Contents
  1.  Committee Approvals & Lack of a Safety Committee
  2.  Sidewalk Update & Community Feedback
  3.  Vacant Land Outside Front Gate
  4.  ARB Coordinator Training – Consultant Hire
  5.  Road Reconstruction
  6.  Covenant Vote Update
  7.  Realtor Relations
  8.  Community Activities Committee
  9.  Resident Input at Board Meetings.
10.  Gate Arm Damage – Fines

1.  Committee Member Approvals & Safety Committee

What should have been a routine function turned into something very unusual. But, to understand what happened, it is extremely important to review and understand the function of POA committees.

Other than the ARB (which is a special case), all POA committees are advisory in nature in that they generally cannot make decisions or set policies. Only the Board does that. But these groups allow community members to be involved in POA affairs, and they do offer advice and support to the Board. Before making decisions, the Board will often seek opinions and advice from an appropriate committee (should there be one) or may even rely on a committee to do most of the leg work.

For example, our landscaping contract has been researched and negotiated by the Community Appearance Committee and then referred to the Board for approval. Similarly, if a question arose on gate house operations and policies, it would most likely be referred to the Safety Committee for advice and recommendations before being considered by the Board. Therefore, committees perform a valuable function by helping with the Board’s workload.

A policy exists which states that it is preferable (but not required) that committee chairs not be Board members. This lessens the workload on directors; who have enough to do without chairing committees.  In addition, it allows more residents to get involved in the operations and management of the community. I have also heard that this policy avoids having Board members exert excessive influence or control over committee operations. Each committee has at least one Board member as a liaison.

At the end of each calendar year, committee chairs normally recruit members for their committee for the following year, and the names are submitted to the Board for approval. This is done because all committee members technically serve at the Board’s discretion. According to our by-laws and covenants, committees are not required (except for the Architectural Review Board).

With that out of the way, let’s move to what happened at the meeting.

A list of committee chairs and members was presented to the Board for approval and, if you are interested, can be found at the end of the document in this link (be patient, as it takes a minute to load):  12/7/12 Board Papers

This list was approved by the Board, but it contained no names for the Safety Committee. That committee currently has a chairperson, and that chairperson had given proposed names to the new president, Becky Berrey, well in advance of this meeting. However, the approval list contained no names at all. This rather unusual action was questioned by a director, and that led to an overall discussion of the Safety Committee.

Background: In October, the Board voted to make the Safety Committee a stand-alone committee. Up until then, it had been a sub-committee of the Infrastructure Committee. It deals primarily with gate house operations and entry security issues. At the October meeting, Jeff Allen expressed support for the idea; saying that there were enough issues to warrant a separate committee and that it should have three to five resident members. The vote to make this change was 5-2; with Becky Berrey and Kelley Hunter dissenting; both of whom felt that safety and gate house operations were more of a management issue and that a committee was not necessary.

Back to the current meeting and the discussion of the Safety Committee……

It quickly became clear that Becky Berrey and Kelley Hunter were not satisfied with the vote taken two months ago and wanted to re-visit the issue and change the decision. Probably the most obvious piece of evidence to that effect was the decision by Becky Berrey to deliberately omit from the approval list the names of those interested in serving on this committee. In addition, both questioned the need for the committee and the need for any residents to be involved at all with gate house policies or entry security issues.

But there was not overwhelming support for this view from the other directors. As one director noted, the gates and their security aspects are critical elements of the community and involve a significant portion of the budget. If we have residents serving on committees involved with issues such as infrastructure and appearance, why not security and safety.

After some debate, Kelley Hunter made a motion to revert to the previous status of having Safety as a sub-committee of the Infrastructure Committee. The vote on that motion was 4 to 4; which means it did not pass.

Mark Ferraro then volunteered to be the Board liaison to the Safety Committee, and that was approved by the Board. When he questioned the lack of names on the committee approval list, Becky Berrey simply said that this would be handled at the next meeting.

Therefore, the 2013 Safety Committee currently has a Board liaison, no chairperson and no members; despite people having expressed a willingness to fill those roles.

(Editorial Comment:  If you are puzzled by this, you are not alone. I am, too. Given that the security gates are an integral and extremely important aspect of our community, I had some difficulty understanding why the committee’s function was being questioned in this manner. Some of the arguments proposed by Becky Berrey and Kelley Hunter were matters of opinion. With other arguments, the information and supporting evidence offered was too limited to judge whether they were justified.

One director questioned whether there was more to the situation which was not being openly discussed at this meeting. I had exactly the same reaction as this director and was glad the question was asked. While Becky Berrey and Kelley Hunter maintained that this was not the case, I think it was fairly clear that there were undisclosed conflicts behind these unusual moves. Given that, I am not certain it would make sense to review all the points made during the discussion. There were simply too many gaps and unanswered questions.

Since the Board now has a committee for which it has approved no members, I assume the situation will have to be addressed in the January meeting. By that time, I suspect more information may become available which might clarify the questions raised at this meeting. If I can obtain enough information, I will try to offer a coherent explanation in the next summary.)

2.  Sidewalk & Community Input

The subject of the proposed sidewalk was not an agenda item. I know that numerous residents have communicated with the Board to express concern with what appears to be its intent to construct a sidewalk from Governors Square to Mt. Carmel Church Road. This was indirectly acknowledged during the meeting.

When I last mentioned this issue in November, no absolute, formal decision had been made. However, from all I had seen and heard, it seemed very clear at that time that the Board intended to build this sidewalk and to fund it with a special assessment (estimated at around $250 per lot). And, as long as a special assessment is under $300, no vote of the property owners is required.

Since the proposed project was not discussed at this meeting, I can’t say whether there has since been any change in direction on the part of the Board.

However, one director raised the issue indirectly by asking what might be learned from the responses received from community residents. This led to a very interesting discussion regarding what (if any) community feedback the Board should consider when making such decisions. No actions resulted from this discussion and no clear direction agreed upon. Given that, I believe a summary of points discussed would be of interest to the community.

In essence, the question was whether the Board should obtain input from the community before making decisions and how it should consider that input. All the points discussed can essentially be distilled into two broad and somewhat conflicting points.

On one hand, some directors acknowledged the value of obtaining feedback from property owners, and some expressed support for doing surveys. One director noted that soliciting a sense of where the community stands is especially important in the case of decisions involving large special assessments.

On the other hand, concern was expressed that the Board should not be forced to manage by referendum. In other words, the Board would not want its actions and decisions to be limited by voting or survey results. There are two implicit assumptions here. The first is that the Board would feel pressured to make decisions in line with the results of any survey or vote. The second is that, if the Board does a survey or vote for one issue, it might feel obligated to do one for every issue. The question would then be: At what point would the Board be able to make a decision without a vote or survey?

Since this is something of a “two edged sword”, no definitive conclusions were reached.

(Editorial Comment: Once it has been made clear, I believe the community should be aware of the Board’s inclination on this important subject.

Prior to this, the last major issue with any controversy was the decision to close the Lystra gate from 10:00 PM to 6:00 AM. In that case, the first time anybody in the community knew this change was even being considered was seven days before the 2011 annual meeting. The news was buried in an e-mail giving details on the proposed 2012 budget; the heading and introduction to which gave no indication that it contained such a significant disclosure. And that e-mail presented it as a decision that had been made; not as something that was being considered.  Therefore, the implicit message to the community was that contrary resident input would carry no weight with the Board.

From the reaction I observed, that methodology did not go over well with a large segment of the community. Clearly, many people felt the community should have been informed earlier and that the Board should have considered feedback from the residents before making such a significant decision.

That episode prompted me to write about the proposed sidewalk. Not only did I feel that the idea had gathered a huge amount of momentum, the Board clearly desired that it not be subject to a vote. I felt the proposal deserved to be brought to the attention of the community in a clear and forthright manner as early as possible.

The issues of determining when and how to inform the community of proposed actions and whether or not to solicit feedback would appear to be worth considering very thoroughly and carefully.)

3.  Vacant Land Outside the Front Gate

At the Annual Meeting, it was made clear that the Board still had interest in pursuing the purchase of this land. However, this subject was not discussed at the meeting, so I am unable to report whether the outlook of the Board has since changed.

However, a related transaction was mentioned at the meeting. The property on Mt. Carmel Church Rd. owned by Daniel Custom Homes recently sold for just over $600,000. The property is roughly 5.5 acres and included three buildings. One is a newer office building of approximately 4,000 sq. ft, and the older home facing the street is approximately 1,800 sq. ft. The third building is essentially an unimproved shed.

The Property was purchased by the Kairys Real Estate Group. According to its web site, it owns, rents and manages residential properties in the Chapel Hill area. It appears to have set up its main office in one of the buildings on this site.

4.  ARB – Staff Training

Last year, the Board terminated the services of Cathy Klopfenstein; who had served as a staff coordinator for the Architectural Review Board for many years. Ray Sohl took on her responsibilities for most of this year, but he recently left to take a position at another CAS managed community. Gloria Caracciolo then took over this responsibility. However, with the changes in personnel and loss of continuity, it was felt that Gloria needed further training to do this job effectively. Therefore, the Board approved the expenditure of funds to be used to hire Cathy Klopfenstein on a consulting basis to provide this training. It is expected that the necessary training will require no more than forty hours worth of work.

5.  Road Reconstruction

The “Rest of Roads Survey” has been received and is being reviewed. Bids for the road reconstruction are expected sometime around the end of the month.

6.  Covenant Vote

By now, everybody should have had a chance to read the information mailed by the POA regarding the proposed changes to our covenants. If you have not already done so, please send in your form. Check with your friends and neighbors, too. We need to get as many owners as possible to send in these votes.

To date, over 500 responses have been received, and the magic number is 968. If you are interested, I have written a summary that helps explain the goal of this effort:  Covenant Vote

7.  Realtor Relations Committee

New volunteers have been found to replace the five people who resigned from the committee last June.

Through November, 34 homes have sold in the community, and 4 more are pending. Three of those sales were in excess of $1.0 million. In terms of outside realtors coming into the community to show houses for sale, it was reported that there is roughly a 50/50 split between new realtors and repeats.

8.  Community Activities Committee Function

The Community Activities Committee will be holding a function in January at the POA building. It appears it will be a combined artist open house and new resident social. All residents in the community, including new residents from 2012, will be invited to this event. Artwork done by some of our residents will be on display and available for purchase.

Refreshments will be provided at the POA’s expense. I previously reported that the Board had approved a budget of $4,400 for this committee’s activities in 2013. Funds for refreshments will, I assume, come from this allocation.

9.  Community Input at Board Meetings

A new policy was approved allowing residents to address the Board prior to regular meetings. Up to five people will be allowed to speak for a maximum of three minutes each. This will not be a discussion, and there will be no questions or feedback from the board. It is simply a way for people to express their views to the directors.

Speakers will be given time slots on a “first come–first served” basis. Anybody interested in speaking should contact the POA office to provide your name and the topic to be addressed.

10.  Gate Arms

Apparently, a fair number of impatient or inattentive people have hit the gate arms with their vehicles (18 so far this year). The Board approved a policy to refer those who cause damage to the gates to the Hearing Committee; which will now be empowered to levy fines of up to $100 per incident.