As posted in the Weekender...
Regular Board Meeting Summary
September 21, 2019
Surfside Homeowners Association Board of Trustees met in regular session on Sep-tember 21, 2019.. All Board members were present. Staff present included Tom Reber, Bill Neal, Scott Marple and Maureen Gilbert.
President. Scott Winegar delivered his safety message which focused on the safety of your identity and ways to reduce the threat of identity theft. Members need to be concerned about their mailboxes, leaving packages on the porch, protecting your Social Security, bank account and other personal data.
A member explained their appeal of a lighting violation. Their lights are the Edison type string lights. They had reduced the number of lights and felt the lights were appropriate as a deterrent to crime. It was explained that lighting up their property is okay but it’s not okay to light up the neighborhood. It was also noted that studies have found that most burglaries occur during the day and that the amount of lighting at night does not reduce crime. After lengthy discussion a motion was made to up-hold the violation. The vote was 5-3.
Deputy Travis Ostgaard was not present to present his report however it will be available on the website in the September Board packet.
The Board approved a bid from Naselle Rock and Asphalt for $6340.07 to repair roads that have been damaged/cut during repair of broken water lines or installation of new pipe.
The Board debated the merits of a proposed $300 transfer fee. This fee would be im-posed at the time of a transfer of ownership. General Manager Reber proposed the fee to cover costs incurred during the transfer of ownership. Staff time involved in a transfer includes modifying general and water system records, collect information from new members, retrieve and disseminate information before and after the sale, receive and send faxes regarding sales to escrow company’s, provide information via phone or in person regarding general information/covenants also site investigation to assure the property is in compliance and convey information to prospective buyers, escrow companies, and real estate agents. The Board passed a motion approving a $200 transfer fee, with a $100 transfer fee for transfers between family members, inheritance, or changing to or from a Trust by a vote of 7 to 1.
The Architectural Committee has recommended changes to the lighting covenant. The proposal is more specific than the current covenant, improving the definition of acceptable and non-acceptable light fixtures. The general objectives remain the same. It’s okay to light up your property but it is not okay to light up your neighbor’s property. The Board approved having the recommended changes have a hearing, to listen to input and comments from members.
The Tree, Brush, Vegetation, and Noxious Weed Committee recommended that the process for compliance be reduced from two years to six months. The Board voted to set a hearing for the changes and receive input and comments from the members.
The Board went into closed session to discuss personnel and legal issues.
After returning to regular session the Board made a motion to increase salaries by 3%. The amount paid for insurance will increase by 2%. The meeting adjourned at 2:03 pm
12 comments:
It takes about 10 minutes to update records when owners change. Are they hiring additional staff with the funds being collected for transfers? If not, this is merely another opportunity to unfairly overcharge members to increase revenue. I guess it will help offset the increased legal and insurance costs?
What about a bonus? A reward for poor performance? Just something more they can cover up. This is a corrupt organization.
The stated criteria for exterior home lighting is ridiculous, and reminiscent of the Tree Policy, in that the criteria cannot be rationally defended.
"It's okay to light-up your own property, but not okay to light-up other properties". This statement defies the obvious reality that light does not recognize property lines. Setting a limit of 60 watts for exterior lights, and requiring a frosted valance to dim the appearance of the bulb, is enough of a standard that there need not be any further discussion of this. It may make sense to limit all-night light sources to a minimum deemed necessary for security.
In the same sense that trees do not have an alarm that notifies owners they have reached the randomly established maximum height - lights cannot be commanded to observe property lines.
These Transfer Fees are ridiculous. We have a staff of employees, paid by the membership, to serve the members as needed. Transfers of title are an obvious procedure that they must perform, and every owner pays dues and assessments intended to pay for these services. In the same sense, members pay for staff time spent addressing enforcement, and should be presumed to be compliant upon the point of selling their property, if no outstanding fees or compliance issues exist.
Owners should resist allowing the HOA to set a fee of more than $50 on this procedure, and insist that transfers to relatives be done for FREE, as a form of appreciation for their being a member in good standing. Since the hire of Mr. Reber, simple procedures that the office must perform routinely have seemed to become very challenging, including making photo-copies.
Incompetence of office staff does not constitute a justification of this penalty envisioned and a mandatory inspection, all of which is intrusive and unnecessary.
Many properties retain the same owners for a decade or more, which computes to a large contribution to Surfside's operations. Over the course of an average year, the number of title changes is not a significant burden to the office staff. This is b.s.and needs to be corrected.
Steve, they don't have office time to be working on all the transfer papers of people trying to get out of this sand hole. They need time to process all of Clancy's tree complaints.
IF the average owner was well informed of the dismal condition of our HOA, it would seem a mass exodus would be seen. But the HOA does not talk about bad stuff any more. They've decided it's not any of the member's business. I don't see a major move to sell in Surfside, and there's new construction annually.
A law was passed in Washington requiring that realtors inform prospective buyers of HOA issues that are likely to impact assessments to pay for expensive legal disputes. By taking a vow of silence, the Trustees are blocking the membership from knowledge of key legal disputes the HOA is engaged in, and preventing the community from abiding by this law.
As a result, Realtors are free to misrepresent the status of the HOA, and not reveal the critical legal issues the community has been locked into for over a year now, without revealing the truth, and not observing State required transparency. That is called "collusion". Sound familiar ?
It is the hallmark of corruption.
As usual 10:12, your right on. I will expand on your not revealing the truth.
The summary of the Board Meeting and the approved minutes to follow. have a one line statement that reads..."The amount paid for insurance will increase by 2%" Seems innocent, right" Wrong!
This statement was made following a "closed Session". Two things...One, was this a closed session discussion? Two, Was this an open discussion after members had left the meeting and what was the discussion?
In the first instance, this is not a valid item for discussion in a closed session.. This is open session business. Most if not all members leave at the recess before a closed session and do not wait around for who knows how long, for the regular session to reopen. This gives the Board the opportunity to discuss without the members knowing. It is a deceitful practice.
Is there not one out of nine Board members who would object to the insurance rate being a closed session item? You are not bound to silence about an improper or illegal closed session action.
Why would they want to hide a not so simple discussion on an insurance rate increase?
Answer....Because it is a cover up and a tactic to keep information from the members. They do not want the members to know that we were dropped by the original company and the new company charged us 20,000 more because of our losses in court and filing appeals that we dropped and pending fines etc. Only a 2% increase is probably good news for now. What will happen next year.
10:12 hit it right "corruption" I will add...Moral corruption. I have one last question...
Now that we have a General Manager, How is that working out?
A closed session for 2 hours? They must have a lot to hide and cover up. Just a bunch of law breakers.
This association stinks like bad fish. Dissolution may be the only option.
A few comments on what happened at the Board meeting. First, I wish the BOT President would spend less time thinking about cyber crime and more on cleaning up his property. It does not look "beachy", the neighbors abhor the decade old plastic wadded up on the side and the trashing of the yard below. Clean it up to the "neat and tidy" definition or sell it. Next, so glad that Tom proposed the transfer fee. I imagine this was after a waterboarding session conducted by Williams, Olds, DeLees and Clancy. Do not the office staff have job descriptions? This petty office work should fall right into their defined duties. By the way, are they going to be the recipients of this extra money (in addition to their raises) NOT. It will go into the "General Fund" as does the fines and RV lot revenue only to be sprinkled out to the Committees so they can say, buy a pair of laser binoculars perhaps, or throw themselves a party. Gotta pay for those fines as well and the increased insurance premiums. Now the shortening of the time to comply with a violation, wow that is a pure power play. I am sure the Olds', Clancy, and Fred DeLees probably wet their pants over passing this piece of crap. So, nothing out of what we expect out of another wasted Saturday morning trying to screw the general membership.
Suspicions confirmed. Thanks for the depressing information 3:00 I see we did not miss anything other than the usual crap. Looks like they spent all their low efforts in a two hour closed meeting to figure out how they can cover their asses and blame someone else for their incompetence and failures, not to mention their illegal dumb shi_.
Two hours closed? Ridiculous! They shouldn't have any closed session longer than 15 minutes!
I believe this is yet another violation of State RFC's They are quite specific as to the topic matter for a closed session.
Yet more conspiracy? This organization stinks like bad fish, and needs to go!
With the daylight getting shorter, it is fairly dark in the mornings as I drive down Sandridge. I came across the most unusual happening. People actually had lights on located on the outside of their houses. One was those dastardly Edison type. Some of the houses were right next to each other and the offending lights could actually be seen by the neighbors. I was flabbergasted. Don't they know that those lights are a major felony with severe consequences? Let's get the ARC down there and put an immediate end to that travesty. If they don't remove their lighting, we will give them one week before we engage our Lawyers and sue them!
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