| There are many resources available to homeowners, board members, managers, and industry professionals, or persons who just want to learn about common interest developments. The following are resources that I know are available and that I use regularly myself to learn more and hone my skills at the professional in this industry (In alphabetical order):
California Association of Community Managers (CACM):
This non-profit organization came in to being in the mid-90s, and its intended purpose is to serve community association managers, although its membership includes a vast array of others, including professionals in the industry and other vendors. CACM serves the entire State of California, and its membership includes members from all over the state. CACM offers a credential program for managers, with a designation called the CCAM (Certified Community Association Manager) designation.
CACM also has a legislative group, which watches, monitors, testifies about, writes about, educates about, and proposes legislation. CACM has been focused in the past few years on attempting to bring legislation to bear that would require registration, certification and/or licensing of community association managers.
Go to CACM's website for more information.
Community Associations Institute (CAI)
This organization is a national organization, with at least one chapter in each state. There are ten chapters in the State of California. At the national level, this group offers public information, courses, a myriad of resources, publications, courses in training, seminars, trade show and exhibiting opportunities, and legislative activities. The group offers training in publications for almost everyone who might be looking for information in the industry, and serves and is made up of five interest groups, which include homeowners, board members, managers, developers, and professionals. There is a membership fee to join CAI and many of the publications are available for fee. Most offerings and courses cost money, but many of the programs put on by the local CAI Chapters charge only a nominal fee.
CAI offers managers certification programs of varying designations. The "PCAM" is the most elite, and stands for "Professional Community Association Manager." In order to get a PCAM, one must attend several courses in various areas of community association management (PMDP courses), and perform a case study. Other designations include AMC and the CMCA. These designations, although lesser in requirements than the PCAM, also require education and training, and qualification under certain specified standards. CAI National holds two big seminars every year for its members, who consist of five industry groups. One is on or near the East Coast (usually in the Fall) and one is on or near the West Coast (usually in the Spring). These seminars provide programs that educate all of the factions represented by and participating in the community associations institute, including homeowners, board members, managers, developers and professionals (the five interest groups making up the membership of CAI.
CAI also has a "College of Community Association Attorneys," a group that is dedicated to publication of a premier magazine dealing with legal issues, and organizing and conducting an annual law seminar to educate community association legal practitioners. The annual law seminar generally takes place once a year in the Western half of the country and once in the Eastern half of the country, with the programs usually being within weeks of each other. In the year 2001, CAI held a combined law seminar in Las Vegas, bringing the East and West together. In the year 2001, I understand the group will go back to two separate legal seminars, one for the East and one for the West, and after that, it is undetermined.
Most of the states also have a CAI LAC (Legislative Action Committee) that is subject to national policy, but that operates fairly autonomously from the National Organization. The National CAI assists different states in setting up LACs, which has become increasingly important given the amount of single constituent and unresearched legislation that has been proposed in the last several years, both on the state and national levels. National CAI puts teams together to work with legislators on federal law, and the statewide LACs pull membership together from CAI members to deal with legislators on the statewide level. California has a very proactive LAC. See CLAC below for California LAC information.
Go to CAI's website (above) for more information.
California Legislative Action Committee (CLAC)
This non-profit legislative action committee is an arm of the Community Associations Institute. CLAC is made up of delegates from all over the state from each of the CAI Chapters. Each chapter appoints two delegates to the CLAC, and there are a number of "at-large" positions available on CLAC to be filled by the committee itself. The "at-large" positions generally are utilized to bring in and give membership to people who have special qualifications of some kind, or two chapters that have more of an abundance of delegates that really want to serve the legislative action committee and be an active participant.
CLAC is served by an advocate and administrator in Sacramento. His name is Skip Daum, and his company name is Association Headquarters. Mr. Daum, through his company, provides administrative and managerial type services for CLAC. In addition, Mr. Daum provides lobbying and representation of CLAC at the state level, in the State House in Sacramento. Mr. Daum has been in this position for more than five years.
Delegates of CLAC meet once a month by telephone conference call to discuss the hottest issues in Sacramento and bills that have been introduced, where they stand, and what they mean to community associations, boards, managers, and homeowners in this state. The committee meets twice a year on a "face-to-face" basis. Historically, the group holds a big day in Sacramento each March (often referred to as "CA Day" or the "March, March") to bring people together from all over the state, introduce them to legislation, explain the benefits and drawbacks, pros and cons, and effects of the legislation, and to take these constituents around to visit the legislators so that these people can present CLAC's views. Each year, in the Fall, CLAC holds a "retreat" in Southern California, bringing the delegates and many chapter representatives together to discuss what has happened in the past year, and to plan for the coming year and into the future. Elections are held at the Fall meeting for the Executive Committee. The Executive Committee consists of a Chair, Vice-Chair, Co-Legislative Chairs, Co-Public Relations Chairs, Homeowner Liaison, a Secretary, a Treasurer, and the Administrator, Skip Daum. The Executive Committee meets once a month, by telephone conference call, one hour before the general delegate meeting. Other meetings are called on an "as-needed" basis.
CLAC appoints committees to address certain issues that come up, and key contacts for dealing with certain bills. A goal of CLAC is to make sure that a group is represented, and information, education, statistics, and research is presented to the legislators on bills that they introduce. Positions are taken on bills, and forwarded to the legislators. The day in Sacramento in March is used to garner interest in, and present plans for follow up, with legislators in Sacramento and in their districts.
CLAC presents a number of communications to provide information to its delegates, CAI members, CLAC followers, and legislators, and the general public. Eon a fairly regular basis, once a month, CLAC produces a CLAC Corner, written by Public Relations Chair Beth Grimm. Skip Daum regularly puts out broadcasts called "CLAC Tracs" to keep everyone apprised of the status of important bills and hearings in Sacramento, and raise consciousness on bills that need attention, need letters, need grassroots efforts, etc.
CLAC can be reached through website noted above.
Executive Council of Homeowners (ECHO):
This group is based in Santa Clara County, and primarily serves the Bay Area, as well as some other parts of the state. ECHO's focus and service is more geared towards homeowners and board member education than the professionals, although ECHO does support membership of many of the same professionals as CAI. Cross-membership serves everybody well, because the resources of differing and similar nature are important.
ECHO also focuses on specific geographic areas and specific "interest" areas by having separate groups called "resource panels." The resource panels include (but are not limited to):
North Bay Panel, South Bay Panel, East Bay Panel, San Francisco Panel, Wine Country Panel, Legal Resource Panel, Accountant Panel Maintenance Panel.
The purpose of each panel is to not only make getting to meetings easier, but to bring various people of different backgrounds and orientation within the industry (including homeowners, board members, managers, and professionals) together once a month to talk about some of the hottest issues in the industry, to present and listen to speakers, and to gain beneficial information to take out to the communities served, represented by and staffed by the particular resource panel members.
Each of the resource panels is also responsible for assuring that its members submit articles for the ECHO Journal, one of the premier written sources of communication in California for anyone interested in common interest developments. The resource panels, also, besides meeting and gathering information, present programs to the public, in the listed geographical areas. ECHO in Santa Clara County puts on an annual program, usually at the Santa Clara Convention Center, in June each year. That program offers a number of sessions, which generally includes a special track for beginning board members, with the most basic information that board members need to know.
The Executive Director, for more than the last 15 years, is Oliver Burford. Mr. Burford coordinates many of the activities of ECHO, and runs the office in Santa Clara County, providing administrative services. ECHO has two lobbyists, Guy Puccio and Clark Lawrence. The group has a legislative action committee that meets, discusses, watches, and proposes legislation.
ECHO is more localized than CAI. However, within the Bay Area, it serves a comparable number of members, and offers comparable services, information, and opportunities.
To communicate or find out more about ECHO, visit the above website.
California Law Revision Commission
Check out work being done on revisions to the Davis Stirling Act by the California Law Revision Commision. To find provisions in the civil code and corporation code, go to the main California site - www.ca.gov and navigate through the government section to codes. You can put in the code sections you want to see.
Community Associations Network
This site provides valuable information about homeowner associations and their issues all around the Country. It is the site that hosts my blog. Take a look. You will find it interesting.
INTERESTING AND HELPFUL GOVERNMENT AND LEGISLATIVE WEBSITES
SEARCH BILLS http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/bilinfo.html
SEARCH CODES http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/index.html
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/
SENATE http://www.sen.ca.gov/
ASSEMBLY http://www.assembly.ca.gov/acs/defaulttext.asp
SECRETARY OF STATE http://www.ss.ca.gov/
IDENTIFY MY LEGISLATORS http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/yourleg.html
CONGRESS http://thomas.loc.gov/
HUD http://www.hud.org
COURT INFORMATION (CALIFORNIA COURTS) http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov
STATE CONTRACTOR LICENSE BOARD http://www.cslb.ca.gov
INFORMATION AND LINK TO ALL STATE AGENCIES http://www.my.ca.gov
INFORMATION FOR AND ABOUT (BY LEAGUE OF) CITIES http://www.cacities.org
CHECK OUT WORK BEING DONE ON REVISIONS TO THE DAVIS STIRLING ACT http://www.clrc.ca.gov
CA SECRETARY OF STATE BUSINESS SEARCH PAGE to obtain information on corporate status: http://kepler.sos.ca.gov/list.html
CA SECTARY OF STATE CORPORATE and CID FORMS PAGE:
http://www.sos.ca.gov/business/bpd_forms.htm#corp
Interesting Sites:
Check out the information that is available on this site relating to Roberts Rules and parliamentary procedure - answers to important questions and solutions to difficult problems using Roberts Rules. The value of using Roberts Rules cannot be underestimated. http://www.parli.com
 HOMEOWNERS ASSOCIATION DIRECTORS' Survival Kit
http://www.proaccess.com -
This innovative product will let you create Directors', Committees' and
Residents' handbooks, forms and essential tools. Your editable MS Word
documents come customized for your association from a profile you enter.
See the photography work of Beth A. Grimm,
whose interests extend beyond the law of CIDs!
The information contained in this web site is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice to anyone reviewing it. Anyone obtaining information on this site should consult with an attorney for legal advice. The information herein is generalized and not related to any specific set of facts.
Transmission to, transmission through, or receipt of materials from this website does not create an attorney/client relationship between the sender and Beth A. Grimm, P.L.C. This law firm does not provide any legal advice except with a written, signed (by Beth A. Grimm) retainer agreement. Clicking into the following web pages constitutes your acknowledgement and understanding of these terms. Beth A. Grimm, P.L.C. practices law only in the State of California, and the information in these pages reflects a discussion of practical aspects and laws of California, and no other states.
 
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