A Special Meeting on the Bylaws Revision Effort

A plain-language guide to the governance committee's work, and a motion that deserves a closer look.

Read the Report

As always, you can join our no sign-in chat window here:

Go to Chat

The Work

Lakemoor has a set of governing documents that most homeowners have never read. That's not a criticism — it's just how bylaws work. They sit in the background, shaping how meetings get called, how votes get counted, how disputes get resolved, and who has the authority to do what. 

Bylaws determine how quickly we can either make improvements or correct course. Bylaws are also where your rights as a homeowner begin.

In 2018, Washington State passed a new law — the Washington Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act (WUCOIA) — that created a single unified framework for every homeowners association in the state. For the past seven years, it has applied only to newly formed HOAs. On January 1, 2028, it applies to all of us. The law our bylaws were written to comply with is being retired. What replaces it comes with new requirements for how we run meetings, hold elections, handle finances, and protect member rights.

That deadline is why the board chartered the Governance Committee.

Read Current LCC Bylaws

Who the Committee Is

The Governance Committee is made up of volunteer homeowners — your neighbors.

People who live here, pay dues here, and have a stake in getting this right. The committee includes practicing attorneys, people with public policy and legislative backgrounds, community organizers, and business leaders. They bring real expertise to a complicated task, and they're doing it for free because they care about this community.

The committee serves in an advisory role. The committee does not write the bylaws. It does not make decisions. Everything the committee produces — every report, every analysis, every draft — goes to the board for review and approval before anything moves forward. The board controls every phase of this process. The community ratifies the final document by supermajority vote.

The committee's job is to make sure nothing important gets missed before those decisions are made by committing to the deep research and knowledge work necessary for this revision.

What the Committee Has Done

Over the past several months, the committee has been reading the existing LCC bylaws carefully — article by article — and applying a nine-question evaluation framework to each section. They've been asking: Is this language clear? Does it comply with current and incoming law? Does it protect members? Is it fair? Is it durable? Where they found gaps or ambiguities, they drafted working notes — not proposals, or recommendations, because those will take more time. This work is ongoing, and often produces more questions than answers.

From those questions, the committee researches - how are other HOAs revising their bylaws? What can consultants and lawyers contribute? How do we achieve the highest quality revision?

From that research, the committee asked the board to approve an RFP which would hire a consultant to complete the first step - identify the parts that absolutely cannot legally remain. The board instead arranged a special meeting to discuss bylaws work in more detail.

The committee then coalesced their work plan into a Report for the Board and plans to present the report in the special meeting tonight.

Read the Report

That report lays out the full picture: why this review is necessary, what the process looks like, what the committee will deliver, and what the board needs to do at each step. It includes a draft RFP for a legislative and policy expert — the outside professional who will do the formal legal analysis before any language decisions are made.

This is a serious, well-structured process. It mirrors the model used by advisory bodies across Washington State — including the City of Olympia Planning Commission, which has operated in exactly this relationship with its city council since 1935. Research. Recommendations. Public engagement. Final decisions belong to the governing body. This structure is essential for accountability.

When "Open to All" Isn't What It Sounds Like

A motion will be introduced at the April 2 special meeting and will raise questions about who bears the cost of participation.

Added to the April 2 agenda — without notice to the committees it would affect — was a motion requiring all committee meetings to be open to any member, including those who need Zoom or speakerphone to attend.

On its surface, that sounds like inclusion. It isn't that simple.

The volunteers who chair Lakemoor's committees already give significant time to the work of the association. This motion would add a recurring hosting requirement to that work — set up Zoom, manage the call, troubleshoot access — every meeting, whether or not anyone joins remotely. No infrastructure support was offered. No committee chairs were consulted beforehand.

What makes this harder to read as a straightforward access policy is context. The bylaws committee chair had a standing agreement with board leadership: meetings in person, Zoom available as a genuine accommodation. When members coordinated with her directly and understood it wasn't a permanent arrangement, she said yes without hesitation. 

When an out-of-state member requested access, the chair responded by asking to have a conversation, so she could weigh solutions for everyone. The member declined that conversation and instead used the existence of prior accommodations to argue that Zoom was now required at every meeting, effectively treating flexibility as a binding precedent. 

Rather than supporting the agreement that had already been made, the board sided with the access framing. The chair's only remaining option was to stop offering accommodations entirely — a position she never wanted to be in.

That member has not expressed interest in further bylaws work, outside of watching meetings.

There is also a standard worth noting. At board meetings, the Zoom chat is disabled — described as potentially distracting. The board has chosen to limit virtual participation in the meetings it controls, without ever acknowledging that hosting an in-person and a virtual meeting simultaneously might be equally distracting for volunteer committee members.

Would this motion be on the table for all committees if the bylaws chair had not held her stated boundary? If the answer is no, the motion isn't a participation policy. It's a pressure campaign dressed as one.

Updates

There will be more coming, here is what you need to know now:

The board rejected the bid process entirely, which is expected to cost our HOA an additional $20,000

I have been bullied too, and share my story in the election series on this site. It is a series, following each step of the election and includes fact checks on claims by the "REAL" Friend of Ken Lake.

"I don't think you should participate." -Gowrylow

The board president cut to the real issue at the end of the meeting, telling a member that she had no place supporting her community because she disagreed with the board on key issues. Disagreement cannot be justification for exclusion.