26 members in attendance
Opening Remarks:
- moment of silence to recognize the members who have passed away this year
- regarding the roads: paying members to do road works makes them a contractor and requires insurance, however someone mentioned that if a member was willing to sign a liability waiver, we could consider that.
- Previous meeting minutes were approved
Treasuer (Maria) gave balance sheet.
Road Commitee Report: Glenn Jewell made these points:
- mentioned that we might need to raise dues again in order to improve the roads.
- The culverts have been homeowners responsibility, but he says that no longer makes sense, because the water is not getting to the culverts. He says the biggest job is to get the road crowned so the water flows off into the culverts, and the HOA should be in charge of cleaning out the culverts.
- Don’t forget all of us doing work in the community are volunteers, and we should not be complaining about volunteers.
- Jason Walter says the culvert at the bottom of Lock Lane needs a bigger culvert, because it has plugged up twice this calendar year. Glenn says we need to maintain the brush and debris around the culvert.
- Jason helped Ed clear the culvert with his excavator. The HOA should be responsible for any culvert that crosses the road. If they feed Botha road and they are an issue, the HOA should deal with it. The one between Tarpinians and Rubios. It would not hurt to upsize that culvert, but 4″ of rain is going to overrun the road, but if the vegetation is clear, then the leaves won’t go in and block the culvert.
Website update: Laura will look for a cheap or free hosting option to switch to since the website has not become a super useful option. Current hosting plan is paid through March 2026.
Member concerns / new business:
- We need to put a note out to members requesting that no cars race the bus out of the neighborhood.
- Jason Walter made a motion that any property that has a tennants or a minor home occupation business permit that causes additional traffic on the roads pay additiopnal fees to the HOA to help maintain the roads. If you are using your home for business, you should have to pay extra as a special assessment. (The law says we cannot charge different fees to different houses, but we could do a special assessment.) There was a second to the motion – but we need to look into the legal ramifications and can discuss in the future.
- Jason Walter also makes a motion that the board enforce the deeded covenants regarding renters. There was a second to the motion. Mike was going to bring this up, that we review the bylaws to review these items this year. Gary Gore mentioned that it would be a shame to charge our members more when we have a million delivery trucks on our road all the time.
- Jason Walter also makes a motion that the bylaws get ammended to require that any proxies (who they are from and when they were received) be made available to all memberhship. Mike seconds that. Board require that proxies be recieved 24 hours prior by the board. Add the info the report about meeting. Laura mentioned that the website could solve this problem for the HOA.
- Jason also makes a motion that the HOA investigate the possiblility that members should be covered by insurance when they do work on the road. Explore changing the insurance that allows all members to work on the roads with HOA insurance coverage. Marc and Mike Jacobus second the motion. The board will explore it and decide at the next meeting.
Mike’s (President) Presentation:
- Road, ditch and culvert maintenance needs either more volunteer work or increased dues for a professional maintenance contract. He has a quote for $13k/year to maintain ditches and grading the road 2x/year. Any culvert that crosses over the roads are HOA responsibility, the ones that run along the road are homeowner responsibility.
- Jason says: If the current bylaw says that owners must maintain their own right of way (aka road) and culvert, then the HOA *should* say you have 30 days to take care of it or get fined. The question is does the HOA pay more, or do we ask owners to volunteer more?
- The motion to discuss whether a roundabout for the bus stop might be worth investing in for the safety of our kids. The motion to explore this with legal was approved.
- Proposed budget to increase dues to $500/year. Because we think the insurance is an issue, we need to table this decision.
- We need to evaluate the bylaws and covenants to see what needs changes. We can’t pick and choose which rules we are going to follow, but we could reevaluate what the rules should be, then be consistent in enforcing them.
- Motion was made to annex off the Foxville Rd portion of the community out of the HOA. We will discuss with legal what it entails to do that. Motion was seconded and approved to discuss it. Membership will be invited to decide on it at a special meeting or next year.
Elections (ballots handed out) – 5 people nominated for 4 positions:
- Glenn Jewell is nomated,
- Ezra is nominated
- Marc will run
- Maria will run as Treasurer again
- Laura will run as board member at-large only
Voting results:
- Marc and Laura are members at large
- Maria is still the treasurer
- Glenn is still on the road committee and also on the board.