Four Lakes Landowners Association
Board of Directors
March 27th, 2006
In attendance: Mark Achzenick Rod Case Terry Deschenes
Shawn Mulqueeney Kit Nau Tom Price Steve Scott
Guests: Rick Ward – Chair of Community Property committee
Outgoing President Shawn Mulqueeney called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. in the home of Terry & Rita Deschenes. A motion was made and seconded that the minutes from the previous meeting be accepted as revised. The motion passed.
Matt Jones was not available to give a Treasures report.
Mark Achzenick was welcomed to the Board after being elected to a three year position at the Annual Meeting. Shawn also reported that Matt Jones stated that he will not be able to continue as a Board member. However, Matt’s wife Denise has agreed to complete his term.
The first order of business was to elect officers for the coming year. After some discussion and negotiation officers were agreed upon as follow:
President – – Terry Deschenes
Vice President – – Steve Scott
Treasurer – – Shawn Mulqueeney (at least for next 6 months – see explanation under new business)
Secretary – – Rod Case
Shawn shared the committee sign up sheets from the annual meeting. We had a number of new people volunteer to help out this year. That is a very encouraging sign. The committees are as follows:
Roads: Mark Achzenick (Chair), Jake Bender, Rod Case, Chauncey Deschenes, Marty Johnson, Brendon Pecht, Jan Pelroy, John Olson, Keith Renfrew.
Water: Evan Lurton (Chair), Wayne Bingham, Rod Case, Kyle Hennessey, Marty Johnson, Keith Renfrew, Steve Scott
Community Property: Rick Ward (Chair), Tara Bingham, Steve Jackson, Lee Koger
Entertainment: Kristina Achzenick (Chair), Theresa Johnson, Tom Price
Lakes: Shawn Mulqueeney (Chair), Jake Bender, Willy Gevers, Bob Jones, John Olson, Dan Reid, Steve Scott
Committee Reports:
Roads:
· Mark reported that he has received no further feedback on the roads maintenance plan since the annual meeting. He will proceed on with it now. Next step is to have a committee meeting in the next two weeks and then go out for bids on the work.
· Mark and Terry D. have looked at the fence on Liebling’s property one more time to make sure the plan to move 4 panels back from the road is a viable one. They both feel this will indeed improve the visibility for people coming from the north into the 3 way stop intersection. A letter has been sent to the Lieblings formally outlining our plan and asking their permission to proceed.
· Paula Clarke still is not willing to remove the tree on her property that is starting to infringe onto the roadway. Since it definitely blocks the view for people heading west Mark has requested that the Board address the issue with Paula. It was agreed that Terry will compose a letter to make sure Ms. Clarke understands the issue. He will inform her that we would very much like to find a solution with her but if necessary we will resort to addressing it through legal channels.
Subsequent Note (3/24): The next day after our meeting Steve volunteered to approach Ms. Clarke one more time to try to reason with her about resolving this issue. Terry has drafted a letter to her but will not send it until Steve has had a chance to talk to her.
Subsequent Note (3/27): Steve met with Ms. Clarke and was able to establish a dialogue with her about possible solutions to the issue. She in fact allowed him to do some trimming of the tree under her supervision. Steve feels that there is the possibility of further negotiation and hopefully a solution. Upon hearing this a majority of the Board agreed that Terry should not send the letter at this time. We will continue to try to work with Ms. Clarke on the issue. Steve will give a full report at the next meeting.
Water:
Only thing new to report is that Evan has now created a large sign that can be posted on the bulletin board to inform people of system problems. This quarters President’s letter was devoted to the topic of kinds of system problems and how community members should respond when they occur.
Community Property:
· Rick was present at the meeting and reported that he is about to post the requests for mowing bids for the year.
· Moles continue to be a problem in the large field. Tom said he has some mole bombs and will place them in field soon. This will hopefully lessen the problem.
· Rick will convene the committee soon. He hopes that one of the other members will take on the chairmanship role. He will report back to the Board on this matter.
Lakes:
Shawn will convene his new committee soon. As reported at the annual meeting his goal for this year is to develop a plan on how to approach maintenance of the lakes over the coming years. He also wants to try to pull out some of the weeds this year if possible. Several ideas on how to do that were passed on to him. Looks like we’ll have a work party this summer and see what works.
Entertainment:
· Easter Egg hunt is coming up soon.
· Kristina plans on buying a new tea maker which has given out. She will probably buy a soft drink cooler at the same time.
Old Business:
Ø By-Laws/CC&Rs amendments.
We have now received a complete review from Craig Blackstone. Each member of the Board has been given a copy and asked to review it carefully. All feedback should go to Terry. In addition, a sub-committee of Terry, Mark, and Rod will get together to study the findings of Craig and formulate an initial recommendation on how to proceed. This will all be reviewed at the next Board meeting.
Ø Board of Trustees long term goals development.
Now that the new Board is in place it will start up this effort again at the next meeting.
New Business:
Ø Outsourcing bookkeeping duties.
No one has stepped forward to take over the Treasurer duties from Matt. Shawn contacted several local bookkeeping firms and received preliminary estimates from them. It will cost us between $55 and $80 an hour to outsource this work. Assuming it will take approximately 7 hours a month this means it would cost us between $4,600 and $6,700 a year. This would be at least 1/3 of our total non-water income and would severely hamper other activities.
There was some discussion about other options. Everyone seemed to agree that the best option would be to find an Association member willing to take over the role. One possibility would be a young student who would be willing to commit to doing the role for at least 2 years as a learning work experience. We should also consider paying any volunteer but at a rate considerably under those quoted by the professional firms.
After this discussion Shawn agreed to take on the role again and remain on the Board for at least six months. He will get the books back from Matt and get everything in order. In the meantime we can put out a plea to the Association for someone to volunteer to take on the role.
Shawn also recommended that the Association move its banking functions to Boeing Employees Credit Union. They are starting up a small business offering that might make this role easier in the future. They also have free online banking and very competitive CD rates. If the accounts are moved there will be three officers authorized to sign checks – – the President, Vice President, and Treasurer. Only one of these people will be required to sign each check. A motion was made and seconded to accept Shawn’s recommendation. It passed unanimously.
The meeting was adjourned at 8:20 pm.