Article Courtesy of The Sun Sentinel

By Daniel Vasquez

Published April 15, 2009

For many community associations, it's hard to find people willing to serve as directors.

And those who do sign up can feel trapped and end up with board burn-out because no fresh recruits are replacing them.

Take Dorothy Saunders, treasurer for the 68-unit Ridgeview Towers Condominium Association in for the past five years. Admitting she had hoped to finish the tour of duty much sooner, she first agreed to take the job after retiring from 40 years of nursing.

"I had no experience and thought 'how hard could it be?'" she said. "But I have been treasurer since 2003 because there is no one to take over the job."

A lack of candidates in Ridgeview's January election left her promising to push on. "We're lucky if we have three people in the audience during meetings," she said.

"The current president has served for more than a decade. He left for a short while until we begged him to come back," Saunders explained. "I have been elected only once; we just couldn't get anyone else to run. And our secretary has been on the board for several years. She doesn't like being secretary, but has a great loyalty to the building. She has lived here since it was built."

Some board members blame increasing regulation by lawmakers for turning off potential directors.

"The State of Florida seems to forget that many owners of condominiums are senior citizens who came to Florida to retire," said Stanley S. Vitale, president of the VR Greenwood Condominium Association in Boynton Beach. "Some are conscientious individuals who get involved to help run the association. Now the legislature is considering creating a police force just to monitor their expenditures or possible misappropriation."

Vitale added: "In our association we had to reduce the number of board members on the board because we could not get enough owners to volunteer. I see nothing but trouble in the near future for getting additional candidates to run."

Volunteer board service also comes with its share of second-guessing, says Sheryl Miller, a director on the Plantation Forest Condominium Association in Broward County.

"Here, people routinely say they have no time to serve on our board or even attend meetings. However, some are extremely critical, at times maliciously so, of those persons who do step forward to serve," Miller said. "At times our decisions are ridiculed. I am mainly thinking of the budget and special assessment process when I say this, because everyone blames the board for our rising expenses, even though we have to pay the same assessments they do."

Contemplating joining a board for the first time? Or need help persuading others to volunteer? Here are some tips:

Control meetings. Unit owners may give up on the idea of joining after attending a meeting or two that were poorly run, hostile or too long.

Reach out to owners. Consider hosting a low-key gathering to explain the need for more members, what the job entails and the elections process. Some people may think the job is more difficult or time-consuming than it is. Those who show up exhibit enough interest to be possible candidates.

Knock on a door. It helps when those who serve offer to recruit. Even if someone turned the offer down once, it's worth trying again. Once when her board was down to five out of seven members, Saunders persuaded a neighbor to join "even though she had promised her family to not do it again." Saunders credits a friendly, face-to-face visit.

Send a note. Friendly, informative newsletters or e-mails can be an effective way to get the word about what a board does, what it is working on and a notice of an opening.

Daniel Vasquez can be reached at:

[email protected] or at 954-356-4558 (Broward) or 561-243-6686 (Palm Beach County). His condo column runs every Wednesday in the Local section and at www.sunsentinel.com/condos. You also can read his consumer column every Monday in Your Money and at www.sunsentinel.com/vasquez