Is Community Management a “Fly-Over” Industry?

By David Zepponi

Have you ever gone to a party or family function and someone invariably asks: “What do you do?” You proudly tell them: “I’m a community manager.” Only to see blank stares and comments like, “that’s nice,” or “which community” or better yet “so I love Twitter, which community do you represent – Facebook, Etsy, Instagram?” And you politely correct them and say that you work for HOAs. Have you noticed their expression change … “oh, so you’re the ones who write the parking tickets, or won’t let me paint the house or charge me too much for nothing.” Do you love it when the stories start… I’ve got a neighbor and their dog, yada, yada, yada? Why won’t “they” do anything about that? Can we sue them? Or, I don’t know why they let people like that in this neighborhood anyway…can’t we just say no!

As irrational and distasteful as these comments or projection might be, it speaks to a very large problem for those of us in the community management business: People don’t know what we do and what they can do.

Every year, we walk the floors of the Capitol in Sacramento having these same conversations with a diverse and eclectic group of the elected who frankly have the same opinion (or worse, no

recognition) of what the community management industry is or what we do. They don’t realize that the multitude of laws and regulations, fees and commentary drive a very complex system of community action and neighborhood governance.

We all don’t care much for big government and over regulations. It is the overregulation of our communities by those in power with a limited lens focused on statewide “consumerism” that drives policies that restrict true community engagement, development and health.

Case in point, in the past California legislative session, CACM members came to me asking our lobby efforts to introduce a very reasonable and well-meaning bill to help with elections. If you have an uncontested election – that is three seats and say two running for those seats, it doesn’t take a math whiz to realize that an election, especially with the election rules and processes required in California, makes no sense. In fact, for the profession of community management, in many cases it means that they will forego billable hours by declaring an uncontested election and thereby not requiring the election process. You’d think that would be enough – well it wasn’t. Assembly Bill 1799 ran into a roadblock in the Senate Committee on the Judiciary and was withdrawn. A good, simplifying and money saving policy for communities was no longer because of fear generated by our opposition and a lack of understanding and confidence in our roles as community managers by certain elected officials.

As we’ve seen recently in the national elections, complacency about how and who governs may result in unintended or at least unexpected consequences. Legislative strategies start with political strategies. That is, if you want good policies, you need people in Sacramento who understand and think the way you do. We in this industry don’t want to be the “fly-over states” deferring our futures to the other camp who is noisier, more popular and less understanding of what we do. We have the knowledge and, I firmly believe, moral high ground to significantly impact the political mechanisms in this state to pass more positive legislation or kill bad legislation impacting our communities.

So where do we begin to start making the meaningful impact on our industry – right here at CACM where you can have real and direct impact. You have the ability to “move the needle” by becoming involved with our “grass-top” lobbying efforts. This year we have broadened our Political Action Committee (the PAC) to accept contributions from a wider swath of our industry – Community Management Business members and Affiliate members. We’ve asked these membership communities to make a small $50 contribution to our PAC. This additional money will allow us to greatly improve our access to politicians and improve our ability to tell our community manager story to those elected and build a more positive relationship with them to stem off bad legislation and, from time to time, pass good legislation to protect and advance our industry.

There is no doubt that our presence in the legislature and, frankly, all branches of government is an appropriate and necessary function for CACM. The PAC shows that we are organized and that we can carry a message on behalf of the majority in our industry and walk tall in the ivory hall of the Capitol telling our stories and ensuring that our elected know who community manager are and what community management does.

In 2016 the Legislative Committee established Task Forces, small groups of dedicated members, to work on specific legislation. In addition, we invested PAC funds to support 26 different political campaigns and made more than a half dozen trips to Sacramento to work on building the industry. Leadership will meet in December to work on our legislative agenda and focus on our new direction for influence.

In 2017, we intend to continue to broaden our outreach to members through various channels of operation. To help move us in this direction we have asked each of our business members to assign a Legislative Liaison. Further, we will be communicating with the Community Association Management Executives (CAMEx) members for their wisdom, and I am endeavoring to increase our direct activity with the elected by involving manager, business and affiliate contributors to our PAC at the regional level to get our message out. The elected need to hear from you and to hear what you do and how important this industry is. Building the CACM public policy program will take time . . . but with your help in reaching out to your elected officials, simply contributing to our PAC and letting us know what’s on your mind, you can have a significant impact on the future of the community management industry.

David Zepponi is President & CEO of CACM.

CACM thanks all of our members who have voluntarily contributed to the PAC and otherwise supported our political and legislative initiatives.