Annual Meeting Notes
The Annual Meeting took place last night at the Municipal Complex. (This meeting place, while less convenient than the Hidden Lake Clubhouse, is free.) In attendance were Ron, Ken and Toni of the current Board; Janice and an assistant from EPM; approximately 12 homeowners.
Without quorum, normal meeting formalities were kind of slackened. The usual review and acceptance of the 2007 meeting minutes was suspended, for example.
The 2009 budget was presented and some line items prompted further discussion. What follows is a summary, not chronological.
We learned that there are some vacant residences in the community, including a couple of foreclosures. (Hmm, I smell an investment opportunity – I’d personally welcome any information that anyone can offer, please write to me in confidence.) These vacancies are eating a bit of our budget. Added 13 November: Someone wrote to me to say that one home, in “awful condition” with “at least $50K [of] additional work” needed, was offered in early September as a “bank sale” for a whopping $330K!
We talked about some aspects of landscaping and overall contractor performance. It came out that pruning, by contract, was once per year, usually around July. There were some questions regarding contractor oversight – many homeowners in attendance expressed concern that performance monitoring wasn’t adequate, that were weren’t getting good value. The recent seal coating, one homeowner pointed out, was largely washed away by the rains in one area because of inadequate preparation. The Board indicated that they would take that up.
As in the past, management company performance came under fire. (At that point, Janice and her assistant left the meeting.) The discussion here became heated at times but were lacking in details, obviously more private matters between a homeowner and the board, where the management company had handled things poorly. Logging of calls and letters to the company were identified as general issues, as well as other communications-related topics such as the disrespectful tone of letters, etc. The board seemed sympathetic and they indicated they’d dig deeper, but they didn’t make any commitments.
Regarding snow removal, it came out that we have retained the contractor on a pay-as-you-go basis. Interesting to me was that we spent 20-some-odd-thousand last winter on snow removal. To my recollection, though, we only experienced one snowfall totaling couple of inches. It caused a delayed school opening, but the temperature rose into the 50s and it was largely gone by the afternoon rush. 20 grand? Well, maybe last year’s contract had some minimum built into it.
We learned that a proposal for a comprehensive landscaping overhaul has been made. While our community is beautiful, it’s also overgrown – even planted inappropriately in some areas. The solution is a grand three-phase plan beginning with the entrances, continuing to the walkways and finishing up in the driveway/court areas. The board passed around the thick booklet containing the proposal. If it goes forward it will be undertaken over a period of years – like any of our large projects. (I told Ron that I’d really like a copy of the proposal for publication here. He didn’t offer it up, but I’ll press some more later.) The proposal is available for viewing at the EPM office.
Okay, okay. The budget news you’ve been waiting for, of course, is that the 2009 per-unit monthly fees will remain unchanged at $185. And that’s always good news!
Moving on to the election of two homeowners to Board positions, there isn’t a lot to report. Ken, an incumbent, has already had his resume sent around. Toni, another incumbent, expressed her interest in running again, but “didn’t get around to” submitting her resume on time. Rick, a new candidate, was nominated from the floor. There may have been a 4th candidate but the meeting was a bit out of order with some side conversations and I didn’t catch that part completely - sorry about that. Ken, Toni and Rick each spoke a bit. Without quorum, ballots were collected from those present. The board didn’t say so, but previous experience makes me believe we’ll see another mailing including resumes from all candidates and a new proxy. We’ll see.
By then, homeowners were donning jackets and leaving. The meeting broke up.
Comments
Tell us what you're thinking...
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Hosting donated by…
