Contents
1. Nominations and Election
2. 2013 Budget and Finances
3. New POA Staff Person
4. Morehead/Governors Drive Intersection
5. By-Law Change: Removal of Directors
6. Community Activities Committee
7. Walkways Committee
8. CAS – POA Management Company
1. Nominations and Elections
Last month I gave a brief summary of the process; which can be found in item # 9 here: 6/18/13 Meeting Summary
The Nominating Committee was formed at this meeting. It will consist of three directors; Gus Kolias, Kelley Hunter, Judi Anderson; and two non-directors; Tom Hunter and Mary Ann Anderson.
A significant discussion took place regarding the election process. If you have any interest in the POA at all, I recommend that you read this next bit carefully.
The central issue is whether this committee should nominate only as many candidates as there are open seats; thus potentially bypassing the need for an actual election. Before jumping to conclusions, please note that such a move would not absolutely eliminate elections. Rather, an election would only be required if there were one or more write-in candidates in addition to those nominated by the committee.
This concept was floated in a Board meeting last year, but no action was taken. However, at this meeting, several directors expressed a strong sentiment for following this procedure for the upcoming election. That is what prompted the debate.
Again, before jumping to conclusions……it helps to understand why this issue is being raised. I don’t believe it has anything to do with anybody wanting to “pack” the Board with hand-picked candidates. It primarily has to do with the fact that so few people are volunteering to serve. It was stated that last year’s committee had to contact over 60 people and ended up with a slate of only four candidates for three open slots.
And there are two additional reasons that were mentioned. First, it was felt that many qualified potential candidates did not want to run against neighbors in an election. Second, qualified candidates who lose rarely run again; so the community loses the opportunity of benefiting from their willingness to serve.
There appeared to be three camps in this debate; those wanting to make the change now, those against the change altogether, and those who feel the change may be appropriate but want to delay its implementation and first give the community a “heads-up”. I believe the third position prevailed. I can’t guarantee it, but I believe that the proposed change will be floated at the annual meeting to gauge the reaction of the community. However, if there are not enough volunteers for the upcoming election, I would not rule out the possibility of the Board deciding to implement the change immediately and nominate only enough candidates to fill the empty seats. I am not saying that will definitely happen; only that I believe it might possibly happen in certain circumstances.
This election is will be a little unusual in that we will now have to elect three Board members. Mark Ferraro recently resigned, and the community will need to elect somebody to serve the remaining two years of his term. I have no information on how the Board plans to handle the mechanics of doing both elections at the same time.
This committee has already sent out an e-mail asking for nominations and will propose a slate of candidates in September. If anybody is interested, names should be submitted within the next few weeks.
(Editorial Comment: I believe this issue rests in the “collective hands” of this community. People need to volunteer to serve. Otherwise, there is no reason to complain about the possibility of this proposed change being implemented.
Let me try to put it a little more bluntly. It is hard to accept the argument that we absolutely must have an election when it comes from somebody unwilling to run or unwilling to convince others to run. In the same vein, if a person does not like what is going on at the Board level but is not willing to serve or convince somebody else to serve, there is no reason or justification to complain.
In the past, one might have argued that the candidate selection process was unimportant because it did not make much difference who was elected. Hopefully, that will not be the case this year. It is quite possible that there will be a choice of (for lack of a better word) “ideologies” this year among the different candidates. For that reason, property owners should take an active interest in these elections. And more property owners should step up and be willing to serve. I am hopeful that there will be enough candidates with different ideas such that the vote will indicate the direction in which we wish to go forward as a community.
I am not the source authority on the Board and its work, but I have been observing things pretty carefully for over a year. So I might be able to offer some observations and information to anybody thinking about running. If you are considering the possibility and think that I might be able to help provide information, please contact me directly by e-mail: [email protected].)
2. 2013 Budget and Finances
Mike Donoghue summarized the current position and projected outlook to the end of the year. Bottom line, it will be very tight in terms of meeting our budget numbers. Overages have occurred in several areas; the major ones being the following.
After cleaning up downed trees from the last wind storm, Storm Maintenance is $23,000 over budget not counting any snowstorm work that might arise before year-end.
ARB expenses are $10,000 over budget. $6,000 of this was for engineering fees, and $4,000 was for training Gloria; who has since left for another position. Neither of these overages should be recurring. The additional cost of re-hiring Cathy Klopfenstein will cause an overage of approximately $15,000 by year-end. Lastly, legal expenses are projected to exceed budget by something in excess of $10,000.
Mike Donoghue indicated that, if all budget categories spend allocated amounts, the total overage would be around $70,000. This could be covered by some non-recurring income plus using the entire $50,000 contingency. Another source to cover this overage might be unspent funds in the infrastructure maintenance categories. What I could not determine was whether these available funds would come from our infrastructure needing less work than expected or whether they would result from delaying infrastructure maintenance work currently on the “to-do” list.
A few miscellaneous finance related items mentioned at this meeting:
To the extent we have incurred costs on the road project, there have been no surprises so-far. Board members feel comfortable that sub-committee members are on top of monitoring the payments to contractors.
The Board has approved entering into a loan agreement. The terms of the facility were not discussed and will not be made available to property owners until the loan has actually closed.
The loan facility prohibits use of borrowings to pay operating expenses. All proceeds drawn down must be used only on the road reconstruction project.
Work will begin shortly on the 2014 budget. Beyond managing expenses, the key issues will be allocations to reserves and road project payments. Hopefully, we will have a better idea of where we stand on actual road project costs by the time the budget is finalized.
3. New POA Staff
A new POA Operatons Manager has joined the staff. His name is Clif Roseman, and I believe he replaces Bruce McMinn. I have no other information because, if there was an announcement, I did not see it. I mention this only because his name was mentioned during the meeting. Update on 7/25/13: The day after I posted this summary, the POA sent out an announcement regarding Clif; who joined us in June.
4. Morehead Intersection Stop Signs
Following up on last month’s action, there was no indication that the Board has rescinded its decision to place stop signs at the intersections of Governors Drive and Upper Morehead. If anything like that actually happened, it was outside of the regular Board meeting. When discussed in this meeting, it did not appear to me that there were any plans to move forward on the signs. However, most people have seen the orange cones on Governors Drive on each side of Morehead.
From the way the discussion went, it appears that the cones were meant to be an alternative method of slowing traffic on Governors Drive. But that is only my guess, because it was not explicitly mentioned. Everybody on the Board was aware of the presence of the cones and seemed to feel they were accomplishing the intended purpose. The only problem seems to be that numerous cones have been stolen; which apparently is why there are no longer three cones on each side of the intersection.
5. By-Law Change: Removal of Directors
The Board has either passed or is the process of passing an amendment to the By-Laws which will call for the automatic removal of any director that misses three Board meetings within a “twelve month period”.
However, the resolution allows the rest of the Board members to, by majority vote, excuse any director that is absent for what they consider to be “good cause”; and those absences will not count towards the three.
6. Community Activities Committee
No activities are planned between now and September. From information obtained outside of this meeting; the committee chair claimed attendance of 46 to 49 people for each of the last two events; one in April and one in May.
Last year, the committee was asked to study and report back to the Board on the idea of charging a small fee for usage of the POA building for social events. It was noted that the committee has been “studying” this issue for over seven months with no results. The Board will now request that the committee conclude its deliberations and report back to the Board by September or October at the latest.
A director raised questions about the committee’s strategy of pairing charities with each of the social events. The concerns were threefold. First, it implies that the POA is endorsing the charities. Second, promoting charitable organizations was not in the committee’s purview when it was formed; raising a concern about “committee creep”. Thirdly, if the POA is to support charities, there might be better ways to do so.
Several directors expressed support for the ability of newcomers to become familiar with local charities and possible volunteer opportunities at these functions. They also felt that including the charities was appropriate and in the best interests of the community.
It was noted that we apparently used to have a “Volunteer Fair” on an afternoon; something like a trade show wherein residents could come and see the volunteer opportunities that existed within the community. Nobody seemed to know who organized these fairs or why they were discontinued.
The idea of a Governors Club Foundation was floated; as an organization where all charitable giving could be organized under one umbrella. This was discussed in very vague and general terms, but the concept seemed to receive support from at least several directors.
After some discussion, a motion was made to direct the Community Activities Committee to stop pairing charities with its functions, and it failed by a 5 to 2 vote. My impression was that, of the five negative votes, there were three directors strongly in favor of including the charities within these functions, and that two were in the camp of “it doesn’t hurt”.
7. Walkways Committee: Follow-up from last month
Brief re-cap…….
This past April, the Splinters e-mail announced the Board’s intent to form a sidewalk committee but did not include substantive information on its goals and objectives. Since this committee had not been discussed in an open Board meeting, the decision to form it must have been made in a closed session or by e-mail among the directors.
In May, I noted that the Infrastructure Committee April meeting minutes included the following note:
Jeff (Allen) reported that the POA Board has asked Dr. Rick Pillsbury to form a committee to consider alternatives for future community sidewalks and to make a recommendation which, when approved, will become part of the long range plan.
These minutes were approved both by the committee members and its chair, Doug Frey; who is also chair of the Long Range Plan Committee and a member of the Board. Furthermore, the minutes were reviewed by the entire Board in the May meeting; at which time no comments were made and no changes proposed. Therefore, in the absence of any other meaningful statement from the Board, I felt it safe to assume this to be reasonably accurate information.
In the June meeting, the Board passed a resolution forming a Walkways Committee. There was no discussion prior to the vote. Within the resolution, its purpose was stated to be the following:
“….to study and advise the Board on issues relating to the construction and maintenance of walkways in the community, including, without limitation, considerations bearing upon whether, where and when additional walkways should be constructed within Governors Club.”
The Board’s June resolution did not include the purpose stated in the April committee minutes: which I believe was quite significant. As I noted last month, there is a huge difference between simply providing advice and generating a program for inclusion in the long range plan. Anything in the long range plan can be deemed implicitly approved by the community. More importantly, the long range plan and its programs become a blueprint for future Boards to follow and implement.
If a sidewalk building program is included in the long range plan, the justification exists to execute that plan without necessarily asking for community input. Therefore, community input would have to come during the plan’s formation prior to it being inserted into the plan. As I said last month, if this committee’s work is to be included in the five year plan, I suspect many residents would have great interest in its work.
Therefore, I felt it appropriate to ask if, when the Board decided to form this committee, one of its intended purposes was to generate a sidewalk program for inclusion in the long range plan which is expected to be presented this fall.
After the second attempt at making this inquiry, I received an answer stating that this was not the intent. The Board was not willing to confirm that Jeff Allen actually said what was noted in the April minutes, but it also claimed that, if he did make the statement, it was “misinformation”. The Board’s response seemed to indicate that it either did not understand why the question was asked or did not feel the question was justified.
It also added the following comment: The committee’s “responsibility and authority is now limited to studying and advising the Board. As in the case of all POA Committees, its work may be reflected in future Board actions or the ‘look aheads’ summarized in the POA’s five year plans”.
This seems to leave the door open to including this committee’s work in the long range plan. I am unable to provide any further insight; so you will have to interpret all of this information as you see fit.
8. CAS – POA Management Company
John Stone met with the Board during this meeting. He is the owner of CAS, the company with which our POA has a management contract. Of the numerous points covered, the following might be of some interest.
CAS manages over 200 community associations. Roughly 6 of those are gated communities. I got the impression, that our community was one of the larger ones.
Mr. Stone said that CAS is the largest community management company in North Carolina and has 50% more staff than the next largest.