Bent Tree Property Owners’ Association
Board of Directors’ Meeting Minutes
April 9th, 2007
Monument Sanitation District Office, 130 2nd St., Monument
Attendees: Board Members: Duane Fitch, John Heiser, Debbi Maser, Chris Patterson
Others: Bruce Bates, Gail Bates, Jerry Lopez, John Stahl, Wayne Tulley, Donna Wagner, Jerry Wagner
Meeting was called to order at 7:15pm with Duane Fitch presiding.
1) Review and approval of March 12th 2007 Board of Directors Meeting Draft Minutes
a) Motion was made by John Heiser and seconded by Chris Patterson and all votes in favor of approving the minutes with one correction.
2) ACC Report: Tom Hilfers not present; ACC report deferred to next meeting.
a) Bruce Bates has his house up for sale. We need to start looking for a replacement.
i. Bruce and Gail Bates and Wayne Tully asked questions to the BOD regarding ACC activities. Their questions were determined to be ACC, not BOD, issues and were deferred to the next ACC meeting, which needs to be scheduled by the ACC Chairperson (Tom Hilfers).
b) March 12th 2007 Action Item - Tom Hilfers to report on status of Lot 165 building issues:
i. House foundation is located on solid ground. Taken care of with backfill.
ii. There is still a lot of slash buried that needs to be removed. About six feet of slash is in the process of being removed.
iii. Septic tank and lines are still a concern. No status.
iv. Neighbor issues of driving on his lot. Resolved with correspondence and corrective steps taken by the contractor with the neighbor.
v. Easement still needs to be accomplished.
1. Howard Schmitz to research and provide information back at the BOD meeting regarding the lack of Bent Tree easement. Owner to sign letter allowing the easement and Doug Striker to help facilitate. John Stahl stated that research has determined that easements are defined for the lots in question.
2. Owners were in town last week of March.
c) Bruce Bates asked if the $300 ACC fine levied on lot 179 had been paid. Debbi answered that she had no information on this and that no check had been sent to the BTPOA P.O. Box.
3) Treasurer’s Report: Debbi Maser
a) Four lots have not paid the annual dues. Certified letters were sent to each 4/4/07. Additional research needs to be done because one lot’s legal / mailing address does not exist and letters are returned. Action was taken by Duane to investigate this further. Action was assigned to Debbi to call the owners of the other two lots to remind them that payment must be received or we will have to notify our lawyer so lien process can commence.
b) Bills paid:
i. Ck #2309, 3/12/07 – BOD Meeting $15.00
ii. Ck #2310, 3/14/07 – Great Water Divide $9158.48
iii. Ck #2311, 3/14/07 – Wells Fargo (taxes) $310.00
iv. Ck #2312, 3/24/07 – Mt. View Electric $26.00
v. Ck #2313, 3/24/07 – Lebel $67.50
vi. Ck #2314, 4/3/07 - Red Oaks, LLC $472.50
c) Deposits made:
i. 3/14/06 - $266.00 (HOA fees and Annual dues)
ii. 4/4/07 - $169.00
1. $72 dues
2. $92 dues
3. $5 classified ad
d) Faxed BTPOA tax info to Nolan Gookin, CPA, 3/23/07. John reminded the BOD that hard copies of the paperwork needs to be obtained, and action was taken by Duane to contact Mr. Gookin to complete this.
e) Reimbursement to be paid: $1044.75 (TriLakes printing of letters and directory, postage for mailing, envelopes and labels, and certified mail to outstanding lots for annual dues) Paid at this BOD meeting.
f) Mail Pick-up:
i. Certified Letter to the BOD
ii. ACC request Lot 58 (Loeffler) – ACC had already been notified via email and hard copy was provided to Duane at the meeting.
g) Debbi turned over Bent Tree check-book and PO Box key to Duane as she’ll be out of town.
h) Wayne Tully asked that the BOD disclose to all BTPOA owners if the BOD was going to pursue liens against properties in default as was discussed at the last BOD meeting. Motion was made by John and seconded by Chris and all votes were in favor that the BOD will not pursue liens on behalf of the HOA.
i) Motion was made by John Heiser and seconded by Duane Fitch to approve the Treasurer’s report and all votes were in favor.
4) Committee Reports
a) BEAUTIFICATION AND TRAILS: BOD Liaison - Tom Hilfers – John Stahl CC
i. Start date on work. Expected to commence in May, weather permitting.
ii. Preview of entrance issues Not available
iii. Invoice for payment approval Approved; John Stahl to contact BOD for check when due.
iv. Waste pick up, appearance and safety: Duane Fitch stated that as of Thursday, 15 owners had called and switched trash pick-up carriers, which is a start to help reduce the number of days and number of trucks.
b) COVENANT COMPLIANCE: BOD Liaison - Duane Fitch – Jim Maser CC
i. Numerous email traffic with CCC members and Red Oaks, LLC.
ii. Review of letters. Ten letters had been sent out by Red Oaks, LLC for cited and confirmed violations and four of these have been resolved. Several other violations have been noted and if they are still there by the next tour, letters will be sent to those owners. One of the letters sent resulted in a response from the homeowner stating that the issue cited was a previously documented and resolved issue and was not a covenant violation. Gail Bates, former BTPOA CCC POC, was asked for the historical CCC documents she had so that potential issues like this could be avoided in the future, and she replied that all the records she had were no longer available as she had disposed of them. Also, based on some of the minor discrepancies noted in the letter sent, it was recommended that the CCC review the letters before they are sent to the owners. Jim took the action to notify Jeanne of this.
iii. Invoice from Red Oaks, LLC was unanimously approved by the BOD via email and had been paid.
iv. February 12th 2007 Action Item - CCC to document process to include in revised R&R’s, and to provide email addresses for contacting Red Oak and/or CCC members for Steve to post on the website. In process.
v. Jeanne has notified the CCC and BOD that she will be out of town, and Jim stated he will also be out of town. Steve Bassett will be the covenant POC thru May 1st while Jeanne and Jim are unavailable, and Steve Fuhrmann will post this on the website.
vi. Wayne Tully suggested that a criminal background check be performed to protect the BOD when hiring outside contractors. After discussion, motion was made by John Heiser and seconded by Chris Patterson and all votes were in favor for action assigned to Jim Maser to contact Jeanne to complete this.
vii. Jim summarized the responses received regarding resident input to parking covenants as requested in the spring mailing. Six residents provided feedback. All six recognized the importance (and value) of enforcing the Bent Tree Covenants. Five of the letters supported enforcement of the no outdoor parking of vehicles, although two of the letters said that there are other covenants that needs to be enforced that are of more importance and/or impact to the neighborhood. One suggested perhaps allowing one operational vehicle to be parked outside. Two owners stated the reason they bought in Bent Tree was specifically because of the strict covenants, and one even said they’d support higher annual dues for covenant enforcement and other important issues in Bent Tree. One of the six inputs cited objection to outside overnight parking restrictions and that reasonable outdoor visible parking could be a deterrent to burglary-type activities.
c) DIRECTORY AND WEBMASTER: BOD Liaison – Debbi Maser – Steve Fuhrmann CC
i. Based on some of the discussion at this meeting, Steve asked the BOD and members present if there was more he could be doing to provide more owner communication / education. He posts all agendas and minutes and other correspondence from the BOD on the website. Debbi provides Steve soft copies of approved items for posting, and took an action at this meeting to provide Steve the soft copy of the final minutes from the last BOD meeting as approved at this meeting, soft copy of the notes from the annual budget discussion as approved by the BOD, and soft copy of the letter that was included in the recent mailing asking owners for input on parking covenants. Wayne Tully asked if he could get another copy of the parking input letter that had been included in the March mailing and Debbi took the action to provide that that to him.
ii. Steve also shared that he has provided documentation to the BOD President and Secretary regarding technical and backup information for Bent Tree records and asked what the BOD’s recommendation was for retention. The BOD concurred that they would like Steve to retain all historical information he had. Steve also stated that he does make routine backups of his files and stores them offsite. A formal process for protecting and storing historical records needs to be defined so that procedures can be included in the next revision to the BTPOA R&R’s.
d) ENGINEERING: BOD Liaison – John Heiser No activity to report.
e) FOREST MANAGEMENT: BOD Liaison – Tom Hilfers – John Anderson CC
i. John’s letter addressing beetle concerns was included in March mailing to all owners.
f) NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH: BOD Liaison - Chris Patterson was confirmed as the BOD POC for this activity and will contact other HOA’s for more information.
g) BTPOA COMMUNICATIONS: BOD Liaison – Debbi Maser
i. Directory with multiple letters / information was sent out in March.
ii. Letter on waste disposal was mailed to all residents in April.
iii. Bruce Bates shared an article regarding bears in local neighborhoods, and that there has been a black bear in Bent Tree. Steve Fuhrmann took the action to post an informational on the website to remind residents not to put food out that would attract the bear, including trash cans.
h) WATER AUGMENTATION: BOD Liaison – John Heiser – Jerry Lopez CC
i. The importance and potential severity of not proactively managing our water usage is critical. The court decree that Bent Tree has is very specific, and we are all at risk of severe sanctions, including having our water supply cut off, if we do not ensure that we adhere to the requirements. If sanctions are imposed, all of us would be affected – without water, our property values would plummet. As monitoring of water usage on the lots required to have meters continues to show a trend of increased water usage, it is imperative that Bent Tree take steps to ensure that we are compliant with our court decree
ii. Duane Fitch to work with BOD to determine that specific measurements of each lot be obtained to ensure that no more than 2000 sq ft turf or garden at 1.5 sq-ft per acre are irrigated. Jerry to bring proposals on how to determine irrigated square footage per lot.
1. Our Bent Tree covenants specify a maximum irrigation of 2000 square feet per lot. If it is determined that lots exceed this, owners will be required to take corrective action. Jerry’s estimate is that it would take approximately three hours per lot to measure the irrigated areas of each lot, which would take about 450 hours of labor to do all the lots. He would try to hire students to do this at $10/hour, plus there would be equipment costs. John made a motion seconded by Chris Patterson and approved by all to authorize Jerry $5000 to get this done as soon as possible. This was not part of our 2007 budget plan, but this needs to get done as quickly as possible since indications are that we’re at 96% of our water usage allocations.
2. There was additional discussion clarifying that not only do we have the limit of 2000 square feet of irrigation per lot, our water allocation is based on water consumption not to exceed 124,000 gallons per well per year. At this time, there is no way to measure water usage on lots that are not required to have meters. It may be determined that to ensure both the 2000 square feet of irrigation limit AND the 124,000 gallons per well per year are enforced, meters may be required for every lot. Decisions have not been made and further discussion will take place on this issue after the irrigation measurements are taken on every lot.
iii. Duane Fitch to work with BOD to clarify and document that the intended definition of “pool” is any body of water that is replenished in some way, and monitor this. In process.
iv. Duane Fitch to work with BOD to ensure that water meters are externally accessible and the owners who do not currently have these will be notified that they need to correct this at their expense. In process.
v. Duane Fitch to work with BOD to send notification to the 15 lots who are over their allotted water usage and require a corrective action plan to be defined, documented and approved. Metered lots showing upwards usage trends were sent separate letters with the spring mailing, and Jerry has the action to personally contact each of these lots to follow-up with them to take additional measurements and to evaluate corrective actions and trends.
vi. Duane Fitch to work with BOD to establish process to monitor water usage improvement, and to implement more frequent meter readings than the annual schedule currently in place is required. In process.
i) WELCOMING: BOD Liaison – John Heiser – Wayne Claybaugh CC. No new status.
5) Review action items from minutes of previous board meetings not covered above:
a) October 9th, 2006 Action Items:
i. Debbi Maser to replace Kathy Decker as the Bent Tree “registered agent.” Deferred until BTPOA files its annual statement.
b) March 12th 2007 Action Items:
i. John Heiser to review the BTPOA financial records to gather the requisite information for filing our 2006 taxes. Completed
ii. John Heiser to provide Matt Dunston information regarding the Bent Tree property that is in foreclosure, and for Matt to notify the BOD of his decision within one week. Completed
iii. Duane to forward Red Oak, LLC’s February Tour Report and letters to the members of the CCC. Completed
iv. Debbi to provide Red Oak, LLC with the correct legal address of the previously cited property so Red Oak, LLC can resend letter. Completed
6) R&R recommended changes Postponed to May BOD Meeting
7) Future Board Meeting Schedule Next BOD Meeting scheduled for May 14th, at 7:00PM.
8) Any other business None
9) Resident remarks, if any, on topics not on the agenda None
10) Summary of action items
a) Duane Fitch to research owner for one lot for which mail keeps getting returned.
b) Debbi Maser to call the owners of the other two lots to remind them that payment must be received or we will have to notify our lawyer to commence lien process.
c) Duane Fitch to contact Mr. Gookin to obtain hard copies of BTPOA tax paperwork.
d) Jim Maser to notify Jeanne (Red Oaks, LLC) that the CCC will review the letters before they are sent to the owners.
e) Jim Maser to notify Jeanne and complete criminal background check online.
f) Debbi Maser to provide Steve Fuhrmann soft copies of the final minutes from the last BOD meeting as approved at this meeting, notes from the annual budget discussion as approved by the BOD, and letter that was included in the recent mailing asking owners for input on parking covenants.
g) Debbi Maser to provide Wayne Tully another copy of the parking input letter that had been included in the March mailing.
h) Steve Fuhrmann to post an informational on the website to remind residents not to put food out that would attract the bear, including trash cans.
i) Jerry Lopez to personally contact owners of each lot that was sent a separate letter regarding meter readings showing upwards usage trends and to follow-up with them to take additional measurements and to evaluate corrective actions.
11) Hearings (if applicable) None
Meeting adjourned at 9:15 pm
Minutes prepared by Debbi Maser, BTPOA Secretary / Treasurer, 4/11/07
Minutes approved at BTPOA BOD Meeting 5/14/07