COMMUNITY MEDIATION

Service expanding 2017/2018

The Green Valley Council has been offering dispute resolution services or mediation to member HOAs and the Council’s Preferred Vendor Program for several years.

Mediation is a viable process to resolve conflicts that arise within and between HOAs and between homeowners and preferred vendors.  It is usually desirable for parties involved in a dispute to try to reach an agreement voluntarily, thereby avoiding legal and/or court costs.  Mediation is a confidential process.  It involves an unbiased volunteer who facilitates and moderates a discussion to enable parties to speak more easily.  The mediator does not have any authority to make decisions or enforce settlements agreed to by the parties.  The end goal of the mediation process is for the parties, themselves, to arrive at a mutually acceptable resolution, which all involved parties can honor.

While conflicts, in and of themselves, are neither positive nor negative, when conflicts are unresolved, they are apt to escalate and real or perceived differences can interfere with constructive communication or action.  In order to better help deflect conflicts within the Green Valley community, the Council is expanding its services to include all of Green Valley’s residents, businesses, investors, etc.  Examples of the kind of disagreements that might be mediated include conflicts with neighbors, co-workers, landlord-tenants, partners, and within families, such as parent and child or care of elderly parents.

The Council is currently working with the Family Center for Community Dialogue, which provides services to all of Pima County (center@ourfamilyservices.org), to form a partnership, whereby trained, volunteer mediators from both organizations would be involved in the mediation process.  The mediation would be held in Green Valley, and potential parties would be able to contact either organization to initiate the process.  The Council expects the partnership documents to be completed by the end of the year and training completed for the Green Valley volunteers in early Spring of next year.