Sunday, October 21, 2018

Board Meeting Notes

Oct. 20, 2018.....New dues and assessments for 2019

All Board members were present, except Jim Flood, as usual, he was there by phone.  It is estimated that there were about ten members present in addition to the usual office staff.  There was a closed session that lasted approximately 45 minutes.  No motions were made following the closed session.  Seems they have some legal issues. Imagine that?

Budget:
The entire Board agreed to present the membership with a 2019 budget that will see an increase of 1.8% in dues and assessments.  The per lot fee will be $605.06
I will provide more detail in a later posting.

Electronic voting:
This is really screwed up. A member vote at the November 2018 "Special Meeting" to amend the Articles allowing online voting.  It would take over a thousand members voting yes to approve this. We are lucky to get 300 - 400 votes on anything. There was also a sheet on allowing electronic voting which states "on balance, the Trustees believe that electronic voting system is not needed and the cost would not be warranted"  The author is anonymous as it is not signed. I will be posting the amendment wording and the bogus letter. There was no Board vote on this, and most of the Board have probably not even seen it.  Since none of them read "the blog", they may read it here.

Board Goals:
These were adopted last month, but they saw fit to do some more changes, but did not make a motion to adopt them, but rather used double talk to review them each month. There are 15.  You will love this wording of Floods same old Board goal. "Preserve the beauty and majesty of Surfside, preserving the views of all members including the ridge and ocean front members and all others".  Yep folks, I don't make this up.  I will post more on these Goals later if there is nothing else to talk about.

Secret Meetings:
The minutes of the two Board Meetings that the members did not know about, have issued minutes.
"Jim Flood made the motion to drop the Superior court appeal and other case against Johansen/Ringo.  LarryRaymer seconded the motion, motion passed 8-0 (money well spent)   I will post these later.

Water Rate Change:
Just as suspected, The cubic feet charge rate has been lowered from 10,000 cf to 8,000 cf for charge to begin.  Do you think they will continue to keep lowering it?

Employee pay scale changes:
Bill Neal's attempt to ram this through failed. Board said they needed more than 2 days to review it.

Other:
No action on raccoon complaints.

I will be making reports on committee reports etc., later




33 comments:

Anonymous said...

Must be a BOD complaining about raccoons. Why in the world hasn’t one of them lodged a complaint about rabbits, rabbits, EVERYWHERE!!!

Anonymous said...

Hmm, Rabbits taste like chicken .... A decent assault style Pellet rifle, will take care of both issues

Anonymous said...

Articles only need 2/3 of the vote, unlike By-Laws that need 51%

Anonymous said...

Oh my, remember: covenants say NO shooting! Unless of course you don’t have narc neighbors.

Anonymous said...

I thought the proposal by a board member to spend 19,000.00 to have a survey done of Sea Breeze lake to better enable them to enforce the tree covenants was unbelievable. To what lengths will they go.

blog host, George said...

That was rejected.

Steve Cox said...

The dunes are at least 27 feet high and growing at a good clip. The Columbia River jetties are said to create this dynamic, which the HOA has no ability to stop and NO authority to alter. The State forbids private owners from altering the dunes, which will continue to grow significantly each year.

Mr. Flood's notion that the HOA can assure anyone's views is ridiculous. Nowhere in our covenants are views mentioned or sanctioned as an enforcement issue by HOA action. Tree restrictions are a bane to the community and benefit no one.

There should be no tree height restrictions, and leave it to owners to negotiate agreements where views are clearly affected. Meanwhile, a second ridge of dunes is beginning to form. Old photos show the shore not far from G street homes in about 1970.

Anonymous said...

Those growing dunes help to protect us from floods due to storms, king tides and tsunamis. Looks like we need some protection from Jim Flood and as well as other floods.

Anonymous said...

It is a clear and unavoidable sign that the members have few clues about what our board members are doing when Flood gets voted into office over and over and over and over again. He has said and done so many things that are not serving to benefit the majority of Surfside members.

Anonymous said...

They approved the motion to move forward with electronic voting so Im not why you said there was no action taken. It is going out with the budget. Maybe check you source

Anonymous said...

Really tired of Cox's rants about the trees. Makes we want to butcher a tree just to spite him.

george said...

12:07,
I didn't say there was no action taken. I was talking about the letter. You need someone to help you with comprehension. (understanding what your reading).

Steve Cox said...

I don't care what you do to trees on your own property. Have at it !!

This policy was put in place about 50 years ago in order to bump ridgetop property values. It no longer has any validity, as there are no views to lose. It creates a false class structure in Surfside that allows owners on the ridge to demand that owners to the West top and damage trees at their insistence.

The covenants do not protect anyone's views in Surfside, and the HOA violates owner's property rights by pretending to have a mandate to top trees. There are no views to protect nor covenants to enforce this fraudulent claim.

Anonymous said...

Yawn and groan! I think that I will go out an abuse a tree in honor of another Cox rant.

Anonymous said...

Be first time 2:35 did anything but berate those he doesn’t agree with.

Steve Cox said...

2:35 - Tiny hat size ? You didn't understand what I said the first OR the second time. I don't care what you cut down on YOUR property I'm not a bleeding heart, just expect property rights to be respected, and trees ARE private property ! Can't handle the truth eh ?

I don't have any trees on my property to worry about, so make a fool of yourself, get mad, and cut ALL of your trees down. We don't care. Big opinions, no name.

Anonymous said...

Who said that I was going to abuse trees on my lots? Not me. With no trees on your property Cox, your opinion appears to be a matter of being an interfering busy body in other people's concerns. No problems here in understanding your oft repeated and not welcomed comments. Check you own hat size buster. Your assumptions about what is right or wrong are BS.

Anonymous said...

Not that facts matter, but it was not the BOD who brought up the raccoons. And yes, rabbits were part of the discussion.

To the water rate alarmists. 8,000 cf a month is still a ridiculous high amount. Before the carbon plant went on line it wasn't as big of a deal concerning the high users but since it now uses up the carbon and affects the rest of us more I'm for the lowering of the threshold.

Steve Cox said...

The Tree Policy needlessly creates a privileged class, needlessly damages private property, creates conflict between owners and owners and the HOA. The entire community suffers the consequences of a policy that insists on micro-managing a vast swath of Surfside into a landscape of stumps and mutant umbrella trees.

I have as much business addressing this as any other Surfside HOA member, the devaluation of property, the marginalizing of victimized owners, and the strangely manipulated landscape, affecting the image and personality of the entire community.




Anonymous said...

Mr. Floods goal statement is just sad. It screams of the inequity in our community.

Anonymous said...

Those of us that still have to filter the pee colored water should get free filters, be cheaper n work better than the new filter plant.

Anonymous said...

The state requires conservation rates each year to be reduced. 8,000 cubic feet is 60,000 gallons a month, I think we all can handle that

Anonymous said...

To Steve Cox, You can apply to modify the dunes, You are allowed to take them down to a certain height based on level of your property that I don't remember, but it can be done, you just have to go through the hoops, surveys etc. and you have to do it during a certain time of year which I believe is Nov through Feb? I know certain home owners who are going through the process now, it's a little costly but worth it I think.

Anonymous said...

They will have a good view of the king tides, n possible cause more damage n lives in case of tsunami. It’s good to be rich and selfish, enjoy your cache. We will.

Anonymous said...

People keep bringing up the "devaluation of property" claim without any evidence of proof. Meanwhile my neighbors had their property up for a short time and got multiple offers for what they asked which was above the appraised value, even with their trimmed trees.

Anonymous said...

Try talking to someone who doesn't live on J Place sometime.

3:05 said...

Nice try 4:11 but your J place hate doesn't fly in this case. I don't live on J, I'm in the flat lands. Same with the neighbor who sold I mentioned in my comment.

Move on.

Anonymous said...

I’m seeing property around me for sale a very long time, and is definitely a buyers market. Prices are way down right now.

Anonymous said...

Maybe that is due to the type of property and where you live. I have seen the opposite in my area, plus fresh builds going up.

Anonymous said...

Just a further note on the Board meeting, we seem to have gotten off track here. The Board approved the change in the water limit (before you have to pay) from 10,000 to 8000. A comment from the floor prompted the water manager to reply “don’t worry we will lower that slowly over the next five years”. In essence what that is saying is that in the near future we will be paying for our wate over and our assessments.

Anonymous said...

Do you really know how much water 8000 is? It can be lowered, much more in fact and close to 95% or more would not be affected.

In essence you are being paranoid and just looking for something to complain about.

Anonymous said...

I know what 8000 is. You should also know what 0 is, it is a number in your future.

Anonymous said...

8000 cubic feet = 59840 gallons of water