Removing Committee Members

REMOVING COMMITTEE MEMBERS

QUESTION: Does removal of a volunteer from a committee fall under "personnel issues" to be discussed and decided in executive session?

ANSWER: Committee staffing issues are quasi-personnel. As with paid staff members, if a board is faced with unproductive or misbehaving committee members, directors would be reluctant to discuss such matters in an open session for fear of embarrassing the committee member or, worse, setting themselves up for a defamation lawsuit. As a result, board members would be inhibited from freely discussing such problems if their discussions were in open session.

Arguably, it also falls under executive session for disciplinary actions. A noticed hearing with the committee member is not required since there are no monetary penalties imposed or loss of rights--committee members serve in an advisory capacity at the discretion of the board.

Privacy is important because public admonishments of committee members would discourage other owners from volunteering for committee work. Hence, the discussion and vote on disciplining or terminating committee members should be done in executive session.

The decision should then be reported in the board's open meeting minutes.

Updated by ADAMS KESSLER 8/9/2008