Calif. attorney Beth Grimm advises against email meetings as new law goes into effect. In contrast, in Arizona, following CAI Scott Carpenter’s advice to HOAs on “how to adjust to the new laws” (see AZ CAI’s reaction to the “new era of regulation” of HOAs), I’m aware of another CAI attorney making use of “written consent” to bypass the intent of the Arizona law.
And let’s not forget the HOA directors who hide behind “upon advice of their attorney” to get around the laws. They forget, and the HOA attorneys apparently don’t advise them accordingly — especially at those town sponsored seminars — that under ARS 10-3830(C), “A director is not acting in good faith if the director has knowledge concerning the matter in question that makes reliance otherwise permitted by subsection B unwarranted.” “B” refers to reliance on other experts like CPAs and attorneys.
While a legal mechanism, is the avoidance of the intent of the law in this email instance a violation of good faith to the members? I think so! Good faith – “honesty and integrity, or an honest intent to act without taking an unfair advantage over another person.”
In this instance, can the director play “dumb” and say, “I didn’t know the law” and get away with it? Hell no!
See Grim blog, EMAIL “MEETINGS” – MORE ON THE TOPIC
HOA Constitutional Government 
These boards are foolish. All of their email is subject to a subpoena, particularly a SUBPOENA DUCES TECUM in a lawsuit, even a small claims case.
A homeowner who has a small claims case pending against the HOA could subpoena the management company’s records, or the individual board members as well, from their MAIL PROVIDER. Particularly, Yahoo, Gmail, AOL, etc. Any of those email providers would be obligated to release email records within a specified timeframe (i.e., all emails to and from “BoardMemberA” to and from any and all of the following: “Board Member B@gmail.com, BoardMemberC@aol.com” from September 1 – September 15, 2011.” Small claims courts have the authority to uphold a subpoena duces tecum. Form SC-107 on the California Courts web site.
See:
http://cc-courthelp.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Page.viewPage&pageId=4871&grandparentID=2937&parentID=4840