Because so many Committees of Seven in manufactured home parks seen to have difficulty understanding how their committee should proceed, we're printing the wording of this state statute with our guidelines. Please, if you have questions, either contact your district director or OSTA to invite one of us to attend your committee meeting to offer suggestions before you send your letter to the park owner requesting one of your two yearly meetings. We want to offer our help so you can be successful. Remember that the owner doesn't have to respond to individual letters from the park residents, but by law the owner is required to respond to the committee. 

Ch. 90.600 Committee of Seven

Chapter 90.600(5) (a) reads as follows: “The tenants who reside in a facility may elect one committee of seven or fewer members in a facility-wide election to represent the tenants….Upon written request from the tenants’ committee, the landlord or a representative of the landlord shall meet with the com-mittee within 10 to 30 days of the request to discuss the tenants’ non-rent concerns regarding the fa-cility. Unless the parties agree otherwise, upon a request from the tenants’ committee, a landlord or representative of the landlord shall meet with the tenants’ committee at least once, but not more than twice, each calendar year….After the meeting, the tenants’ committee shall send a written summary of the issues and concerns addressed at the meeting to the landlord…[who] shall make a good faith response in writing to the committee’s summary within 60 days.”

SO YOU’VE GOT THIS COMMITTEE OF SEVEN—NOW WHAT?

A GUIDE FOR SUCCESSFUL MEETINGS

Keep written records

Insist that residents write out and sign their grievances. You can promise not to divulge identities, of course. You don’t want a later backlash, where someone says, “That wasn’t me who complained. I never said that.”

Insist that your committee members respect the privacy of those who complain. What goes on in the committee meetings should stay within the committee. The chair might provide an overview to the homeowners, but no names should be mentioned.

Prepare a list of goals based on complaints gathered from residents. Study the complaints, grouping them as much as possible, and ranking them as to importance to all residents. Try to word your list in a positive way, that is, for example, don’t say, “The manager should stop being so nasty.” Better to say, “We’d like a pleasant relationship between management and residents.”

Negotiate with management which of the goals on your written list they will consider. The negotiation will be give and take, involving discussion and no accusations. For example: one goal might be for the manager and residents to be more pleasant to each other. If management can agree that pleasant working relationships are desirable, then the committee and management can discuss together how to make that possible. Another goal might be to prevent speeding within the park. If management agrees that’s a worthwhile goal, everyone can discuss ways to prevent speeding.

Prepare a written list of negotiated goals and suggestions for achieving them for management and committee members to study. If there have to be personal complaints, they should also be offered in writing so that they can be clearly understood by everyone in the meeting (the person being accused needs to have a written copy of the allegation in order to defend him- or herself)

Expect management to respond in writing to the prepared list of goals within 60 days. If the response does not address issues to the committee’s satisfaction, contact OSTA and the Manufactured Community Resource Center at 1-800-453-5511 for mediation services.

A sample letter to your owner requesting a meeting with the Committee follows:

To:

From:

Re: Property Rights and Transactions—Title 10, Chapter 90.600 of the Oregon State Statutes

The members of the XYZ Mobile Home Park Committee of Seven were duly elected on (date), and are

______________________ , chair,

______________________, secretary

Let us know a convenient time for you to meet with us.   __________________________(signed)