How to Keep the Annual Meeting From Becoming a Marathon

There are many ways to keep your co-op’s or condominium’s annual meeting from turning into the New York City Marathon. One of the best is to hold the meeting it someplace other than your building. It’s a tradeoff: convening at a nearby venue costs money, and it might lessen turnout since people have to make a trek; but there’s also an upside. 

“If you’re having meeting at a local church or temple or school, there’s always an end time,” says attorney Jeffrey Reich, a partner at Schwartz Sladkus Reich Greenberg Atlas. “That’s the benefit of meeting outside the building.” And if you can’t do that, then simply tell people the polls are closing. “Tell them that management’s going home, and the attorney has to go home. It’s unreasonable to think your professionals should be out at a meeting after 9 o’clock at night.” Same goes for the venue’s janitor. 

Another tool for avoiding O.T. is an agenda, which can be a written handout or an announcement at the start of the meeting. Manage expectations by saying there will be 15 minutes or so for general questions – but this is not the time for personal attacks or the airing of grievances. 

One way to handle windy speeches is to ask the speaker, “Is there a question here?” Or you can suggest that the speaker might consider running for the board. “That quiets them down, because usually they’re not interested in putting in the time,” says attorney Richard Klein, a partner at Romer Debbas. “You can also say, ‘We’re trying to get the meeting to move along, so please hold on to that thought and after the meeting come speak with the board.’ You’re not censoring them, just telling them to wait.” 

“You have to walk a fine balance between saying, ‘Enough already,’ without being obnoxious about it,” says attorney Michael Manzi, a partner at Smith, Gambrell & Russell. If a board – as opposed to the managing agent – is running the meeting, its members are usually reluctant to step in and cut someone off when they’ve run overtime. Most managing agents don’t mind taking the heat, since there’s a patina of professional authority. Residents are less likely to take things personally if they come from a managing agent. 

If questions are raised about problems in a particular apartment, the board must explain that the purpose of the meeting is to conduct the corporation’s business. To resolve individual problems, residents should be advised to write to the managing agent. 

Working in the board’s favor is the fact that most residents just want to find out what’s going on in their building. They’re not interested in someone’s pet peeves. They want to hear about the finances, plans to keep the building competitive in the marketplace, the budgetary outlook, and what happened in the prior fiscal year. 

And then, like the janitor, they want to go home to bed.