Orenco Gardens Homeowners Association Meeting

 

 

1.)  Sign-in (6:30pm)

2.)  Call to Order and Board Roll Call

Andy Gravano, President

Scott Richardson, Treasurer

Dennis Holtz, Board Member

Krishna Regupathy, Vice-President

 

3.)  Approval of last board minutes - ?

 

4.)  Opening Statement from the President

Andy G welcomed everyone and explained that we need quorum to vote on the CC&R amendment and board member election.

 

5.) Treasurer’s report

a.  Our treasurer Scott Richardson explained the structure of the HOA and how the assessment is determined, the budget process and the future assessment prediction. He also reviewed the Sep 2005 YTD financials and history. There were couple of questions from the home owners regarding the budget and Scott answered the questions

b.  Bo Andrew mentioned that he did not get the Jazz festival notice. This may be because he has prepaid the dues and hence the monthly bill was not sent to him. Board decided to look into and make sure that future notices are sent to everyone.

c.  One of the home owners requested a community yard sale.

d.  Andrew Giligan mentioned that there are not enough website advertisement and suggested to add the website address on all paper mails

e.  Scott went over the balance sheet, monthly statement, consolidated balance sheet and reserve details.

f.  Scott went over the bidding process to get new vendors

g.  He went over the 3^rd part audit for insurance policy of row homes

h.  Row homes assessment might change for 2006 depending on the by-law approval, insurance credit etc.

i.  Discussed about the formal reserve study

j.  Proposal made for Showplace (landscape) fee to stay level for 2006

 

6.) Board member Election/CCNR amendment voting:

136 votes were required for quorum, only 96 showed up (including proxy). CCNR amendment and board member election by home owners was dropped. Board members requested everyone to contact the neighbors and encourage them to attend the meetings in order to get the quorum.

Current board thanked Lois S, Michael C and Andy G for their good work while they were serving the community as board members.

As far as appointing the 2 open positions first we appointed Shelly Stoltz to replace Michael Cooper. Then we appointed Janine Sisk to replace Andy‘s position.

    

 

7.) NWCM feedback:

 

Scott R went over the issue that NWCM is not following through the ARC violations with the homeowners.

He also explained the steps that the board has taken to get NWCM to address the issues.

The board has met with the higher management (at NWCM) to require a tracking sheet and prioritized the services that they need to focus on.

Basically we had a meeting to set the service level agreement.

Scott Fisher resigned his position at NWCM and NWCM has assigned Christine Niland as our new property manager.

She will be following the ARC violations and make a violation tracking sheet.

Board has high hopes for Christine and feels that she is a business first type person.

Board will be having bi-weekly and quarterly check points to review the management company’s services.

Bottom line is that we have learned the lesson to do task level management and we are working with NWCM to fix the issues.

 

 

8.) Committee status:

Social committee explained the activities involved in this committee

Barbara B and Cynthia went over the issues regarding the landscape committee

One of the homeowners suggested that we can have a common email box for board just to read about the comments about the homeowners (need not reply to the comments)

Chris suggested a website forum. Andy replied that he will address that later during his presentation about WSC.

Shaun Baily passed out flyers about NHWC, information to recruit block captains and explained what the Neighborhood Watch Committee (NHWC) does.

 

Randy S asked whether the wedding (took place last summer) in Gazebo park was approved by the HOA?

Scott replied yes and gave some details on the approval process etc.

 

ARC chair gave an introduction to ARC and went over the basic rules about filing an ARC application for projects around the house.

Andy gave a brief overview about our website committee.

 

9.) Comments/QAs from home owners:

Dennis Holtz from the board mentioned that NWCM totally missed all the violations in the community such as large dumpster in the street for months, a/c hanging out of windows & Storage between alleys.

Andrew Prince asked about why the website doesn’t have the email ids of the board members. Board responded that we don’t handle day to day emails and it is NWCM’s responsibility to handle those.

Homeowners requested to have a semi-public community forum. Andy replied that our WSC is working on it and will come up with it soon. It is taking more time than originally planned.

Krishna suggested using the Yahoo groups until we get our own forum website.

Board approved to post the Yahoo groups link that was created by Krishna last year.

Bernie Tulson mentioned that he called the NWCM for an issue and was not happy about their service.

Scott S asked about when we will be having the report on the row home insurance audit.

Scott R replied that it will be back possibly by the end of November

One homeowner asked about who will be responsible for construction defects. Scott, Andy and Krishna explained the full procedure

William M mentioned about the paint peeling in the row homes. Board members have requested the management to look into fixing this issue

Elizabeth D asked about when the row homes will be out of red flag (financially). Scott explained that when we have 20K or more in retained earnings.

Jan F asked whether the concrete patios are figured in to getting a discount for row homes landscape maintenance?

Board was going to look in to it and get details.

 

 

10.) Pet-free park designation issue:

This issue was brought up and discussed amongst the home owners.

Homeowner’s comments about it and their suggestions to solve the issue;

Patty M: Supports the pet free designation.

Suggested Solution: Pet-free only on certain time slots. So people who are afraid of animals can get a chance to use the parks.

Janine S: Comments sent to NWCM, never heard back from them, Is this really a problem needing to be solved? Legitimize this decision by a vote in the home owners meeting.

Suggested solution: Create a pet owners committee to help board to solve some of the problems created by some pet owners (the ones that don’t pick-up after their pets).

 

Andrew: dog owner, doesn’t want to see bans because it affects property value.

Solutions: Time slot to have pet restriction – may be very early in the morning.

Tillson: Previous dog owner, grandmother – Don’t want to have dog waste near play area especially in the large parks like Arbor Park. It is a big sanitary issue.

 

Kris B: Suggested to get help from city to enforce these new rules.

 

Ruth T: Suggested to use mail-in ballots for pet-ban issue.