GNW HOA Meeting Report: My Minutes...

I'd like to think that if you find any enjoyment in the things I post, reading about the minutes of the Great Northwest HOA meeting would be a low priority on your list of reading. I'll try to be entertaining, but if you skip this one, I'll understand.

I took quite a few notes during the meeting and even spoke with a few folks to make sure that I understood things I didn't completely hear. Unlike my first meeting, this one had very little in the way of outbursts or comic relief.

At some point in the meeting, there was even reference to me and this blog, a result of my award winning 4th of July Parade coverage. I'm going to skip through a lot of the boring stuff and get right to a few points, so here goes.

During presentations by department heads,(and as I mentioned before) I was impressed by some of the questions Mr. Guy Pucci asked.

Examples:

• On the purchase of new computers, he asked if the old computers were still under warranty (no).
• On the auditing firm coming July 19th, he asked if there would be a pre-conference with board members (no)
• On the report from the Rec Department, he asked if there was a record of how many visitors to the pool were non-residents - the answer was "no", but they would start keeping track. The Rec director mentioned that she could go back and count money collected to figure out the number. This may have been lost on other observers, but I think the point was, if you don't keep track of the number of visitors, how do you know how much money should be in the kitty at the end of the day? Right?
• To the Security Chief, Mr. Pucci asked if there were any issues in hiring new staff (no) and also asked about any remaining life in a vehicle that the Security Department is seeking to replace. (Yes, and the vehicle will be transferred to DRACO). Mr. Pucci also asked about Logs the officers might keep.
• During the Maintenance Department report, Mr. Pucci asked about the status of diving boards (Rec director looking into it)
• And during a board discussion regarding the review of election materials, Mr. Pucci made a recommendation to help speed up the process.

Now call me a bumpkin, but in each of these cases, it sounded as though Mr. Pucci's questions were certainly value added to the process, and certainly not invasive or overstepping the boundaries of what board directors would be voted into office to be aware of before making a decision. If someone can give me a valid reason as to why we would want a board full of directors who calmly sit back and simply listen to the reports from staff with no question, I'd submit that we could save a whole lot of money and not have meetings at all.

Am I out of my mind on this?

My observation was that Mr. Pucci did exactly what a member of the board of directors should do. Make a decision based on well thought out and vetted information.

Now I stated previously, and currently stand by my position that, if you can afford to spend the kind of money Mr. Pucci did on a lawsuit against the HOA, then your priorities are a lot different than mine. But having said that, I still don't see the types of questions he asks at the meetings are anything more than in the best interests of the association as a whole.

Okay, so moving on and speaking of the lawsuit. Ms Sigrid Long, whom I had the pleasure of meeting and seemed very nice, if not a bit unsettled by my report of the first meeting I attended, added an item to the meeting agenda. She wanted the board to discuss an article that her and another board member, Mr. Steve Mifflin, had written for publication in The Passages. The topic of the letter was the story of the Guy Pucci Lawsuit. There was a lot of banter amongst the board members and I think ultimately, they decided to discuss the issue in closed session.

But since you are here anyway, let me give you my two cents. I am strictly opposed to publishing the letter in Passages, because I'm tired of seeing it used for the purposes of board members bashing one another. If Ms. Long or Mr. Mifflin would send me a copy of the letter, I'll post it here, unedited, and I'll be happy to give Mr. Pucci free reign to respond to it. But people in the Great Northwest don't read this blog to see pictures of their kid's Soccer Team or read about the pool schedule. So send the dirt to me, and keep that crap out of the association newspaper.

What I do believe should happen is, the opposing sides should come up with a joint statement which explains what was done, how it was resolved and any homeowner in good standing should be able to request that document and have it provided to them. End of story, case closed, see ya and good night.

Oh, the good news is, the guys who had requested to start an area Motorcycle Club, got permission to run some free adds in The Passages, so they could determine interest. Well done.

There were some other odds and ends, but really, I encourage any of you who want to see your board in action, to just come to the meetings. You can sit near me and we can giggle together.

Now, enough of this nastiness. I find it more entertaining to tell you about the new things I saw and did this weekend. More on that next.