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In February, a new Board was elected. In March, they will meet and name a new President, Vice President, Treasurer and Secretary. Even though all votes are equal among the board members, it seems to me, carrying the name of Woodlands Homeowners Association President brings with it more responsibility, influence and the job as “spokesperson” for our community.

Let’s hope this new board will use this opportunity to elect a president who will be more transparent than in the past. Not everyone can or wants to attend meetings, and those residents deserve to have all major votes and important information available to them.

I created a wish list hoping that maybe the new board members might peruse this and consider some of these reasonable suggestions for this next year:

Please post the minutes on the website. When I first created the the other Woodlands website, I asked the president if we could post minutes from the meetings on there. Not an unreasonable request, right? This was done in my last community and is done in other communities. Our president did not want the minutes posted. I ask this new board to please consider posting the minutes of the meetings. Names, addresses can be removed. However, the residents deserve to know what is being discussed and voted on, without having to request the minutes through our property manager. We are spending $800 a year on our website and nothing is being posted on it. Let’s get our money’s worth and make the HOA website have some substance on it. Otherwise, save us the money.

Please make the agenda readily available to all residents. Send me the agenda and I will post it on the website. We should know what is going to be discussed so that we can make the choice to be there and watch the issue being discussed. Right now, only board members, including section presidents, get the agendas mailed to them. They may even be posted on the section clubhouses, however, there are many residents that do not have clubhouses in their section or they do not visit their clubhouse on a regular basis. Also, agendas are mailed out a week before a meeting to these members, so if they are posted, you better makes sure you stop by your clubhouse THAT week or you just may miss them – and the meeting.

Advertise the meeting dates and locations. Meetings rotate to different clubhouses each month. It’s hard to figure out not only when the meetings are, but WHERE. We need signs to go up a few days before the meeting at the entrances or exits. One at the Woodlands Blvd entrance, one at the Sago Palm entrance, one at Banyan and one at the White Oak entrance, simply saying “WHOA meeting this Tuesday at Clubhouse (insert clubhouse number here)”. The day after the meeting, signs need to get picked up. That’s it. There will be no issue from the City with this.

Take advantage of our quarterly newspaper “Neighbor to Neighbors.” “Neighbors,” which is paid for by you and me, is a waste of money the way it is utilized now. Each issue contains several pages that have no information on them, and the printer is left to fill it in with puzzles and jokes. The president and board could be utilizing every page with detailed information about the WHOA’s plans, goals and issues of concern around the Woodlands. In conjunction to “Neighbors,” the website could be utilized to get information out quickly and I would happily accept updates from the president, through stories on this website and Tweets.

Avoid communication fiascoes like this: Last year, I was attending meetings on a regular basis as the website administrator. I saw the months of discussion and planning that went into the district. I attended the informational meeting about the district given by Ilene Lieberman and felt comfortable about the district and knew that it’s not just about gates, but creating a taxing district to take care of our roughly $240,000+ security budget. When the district was voted on and passed, it took many residents by surprise. Unfortunately, section presidents were not getting this information about the district back to their residents. I’m sure many didn’t understand it, or they didn’t see the potential fallout from this lack of communication. As a result, lies and misinformation were spread about the district and it’s purpose. The passing of the district, which was years in planning, upset many homeowners because this information did not go out clearly and quickly. By the time the city voted for it, many felt betrayed by their homeowners association.

We cannot let communication breakdowns like this happen again. Our next president must be able to communicate well with our residents using 21st century methods.

Let’s start our new board off right, by finding a good representative of the residents, a communicator, for our next WHOA president. Let’s move forward to a great future in the Woodlands.