 2021 proposed Bylaws as described in the Goals and would appreciate having your feedback to guide us. This upcoming revision of the proposed 2021 Bylaws will be posted on this page as soon as it becomes available, hopefully before Thanksgiving, The Committee looks forward to your further comments at that time.
How We Got Here
The Creekside Bylaws, last revised in 2007, had become badly out of date. Over an approximately five-year period, Creekside volunteers worked with the Berding|Weil law firm on revising the Bylaws. Because so much had changed since 2007, B|W advised the Board to start with B|W’s template document and customize it to meet Creekside’s needs. This is the normal process followed by law firms updating old corporate documents, but the new documents tend to look very different from the old documents.
In June 2021, the proposed 2021 Bylaws was presented to the membership, along with new CC&Rs. Member reaction was negative, so rather than advance the drafts to a vote by the membership, the Board tasked the Committee with creating governing documents that would be acceptable to the membership.
In September 2021 members responded to a poll with their concerns about the proposed governing documents. The Committee’s work is guided by member responses to that poll, starting with concerns about the complexity of the proposed new documents.
Members who found it difficult to understand the proposed 2021 Bylaws asked for help in comparing them with the 2007 Bylaws, but because there were so many changes, a “redline” or machine comparison was found to be unworkable. To meet the real need for a comparison, the Committee has prepared the Redline Equivalent comparison mentioned above.
Some members also felt that only changes required by law — mandatory changes — should be included in the new Bylaws. Others felt that changes that were not mandatory — discretionary changes — could be adopted but only with very good reason. To provide this analysis, the Committee prepared the Mandatory vs Discretionary Provisions chart also mentioned above. It divides the Bylaws provisions into those two categories and explains why the changes might or might not be necessary.
The Committee will shortly begin to work on the CC&Rs and would like your feedback on whether the same approach would be helpful. That is, should we also create a Redline Equivalent and a Mandatory vs Discretionary Chart for the CC&Rs? The Committee welcomes comments about its work from the community. We also welcome volunteers to work with us on the CC&Rs. Please email your thoughts directly to the Committee chair using CONTACT US above.