Wow! That was a fast one with little to no controversy to report - which is a good thing, right?
My wife and I made the short trip down the street to the Lodge of the Great Northwest to attend the meeting of the board of directors for the Great Northwest Community Improvement Association.
A very brief agenda and Chairman Lee Besing knocked it out in near record time. Kicking off the reports from the department heads, Community Manager Darin is getting acclimated to the new position and the community. He and the staff have the yearly assessments ($222.00, down from $235.00) in envelopes and you should be getting yours soon. Pay it!
Jose our Deed Restrictions officer is back on the streets and hitting it hard. Having filled in as CM for a period, he had not been able to focus as much time on notifying residents of their crimes against good taste, and thankfully, he is back at it. He mentioned that yes, he does understand French, and many upset residents give him quite an earful when he cites them. Keep up the good work Jose!
Jose also mentioned that the five members of the Architectural Committee should be given new three year terms beginning in January so their tenure's can be normalized. It seems that there had been many members leaving and new people filled the slot. By resetting everyone's tenure to the same month, it will normalize things. Director Guy Pucci agreed and made a motion to do it and the board agreed.
Speaking of the Architectural Committee, did any of those five members approve the new color scheme of the painting project on the Lodge? Apparently, the color is Mustard (on the bottom) and Yellow (on the top). Egads! As I looked at it to take the picture, I could tell how it might work in an industrial sort of way, but again, Egads!
Then again, nobody has ever accused me of having taste or style.
Stephanie, our director of all things Recreation made note of the Hot Chocolate Social scheduled for Thursday the 13th of December. Santa is supposed to be there and apparently, pictures will be taken. Check out the GNW website for more details. She also mentioned that T-Shirts have been ordered for the Polar Bear Swim scheduled for New Years Day. If I weren't so concerned for the wellbeing of the public, I might consider plopping my own fat ass into the chilly waters, just to be able to report the commotion here. We'll see.
Chief Burton was out on business so Chairman Besing made note of the security related details: A new truck and new security systems. Taggers, beware.
Fred from Maintenance gave us details on lots of good work being done to improve the parks and also to make sure the board knows they are getting their money worth from the painters.
With that, Directory Janet Doherty wanted to bring to the boards attention that certain groups renting the lodge during December had some issue with the Christmas tree and associated decorations being in the lodge during their events. Though Jose had no issue with removing the tree to accommodate these folks, I think the idea of someone being offended by these type of decorations was 
equally offensive to many others.
Chairman Besing, though finding the idea (of being offended by the tree) silly, suggested that this was not so much a board issue but a personnel issue - as in, do we pay the staff to remove and replace the Christmas tree every time someone doesn't want it for their party? (Agreed).
At least one audience member voiced his disgust for these tree haters and asked what's next, are they going to want us to remove the Texas flag? Actually, they do remove the flags when the lodge is rented out.
Here's the deal and this is just my take on it from the perspective of someone who just recently rented the lodge. First, it is not a minor expense to rent the lodge if you pay for security and clean-up (security is required if you have any beer/alcohol). So, I don't recall the exact fee we paid but it was well over $650 from roughly 7PM to Midnight. Don't get me wrong; it was very much worth it.
Here's the deal. A Christmas tree would not have fit the scheme of my daughter's daisy-filled wedding. When you rent the lodge, you get the use of tables and chairs and such, but you are not required to use all the tables and all the chairs. In other words, the staff assists with set-up and sometimes the tables get set-up classroom style, sometimes they get set-up dinner style, or sometimes, there are no tables and only chairs. For all the work that it takes to set-up the tables and chairs, moving the Christmas tree once or twice during one month out of the year is not the back-breaker, or the offensive anti-Christian thing that it might appear to be at first blush.
Oh, and by the way, it was actually a religious group who rented out the room who were opposed to the tree. Go figure.
Sorry folks, wish I had more dirt to stir up but really, it was all very calm and everyone behaved rather nicely. My own observation is that our new community manager has had a calming affect and is quick to defuse things when blood pressures raise.
The final order of business had to do with adopting of the a few changes on the budget and there was one insignificant issue (to everyone but the person who raised it) and the CM was able to immediately rectify any concerns and the vote commenced. Great work!
NOTE: I appreciate the feedback that I receive from people present in the meetings, especially when they are able to clarify something that I might have recalled or mis-recalled. That was the case in my notes reported from a month ago. Specifically, I did something that I try to avoid with my blog in general and that is to present information that I wasn't first-hand aware of. Several folks e-mailed me to tell me that I got a few things wrong and of course, I made the corrections to the blog entry. But, I wanted to be clear that it is my intention when I present these notes, that I do so in an honest and hopefully accurate way. This doesn't mean that I expect you to agree with my take on things or agree with my opinion about them. I do appreciate when folks (especially Directors) leave comments that help expand the notes or at least give their opinion. I hope that these notes can make residents (and people interested in HOAs in general) aware of the activities with our little association. But by all means, if I get it wrong, let me know!
This evening, I was otherwise detained until around 8:30PM and was not able to make it to the first hour of the meeting of Great Northwest Community Improvement Association Board of Directors. Based on my brief attendance and by all credible accounts from what I missed, this was quite the event.
Herewith my notes of the short time I was available to dictate. And by the way, if you were one of the many residents who attended the meeting, held at the Emerald Valley facility, or a member of the board, please don't hesitate to pipe in with a second opinion. This particular evening, I wrote as fast as I could, but honestly, couldn't keep up with much of the banter and bickering.
When I came in, the discussion was hot and heavy about the tennis courts. If you recall from my last report, a few residents had voiced concerns about the crappy state of the tennis courts, and some people opined that there was not enough interest in tennis to spend the money needed to repair them.
A counter to that argument has been that if the courts were in good shape, people would use them. I fall in the group of people who probably will never step foot on the courts, but want them maintained simply because in a deteriorated state, they do not provide any added value to my home, and possibly detract from same.
So apparently, before I arrived, Director Guy Pucci must have been talking about spending the needed capital on the courts to bring them back to serviceability. Director Richard Garcia brought a quickly assembled plan before the board to propose a 30-day feasibility study with at least some of the following points:
- 30 days of free tennis lessons to interested kids and adults
- Fixing up/cleaning/painting the courts enough to make them usable
- Paying a tennis pro a reasonable fee to give the lessons
Director Garcia proposed that the board could do this study for $1,500 to $2,000. Director Pucci pointed out that this idea was less of a feasibility study and more of a new program. He countered with the idea that the Rec Director could poll the participants of existing sports programs to see what the interest was. Further, he would like to see a determination of how much other programs charge for participation. In other words, in the same way that the association charges a participation fee for soccer and other team sports, if we engaged in a program of tennis lessons or something like this, it would be for fee.
There was much "discussion". I had seen people in the audience yell out remarks in the past, maybe one or two people with brief comments such as, "Mr. Chair, Director Long is out of order.", but this was different. People through out the audience were making statements; hell, even I piped in with an unwarranted comment or two. One gentleman sitting behind me prefaced his remarks with, "I know I'm not allowed to say anything, but..."
Finally through all of the ruckus, Director SK Sharma, whom I had never heard speak before, gave quite an eloquent statement regarding the fact that he has lived in this association for over 22 years and when he finally retires and sells his house, he expects to turn a profit. Further, he pointed out that the facilities, including the tennis courts are intended to raise the value of the homes, not detract from that value. I don't have the verbatim quote but the gist of it was that even if a single person doesn't play tennis, we need to maintain the courts. At some point or another, he also used the word "Bloody". In the end, his remarks drew applause from the audience, though I must confess, I think I instigated it with my loud clapping.
Director Janet Doherty pointed out that the demograhics of the neighborhood has changed in the years since the original tennis courts were built and there is far less interest these days. Director Sigrid Long rebutted that if the courts were in proper shape, perhaps people would utilize them.
To this, Maintenance Director Fred Murphy made a suggestion that we could go from four tennis courts to two, relocate the basketball court onto the other tennis court, then turn the abandoned basketball court into a parking lot. This would relieve some of the parking issues at the pool. Brilliant!
In the end, Chairman Lee Besing had Director Garcia restate the motion about the feasibility study and it simply was not seconded by any other directors and thus died.
Up next, an issue near and dear to my heart: Grafitti. Turns out that this past weekend, the Lodge at Silver Creek got tagged. It was mentioned that Director Garcia has been going out and painting over the tagged areas on his own and sure could use some volunteers. Director Long brought up the fact that they should take advantage of the A-Team to help, but that drew lots of discussion from the crowd (myself included).
As a side note - and unrelated to the meeting, my wife and I along with several neighbors had signed up to volunteer for the A-Team a while back. Apparently, it has taken some time to get things going because none of us have been contacted by the coordinator. We'd still like to learn more about this program, so if you happen to be coordinating, please leave a comment or e-mail me.
In the end, I did volunteer to assist Director Garcia with his painting efforts and if you feel like you can help out, I'm sure he would love the company.
Given that the meeting was supposed to go to the discussion of the budget, Chairman Besing noted that a lot of time had already been spent on other business and that perhaps they should delay the budget discussion for a special meeting next week.
Director Pucci instead presented a motion to set the 2008 assessment to $222.00. This is a rollback from the current assessment of $235.00. His motion drew lots of quibbling amongst the crowd. Most residents were for the rollback but at least one person, former Chair Joe Martinez pointed out that it was senseless to make such a decision without having come up with a budget. Director Garcia quickly seconded the motion and Director Doherty immediately was in favor.
There was a very humorous exchange between Directors Long and Sharma during the confused discussions. From my seat, it was obvious that Director Long had been out of the room when the motion was made and seconded. It appeared that the other board members did not realize she had slipped out for a short potty break. So when Chairman Besing asked her if she had any comments, she was clearly confused, thinking the discussion was about a budget item. When Director Sharma started to restate the motion, Director Long interrupted him and Sharma quickly and bluntly stated that if she wanted an explanation she should be quiet and let him explain. This drew guffaws from the assembled crowd.
This time, when the vote was taken, Directors Long and Sharma voted against the motion and stating that it would not be prudent to set the assessment, Chairman Besing also voted against, killing the motion.
But this created a further discussion point and that is, that the GNWCIA has $926,000.00 in the bank. Yes, of course there are bills to be paid. But there are also assessments (whether they are $222.00 or $235.00 or more), the pot only gets bigger.
In the end, the board could not agree on a day to hold a special meeting next week to discuss the budget, so they will wait until the next scheduled meeting.
See you there!
Last night, my wife and I skipped some other plans in an effort to be civic minded and attended the Great Northwest Community Improvement Association board meeting. This is the version where residents are not given the chance to speak, (though Chairman Lee Besing smartly opened up discussions of the DRAFT budget to the audience). The end result in my mind was, same stuff, different week.
The first part of the meeting where members of staff present information to the board went pretty quickly, though getting to that point seemed difficult. After the formalities, and an attempt to adopt the agenda, Director Sigrid Long wanted to add items, specifically discussion of scheduling special board meetings and discussion of an editorial that her and Director Steve Mifflin had written regarding the months ago settled lawsuit with Director Guy Pucci. The Scheduling discussion was added as new business and the letter to the Passages issue was added to the closed session. Hopefully someone brought a taser.
Moving on, there were minutes from three meetings that were to be adopted but after what seemed like an eternity of board members fumbling through stacks of papers, it could not be determined which if any of the directors had received copies of the minutes, and Director Mifflin smartly moved to table all the minutes for another meeting.
Following that fiasco, the meeting continued with an attempt by DRACO Jose Morlett to give an update in his capacity as acting Community Manager. Unfortunately, the borrowed sound system experienced a major malfunction and after a moment or two of observation, Chairman Besing pointed out that the system would function with greater fidelity if perhaps we would plug the power cord into the electrical outlet. This task was accomplished and Jose was on the air, broadcasting to an increasingly irritated audience as he tried to speak above a small daycare that had moved into the meeting room.
Jose introduced the newly hired Assistant Community Manager/Accountant, Cindy Johns. ACM Johns brings several years of experience as a Community Manager for another HOA, and she was warmly welcomed by the residents attending the meeting.
Jose also discussed the successful graffiti removal project held this past weekend. He mentioned that 16 out of 17 targeted locations to clean-up were taken care of by volunteers and that he had already received calls from several people thanking this group for their effort.
Next up, Rec Director Stephanie Larrabee had several items for the board including some budget concerns which would be addressed by the board during the budget discussion. She brought up issues regarding pool repairs and costs and Director Pucci made the request that she receive separate bids to cover some potential plumbing repairs, prior to the board approving a contract. Good idea. Ms. Larrabee also had some positive news regarding other activities including an upcoming Masquerade Ball (October 12th at the Silver Creek Lodge). This is a 21 and up event and they will be checking IDs at the door. She also mentioned the Great Northwest Haunted House scheduled for 30 and 31 October between 7 and 9PM, for the youngsters.
During the course of Ms. Larrabee's briefing to the board, some of the chillin's sitting behind my wife and I became disruptive to the point that their mother had to escort them from the meeting. I would like to make a motion that board meetings be limited to those old enough not to whine and carry on, but that would potentially eliminate some members of the board of directors. (No lawsuits, please).
Maintenance Director Fred Murphy got up to discuss the planned painting for the lodge and the new and much needed sound system. The good news is, the original bids close to $10K are now down to a reasonable $2k or less, and the man kind enough to lend the board the temporary sound is also offered his assistance in getting the new system installed. Kudos to him.
New Business: Apparently, there was a special board meeting called by Chairman Besing. He notified the directors via e-mail of this meeting, however, at least one director, Ms. Long, did not receive the e-mail in time to attend the meeting. On the outset, her complaint was met with rolling eyes, shaking heads and sighs of disgust, - and frankly, that was just my wife and I giving each other the, "here we go again" look. But technically speaking, Director Long was justified and on target with her complaint. She mentioned the by-law which requires that the Directors be notified in writing or orally (should that be verbally?), and when Vice-Chair Janet Doherty asked her to quote the by-law, director Long did so and it very specifically stated that the written correspondence must be delivered to the residence of record. In other words, as much as I think e-mail should be sufficient, the fact is, Director Long missed a meeting because she was not notified per the by-laws. Chairman Besing quickly made it a point to correct that by mandating that they will re-institute the use of Security Staff to hand deliver notices to the directors.
This little episode brings up a more important note in my mind, and that is that there is clearly turmoil amongst board members. And part of that comes from the "gotcha" attitude that is so prevalent in what we see at the national level in politics. That is, we care less about what a particular issue is and more for how it will play for or against our own side. From the time that I have attended these meetings, I have heard over and over about things requiring review by lawyers or this or that is against the by-laws. One resident and former board member told me that this was the reason you needed a strong Community Manager - someone to handle all the big issues and details, leaving the board to simply vote for or against things and get out of the weeds. I disagreed with her at first, but must say that I see myself coming around to the idea.
And hopefully, we will get a well qualified, strong CM and soon.
The budget discussion was in my mind a waste of time. It is a draft at this point, but as we found during the initial talks, the numbers were totally irrelevant. Hopefully, the various staff members can correct this and when the real work is done, behind closed doors and away from the prying eyes of the residents, the board and staff can get it knocked out.
Are you sensing a little frustration? I'd love to read your comments. Leave them here (click the comments button below), or e-mail me.
As I mentioned in the teaser last night (I stole that idea from the San Antonio Lightning Online Paper), a few of my neighbors joined my wife and I as well as quite a few other residents for meeting of the board of directors, Great Northwest Community Improvement Association. This was a general meeting but one main order of business was discussion of the budget. I'll get to that, but let me recap the events so you can get up to date.
As I have mentioned before, residents have the opportunity to sign up to speak before the board in one of two ways; either as a topic that is already on the agenda or as a topic that is not part of the agenda. For example, if you wanted to simply get up and tell the board you think they are doing a great job, that probably would not be part of the official agenda. If you wanted to speak on the topic of the budget, last night was a good night to sign up for the other section.
Prior to residents wishing to be heard, the GNWCIA was addressed by a Mr. Jeff Peterson from Rep Jose Menendez' office.
Mr. Peterson spoke of recent state bills and such that may be of interest. I would suggest you learn more by going to the web page or calling the office. In my opinion, Jose has been a great representative for this area and I continue to support him until I find something worth complaining about.
Moving along, to the citizens to be heard. I'd like to be very delicate about this. Though I confess to often attempting to approach the information I post with a sense of humor, I have been told that some readers (and at least one director) don't always appreciate my approach. Having said that...
Sweet Sainted Mother of Charles Nelson Reilly! The first resident was, well, quite a plum. This resident, apparently a retired person, who I had not recognized from previous meetings, apparently didn't know the crowd when he got up to make his speech. The audience was filled with previous board directors, residents who have had years of involvement and participation, and at least a lawsuit litigant or two. So it made the speaker's opening statement to the assembled crowd that "You all may be afraid to speak to the board, but I'm not" an awkward confession of his lack of situational awareness.
Though a microphone had been provided at the center of the room, the man felt compelled to wander around and speak without it - for a sentence or two before one lady and several others insisted that he please use the microphone. I think this took him off his game.
The man went on to complain that he wanted to apply for the position of Community Manager, but because he did not use the Internet or apparently read any newspapers, he felt he was not provided adequate information on the process. As a fellow resident, I certainly applaud his desire to speak before the board and make his complaints known, but his approach was simply way off.
The crowd seemed dumbfounded at his long winded yammering about how he should have been able to obtain all information necessary by simply asking a person at the counter in the office. Aside from the obvious legal issues someone might bring up from this approach (okay, it isn't obvious to me, but I am certain someone can make some sort of legal complaint), I think any resident would agree that our next Community Manager ought to at least make it a point of familiarizing themselves with the Official Community Newspaper (Passages) at the official GNW Web Page - both of which have been advertising details of this position for months now.
After almost ten minutes of rambling, and I use that description purposely, Chairman Lee Besing finally interrupted the resident and advised him that he had exceeded the 3 minutes alloted to speak, and could he either listen to a response to the complaint, or at least wrap it up so we could move on. The gentleman questioned the three minute rule and several people piped up that it was in the by-laws, hopefully a document our next Community Manager will become familiar with.
The resident did very kindly take his seat, but not before warning us all that he would be attending future meetings. Bravo to him and I hope he does. He seemed like a genuinely nice man to me; just a tad bit off kilter. I hope that isn't offensive.
Moving along... Another fine audience member, Mr. Robert Rodkey, a former board candidate approached to give a long winded and ill-advised admonishment to the board about arbitrarily raising the assessments for the next budget without first collecting the fees to see how much was in the kitty. Director Richard Garcia pointed out to Mr. Rodkey that in fact, no budget has been agreed upon and further, the purpose of the evening's meeting was to discuss the budget. I had to stop myself from giggling out loud when my wife gave me the eye, but it seemed to me that several people had come to the meeting armed for bear, but really hadn't fully thought out the chronology of events.
Members of the staff got up to give presentations - Acting CM/DRACO Jose Morlett, Temp Accountant Teresa Carpenter, and Maintenance Director, Fred Murphy.
A lot of things worth skipping but a few items to note:
- Jose mentioned some new hires in the office - working out well
- Ballot documents ready for review
- Resident and former director/chair Mr. Joe Martinez astutely noted that the voting was to be done "secretly" and that by allowing a resident to review the ballots and proxies, private resident voting information was made available
- Director Garcia who witnessed the review of ballots acknowledged that information that should have been secret was in fact available to the residents reviewing the documents
- Director Guy Pucci suggested a change to the ballot and proxy documents to correct this problem
- Ms. Carpenter mentioned several accounting related things
- Director Pucci requested information on the use of the TOPS software and how it might be used for tracking GNW Security calls
- Mr. Murphy discussed several items involving spending money.
- Resurfacing of tennis courts - either asphalt which will crack again or a Rhino Court product that will last longer
- Both very expensive
- One resident questioned if the Rhino product was suitable for tennis courts
- Another resident questioned how many people even use the tennis courts
- Director Garcia suggested that the board put the cost to the residents to decide if it was worth the price to upgrade the tennis courts - ((If you play tennis, you better say something now))
- Fences at pool to separate bathrooms from pool - this allows the restrooms to be used when the pool is closed
- New sound system - wireless, about $3,500
- Just a side note on the sound. I hope that the new system will be fully installed and tested by professionals. Nobody expects the members of the board nor the residents who speak to be professional orators accustomed to projecting their voices as though the meeting was a Broadway play. Yet, most often (unless it is just my wife and I who show) the audience is made up of several folks who may have hearing issues. To get the most of the meetings, I'd push for spending a few dollars on a solid system that would make the important things people have to say, audible to everyone.
- New GNW signs - need to replace signs around the neighborhood
- Power washer is up and running to help with graffiti
- Lodge Painting inside and out - not cheap
Okay - it wasn't until 8:50 PM that we got to the budget. And I'm not going to say much about it. Before the discussion started, resident Mr. Ben Pucci (in case you didn't know, the father of Director Guy Pucci) gave a quick statement regarding how the board ought to proceed. I apologize for not catching it all but the gist was that the group should figure out how much money was coming in, stick to that as a budget and if anything, cut the budget.Mr. Martinez also spoke citing the need for reductions in several areas.
Smartly, Mr. Besing opened the floor to comments from residents even if they had not signed up to speak specifically about the budget, but he felt there was too much important work to be done without hearing from those attending.
One lady, Olivia Theriot, spoke of the need to keep in funding for the Parliamentarian. This created a stir from other residents who felt the board of directors should be the parliamentarians. Further, a gentleman stated his opposition to paying the money since now, the current board gets along with the residents who attend the meetings.
Kids, cover your ears.
WTF?In other words, what this gentleman was saying was that, we needed a parliamentarian because people in the audience - residents - could not be trusted to follow standard rules of good order and discipline if they didn't agree with the people they had voted into office as directors. That statement alone ought to put parliamentarian right up at the top of the list of things to fund!
Okay. I have to confess that my wife and a few neighbors left during the break and my neighbor Merle and I could only hold on until about 9:45PM or so before we left the budget discussions to the hardcore residents.
I urge you to go to the office and took a look at the information on the DRAFT budget proposals so you can learn more about it. It is only a DRAFT! Don't get your panties in a wad - make some suggestions if you don't agree with what you see. But as Chairman Besing was overheard saying, don't tell us to cut the budget, tell us exactly what items in the budget you want cut. Those are good words of wisdom.So, I apologize for this being so long winded. There is a lot of information that is important to you as a resident. Please, plan on getting out to the next meeting.
Also, if you were at the meeting and I got it all wrong, please leave a comment or e-mail me so I can fix it!
Wow! That was a fast one with little to no controversy to report - which is a good thing, right? 
equally offensive to many others.
