2017 Annual Homeowner's Meeting

Date

Wednesday, May 31, 2017

Time

7:00pm

Location

Gig Harbor Library

Minutes

1. Meeting was called to order by Interim President Paul Sarsfield at 7:02 PM.
2. Welcome 25 attendees, accounting for 18 HOA property owners.
3. Old Business
   1. Treasurer’s Report
      1. Three people have not paid. 3 certified letters will now be sent.
   2. Sidewalk Beautification
      1. City said we can do whatever we want with it as long as we maintain it. The only reason they would fine us is if we planted and did not maintain the space.
   3. CC&Rs Amendment
      1. We will talk about amendments in new business.
4. New Business
   1. Results of Online Proposals:
      1. Raising of Dues
         1. From $90 per year to $120 per year. Voting showed 69% voted to raise the dues.
            1. What does that extra cover?
               1. Beautification projects
      2. Banning Fireworks
         1. Passed at 70%. The new president will work with a lawyer to update the CC&Rs to reflect this new amendment. We do have a lawyer that we are working with. He is the one who wrote them and the board will work on the wording.
         2. How much will the lawyer cost?
            1. The last time we spoke with the lawyer for 45 minutes it cost $200.
            2. He will normally do this for a flat rate.
         3. There were multiple complaints about fireworks and is a fire hazard
         4. What can we do if Norwood shoots of fireworks and it causes a fire in your trees. Can we sue? New board will look into this. What recourse we can take.
         5. How will we police this? We can fine a full $90.
      3. Beautification of sidewalk beds along Briarwood
         1. Allow landscaping company weed the sidewalk beds, lay down fabric and plant. 52% voted to go forward with this.
         2. We heard that the city was going to rip up Briarwood and fix the storm drains due to inadequate drainage. They did this last year and were not going to do any more.
         3. The city was not going to make any changes to the planting strips in the sidewalks.
   2. Vote for HOA Leadership Positions/Officers
      1. An open a discussion about having a company take over the HOA was requested. People need to know the history of the HOA. We need to have a discussion if we are going to keep the HOA internal or if we are going to have a company come in and run the HOA. A seconded having the discussion first.
         1. Paul read the position descriptions as they are written in the by-laws.
         2. How many hours to you devote to your job? Roughly 15-20 hours/year
            1. We meet quarterly, which is not required, but helped the communication.
         3. History since 2007: Mitch Blakely was finishing his time as president. We went from three people to two to one person in a matter of weeks as people bowed out. In 2012, Howard Cushner finished 5 years. Two people agreed in 2012. For the last ten years, no one has really wanted to do it. The people who have agreed did not stick with it. You have to have a board because of the pond and the 5 acre forest that we collectively own that are a liability. We collectively carry liability insurance to cover ourselves if something happens. It seems that there little to no interest in doing this anymore and that is why we should contract it out. Howard is happy to set up the annual picnic.
         4. Since we have volunteers, if we did decide to have a company come in we would still need to have a board. We have agreed it is not much work based on what was described. We are a pretty small community.
         5. What is the benefit of going outside?
            1. Kalles, our job is to do all the busy work, pay the bills, collect the due, create the statements, we would take care of the minutes, the minutes are available online, they would work with people who are not able to pay their dues, everything would still go through the board, they determine what we do, we walk the community, we go through CC&Rs, we notify the board ot he violations that we have seen, we take these to the board, the board then tells us what to do and we do it, we create the agenda, we make the copies, we do the work so that other people are willing to take on the job. It is a lot of work and we will take it on for you. $410 a month is the lowest price. We have a portal each homeowner can log into and all your paperwork would be there. We keep all documents electronically. All phone calls and emails go through the association office, we would have contacted the city and gotten the information back to the board, we walk out of the board meeting with an action list. Our philosophy is to make it so the people want to be on the board. The board makes the decisions and we do all the work.
            2. When would the fee increase?
               1. Does not include your postage or printing. Check cost and banking cost is all included. If they have to do a lot of compliance letters say more than 10 per month the rate will go up.
                  1. We have all had to be three compliance letters in the last year.
               2. What is your response time for a violation?
                  1. It is usually within 2-4 days.
                  2. If the violation is a major ordeal, it will be all hands on deck.
               3. How long have you been doing this and how many HOAs do you manage?
                  1. 20 years and 24 HOAs that we manage.
         6. Yuji, as an ACC member, most of our work was visiting when you want to cut the trees or when someone wants to paint. Having neighbors help to negotiate different situation. Emails and final notices is not the time we spent. Having a discussion amongst ourselves and working with each other. How can we increase the awareness of these positions? We may lose part of our community if we turn this over to an outside entity.
            1. Howard responded all of the difficult work is done by the board.
         7. What legal responsibility to you have?
            1. We would advise the board. We have no power to make decisions. It is up to the board to tell us what to do.
         8. How about we try it for a year and re-evaluate?
         9. How long is the contract?
            1. It is for a year.
         10. We are located in Tacoma. We also have office space for board meetings for you as well.
         11. I don’t think we will get enough people to vote for the dues increase.
         12. Cost is $4950 for the year plus fees,
         13. the website if free, email is free, checking is free, our PO Box is the only thing that costs us.
         14. There is a concern that we have a contract that states they do not do things that start generating fees. We would need to stipulate this in the contract with the company.
      2. President
         1. Howard is willing to be president if we turn it over to a 3rd party.
         2. Wes Friedman was nominated, Wes deferred.
         3. Darin Slovanick was nominated and accepted. All were in favor, Darrin is the new President
      3. Secretary
         1. Wes Friedman was nominated and accepted. All were in favor. Wes is the new Secretary
      4. Treasurer
         1. Tom Gonzalez will continue on.
      5. ACC Chair
         1. Steve Murphy will be our ACC chair.
   3. Community Management Company if no positions filled: deferred as board is filled.
   4. Landscaping Committee Beautification Projects
      Cecila and Ericka take care of the plants at the signs and are totally volunteer. Phyillis and Greg are a paid component which does the mowing in the park and have been weeding the strip. We have been looking into some way to make this better.
      1. Hire someone to come in and clean up the strip, even out the dirt, put down weed block, and bark the strip. That was about $4000. Which passed the vote.
      2. Once we do that, the strip has to be maintained to keep the weeds from coming back, hire someone to come in on an annual basis to clean and kill any weeds. Board will revisit in the fall
      3. Eventually we would like to plant drought tolerant plants in these areas. We would not do the planning until it starts raining again.
      4. Clearing the trees along Briarwood. Tabled until next year.
   5. Summer HOA Potluck Event, July 15th at 3:00 PM at the pond.
   6. Wendy Cushner volunteered to help Tom Gonzalez with this, will get together and send info out.
   7. Clean-up Work Party, June 24 , 10:00 AM
      1. The work party we are going to work around 2 entrances to the pond common area
      2. There is concern about how high the blackberry bushes are and how to get them out. It was suggested that hiring a herd of goats for about $1500 would clear these out.
   8. Dredging of Pond
      Five years ago it was dredged, if the conditions are right, we will do this year. It will cost around $5,000.
   9. Community Issues
      1. How much would it cost to get dog excrement sign with doggie bags?
         1. We looked into it and violated our no signs in the CC&Rs.
      2. A place to park the mower, a concrete slab with a shed for the lawnmower to be parked in to get it out of Greg’s garage.
         1. Look into tough shed, it can withstand

Adjourned at 8:49 PM.

Respectfully Submitted by Tricia Sarsfield