What is an "outside accounting firm"?

Our home association bylaws mandate that an "outside accounting firm" be employed to do our accounting. Members of the Board maintain that that would not preclude a resident of the home association being contracted as our accountant so long as he or she is not an employee; being paid a salary, payroll deductions; etc.h, but not an employee of the association. Those on our newly formed ethics committee maintain that the intention of the authors of the bylaws was to preclude the use of a resident as accountant in that he or she would have a personal interest as a member of the homes association, and therefore, would be considered as an "inside accounting firm," not an "outside accounting firm." That "outside accounting firm" is meant that the firm is outside the physical residences of the Homes Association. We need to have an opinion from an ethics organization to support our position to ask for the release of this one-person resident accountant and hire the services of a firm outside the premises of our homes association. Please help.