People shifted in their chairs. A man near the back muttered something about his arborvitae. Somebody's toddler said, loudly, "Cookie," and was given one.
I had the CC&Rs in my tote bag. Of course I did. I raised my hand.
"Yes," Darlene said, "Eleanor."
Nobody calls me Eleanor except the IRS and my mother when I've disappointed her. I stood up anyway.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I just want to make sure I'm reading this right. Article Nine, Section Four says any amendment that adds a new restriction on the use of lots has to be approved by two-thirds of the membership, by ballot. It says the board can adopt rules and regulations, but rules can't 'enlarge or materially alter' the restrictions in the declaration. A height limit and an approved plant list seem like a pretty material alteration. So I don't think the board can adopt this tonight by resolution. I think it would need a vote of the owners."
The room went very quiet, the way a room does when someone has said something everyone was thinking and nobody wanted to be the one to say.
"Well," Darlene said. "We have legal guidance on that."
"Oh, good," I said, and meant it. "Could we see it?"
The management company rep, a young man named Trevor with a lanyard and a look of mild terror, leaned toward the microphone. "I think, um, that might be a fair point about Article Nine."
Then the man with the arborvitae spoke up. His name was Hal Brennan, and I had never met him. "Darlene, your hydrangeas aren't on this list."
There was a pause. Darlene looked down at her own slide. People started to laugh, not cruelly, just the involuntary laughter of a room letting out a breath. Darlene's hydrangeas were famous. They lined her front walk in huge blue mopheads, and she had won the city's Yard of the Month with them twice. Sure enough, the approved list ran alphabetically from Abelia to Yarrow, and there was no Hydrangea anywhere on it.
"That's a typo," Darlene said.