MINUTES OF THE ANNUAL MEETING

SECTOR 2A AT SNOHOMISH CASCADE ASSOCIATION

7:00 PM   WEDNESDAY    May 9, 2007

 

CALL TO ORDER / APPROVAL OF MINUTES

  1. The annual meeting was scheduled to begin at 7:00pm.  Jen Stout had asked Board members to arrive by 6:30 to take care of routine monthly Board of Directors business before the beginning of the meeting with all members to allow members more time to bring up issues they might have an interest in.  Jen called this early session to order at 6:47pm.  Present were Jen Stout, Bill Steenis and his wife Cindy, Steve Yandl, Ron Lee and his wife Nancy, John Patterson and his wife Jan and Trina Coleman.  Also present was Brian Schmidt, whose resignation from the Board of Directors was recognized and accepted.
  2. Steve Yandl presented the minutes of the April meeting.  Trina Coleman moved to accept the minutes, John Patterson seconded.  No Board members were opposed to acceptance of the minutes.
ARCHITECTURAL CONTROL COMMITTEE REPORT

  1. Trina Coleman reported that many paint requests are coming in as the homeowner is on the verge of beginning the paint job.  She also reports that many homeowners are wanting to paint using colors nearly identical to neighbors who are very close (particularly a high frequency of different shades of taupe).  She does advise people of the duplication but the ACC is not denying requests based on similarity to nearby houses.
  2. There have been a number of requests for extended driveway parking for boats or RVs.
  3. At their meeting the previous evening, the ACC has divided responsibility for the neighborhood into three sectors with Trina, Bob Wells and Cindy Steenis each handling project requests and CC&R violation notices for a specific sector.  Trina provided a color coded map to Steve Yandl so ACC requests and member complaints on CC&R violations could be routed to the correct ACC member.  Steve advised the ACC that he would continue to copy all committee members on every request (but identify the responsible party) so that we could maintain responsiveness during times when one or more ACC members were not available.
KICKOFF OF ANNUAL MEETING

  1. Jen Stout introduced herself and reminded members who had been arriving that we had a sign in sheet.  She advised members that the Board had handled approval of minutes and ACC issues in advance of the annual meeting and would be sharing maintenance and Treasurer’s reports and the Yard of Merit program report with the entire membership followed by an open floor discussion for the entire Association.
  2. Ultimately, we had about two dozen members in attendance.  This was not a quorum although there were enough Officers and Directors for a quorum so the Board of Directors could vote on issues that they are permitted to decide.  Signed in or identified by the Secretary were Jeff Wilson, Greg and Odetter Singleton, Bill Malowney, Brian Schmidt, Robert Wells, Jerry and Karen Davis, Walter Liebetrau, Anthony Laffranchi, Gary Rubino, Germano and Filomena DePinna.
MAINTENANCE COMMITTEE REPORT

  1. John Patterson put out an inquiry to the membership to see if anyone owning a chainsaw would be able to participate in the community volunteer cleanup effort on Sunday May 20 to tidy up the NW corner detention pond and prepare for a new fence being placed.
  2. John reported that he inspected the entire span of common area fence along both sides of Snohomish Cascade Drive along with a rep from Town and Country Fence.  They discovered about a dozen posts that have shifted and require resetting in additional concrete to preclude problems in future windstorms.  They also found several fence sections requiring replacement due to rot at the bottom of the panels which has resulted from homeowners allowing mulch and debris to pile up against the fence and keep the wood moist.  We’re waiting for a quote from Town and Country for the needed repairs.
  3. John reported the completion of an asphalt trail at the boat park leading from the parking area to play area replacing the old gravel trail.
  4. John reported that Surface Water Management sent an engineer at our request and suggested some minor maintenance items for our detention ponds to help avoid larger expenses in the future.  Ponds appear in good shape for the time being.
TREASURER’S REPORT

  1. Steve Yandl reported that the finance reports for April from the bookkeeper have been posted and are available at the web site.
  2. Steve summarized the most recent bank statements.  The operational reserve CD is at just under $22,400, the long term capital reserve is at $33,893 but will be renewed at about $44.5k after funds collected for 2007 are deposited ($8645).  There is $73,100 in checking but $8,650 is set to be transferred to the long term capital fund as planned.  All dues have been collected with the exception of dues on the one lot where there was a foreclosure and those funds will be paid by the Title company after closing of the recent sale.  Reviewing anticipated expenses against available funds, there is roughly $20k available for unanticipated repairs plus discretionary expenses through the remainder of the year.
  3. Steve explained that the Board wasn’t asking the membership to vote on doing an ‘agreed upon procedure’ in lieu of a full audit because the Board wasn’t comfortable with limiting the audit to a degree that would likely save a significant amount on the audit.  This will be reviewed after our new auditor, Patricia McGoorty, CPA, completes our audit for the year 2006 to discover if there might be options we’re comfortable with for the 2007 audit.  In any case, any decision to do anything other than a full audit needs to be approved by a 67% majority of members eligible to vote in accordance with Washington law.
  4. Bill Malowney inquired why we were not paying for the new fence on the east edge of the NW corner detention pond with money from the long term capital fund rather than current operational funds.  It was explained that while this was a partial fence replacement (fence replacement was one of the items the long term fund is designated for), the Board felt that this amount of new fence was sufficiently minor to treat as routine maintenance and retain the long term funds to be spent at the approximate time when those expenses were forecast.  Provided dues wouldn’t have to be increased or a special assessment charged to handle placing the new section of fence, Bill made the motion that the Board spend the money from the maintenance budget as planned.  While the motion did receive a second from the floor, we didn’t have a quorum of the members so no vote is recorded but Bill’s concern is acknowledged.
YARD OF MERIT REPORT

  1. Bill Steenis reports that yards are looking better than ever and neighborhood yards are being worked on earlier in the year.  The plan is to make 17 to 18 awards in a month but so many looked great the first month of judging, Bill opted to make 20 presentations.
  2. Bill is still recruiting for more judges.  The ideal situation is to have 4 or 5 judges each month to keep the contest fair and not ask any judge to do the job more than a two month stretch unless they want to.
OPEN SESSION, QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS FROM MEMBERS

  1. Jen Stout again welcomed members who came to the meeting.  It was noted that our turnout was a bit better than previous years, perhaps because of the flyers distributed door to door right before the meeting.
  2. Steve Yandl reported on the results of the Spring election thus far.  Votes by mail will be counted through the end of May but thus far we have ballots from 38% of the membership which is greater than the 34% required for a quorum.  In that we have a quorum without the use of any proxies, Steve Yandl made the motion that the Board of Directors abstain from voting their block of proxies.  Jen Stout seconded the motion.  With a quorum of Directors and Officers present for a Board vote, no Board members were opposed so the Board will not vote their proxies for the Spring 2007 vote.
  3. There were comments from the floor regarding the extreme difficulty in enforcing any new rules to force members to clean up after their dogs as well as the fireworks restriction option.  It was stated that if the membership votes to have the Board proceed with creating new rules, the Board will be in a tough spot if they’re then unable to put in place rules that can actually be enforced.  The Directors and Officers agree with the points made for the most part but didn’t want to be in the position of suppressing ideas from the membership for what we sought majority views on simply because we thought implementation would be difficult.
  4. Steve Yandl asked if any of the homeowners present were being bothered by the boat park light with its current aiming configuration.  We have been contacted by one homeowner who would like one more adjustment made but nobody at the annual meeting had the same issue.  Suggestions were made regarding a timer or a motion sensor although the type motion sensor that would do what people want might be cost prohibitive.
JEN STOUT ADJOURNED THE MEETING AT 7:43PM