Reflection Lake Community Association Special Board Meeting – September 26, 2020
90 LOTS VOTED FOR NEW BOARD
Members present: Rick Smith, Charlie Bennett, Joe Dickinson, Jeff Toffer, Jim Boothby, Bill Pease, Vonnie Hutchison
The members unable to attend: Richard Miller, Chris Cato. Russ Bishop was contacted but couldn’t come to this meeting.
Meeting was called to order at ??? pm in the RLCA community room. We’re recording these meetings so the minutes can be accurately transcribed and for a permanent record.
Officer’s Responsibilities: Jim Boothby
On the vote for officers I’ve been here 18-29 times now and I pretty well know how it operates. We have blind ballots (secret votes). You put the name you want for that office. It gets counted and then it’s declared who each of the officers are.
President: PR for lake, dispute resolutions, staff oversite and the gatekeeper for controlling meeting. Agendas are prepared for each meeting. The business to be covered is listed and at the end of the meeting the meeting is opened up for discussion. This is done in an open forum which allows everyone at the meeting to talk on any subject they want to bring up or any complaint that they have. We don’t do this signing thing or limit minutes to speak. The Board business is completed first. If there’s more Board business and the President decides we should take a look at that now and it’s put for a discussion with the Board and we decide on a resolution on what we’re going to do or the President could table for the next meeting. Do not have to stay within Roberts Rules of Order because we have such a small group. The President needs to run the meeting however it works for you. I’ll help you along with the first agenda and then you can make it work anyway you want.
Vice President: In charge of contracts and special projects, which means ordering porta potties, snow removal, mowing. If there’s anything special we need: road construction, etc. it is dictated by how much by money has been spent. A lot of this is in our budget. The budget gets passed at our annual meeting. If the budget says we have $3000 for snow plowing and the expense ends up being $6000 the Board determines where that money needs to be taken from out of the budget. That’s the treasurer’s responsibility on where to move the money around. It is the President and Vice President’s responsibility to move it where’s it’s necessary for the betterment of the lake.
Secretary: Attendance, minutes, and the quarterly newsletter. Prior secretaries have increased the responsibilities and others have just done the minutes. Whoever takes over as secretary has to do what they do best, to help us out the best.
Treasurer: Budget, pays bills, checks mailbox regularly, oversees the books and the bookkeeper. The bookkeepers currently are downtown and we’re probably going to change those guys. It’s the same ones we had last time and they’ve raised their rates by $600/yr.
COMMITTEE
Communication- Has not been running for some time but they cover the website, facebook postings and the gatekeeper of information that comes back and forth. When the newsletter is written the communications committee has some input too because it goes on the website so we can get everyone communicating properly. A proper newsletter gets input from each committee and each member of the Board.
Conservation, Maintenance & Dams Committee (CMD)- Lake conservation, fish stocking, dam maintenance, valve maintenance, lake levels, sign, fences and anything that has to do with maintenance.
Lake Patrol- PR primarily. You get to convey fishing regulations, etc. Fishing is restricted to members and guests only. Everyone else has to be invited in to have a pass or permission from the lake association. The lake patrol can cite people if they don’t follow the posted rules. They’ve quit doing that but citing means they filled out citation and brought it to the Board, so and so brought three guys out here and they caught 50 fish so they issued a citation to such and such that stated you owned $35.00. The association member is informed that people were out here in your name with a pass.
Budget Committee- Annual budget. Normally this is done by one or two people in the Association that enjoys numbers and they help the treasurer put the budget together. There would be a chairman that asks for input from each of the committees and the Board on their expected budget for next year to improve the lake. Recently the Treasurer has done the budget and it is a line-by-line approval. No one can dispute the budget then because it has been approved by the association members. There is a projects list approved each July by membership so if there wasn’t enough money for a certain item on the list we could move on to the next item.
Community Relations Committee - Vonnie Hutchison. Takes care of the annual meeting, the special member events, welcome packages and farewell mentions.
Firewise Committee: Charlie Bennett
We’ve had a lot of upset here and the loss of civility is one of the biggest problems we’ve had. Our priority was to keep the water rights; the appointed board’s priority was trying to get rid of the water rights and we’ll delve into that slightly but in the meantime we’re going to put this lake back together and make things start happening for the good of the association members.
We’ll have a meeting on the 6th of October, here with COVID restrictions. We’ll have masks and social distancing. We’ll open the doors and have seating outside. We’ll invite the Association and inform them that we’ll have restricted seating. We’ll see what happens after that. When the weather turns too bad we’ll hold our meetings at the church. It runs $50-$75 each time but it gives everyone adequate seating and it’s a warm place to be. We’ll start using our reader board sign again where we can post when our meetings are going to happen and get it in the proper venues. We’ll need to have the proper turnover of keys and equipment. I can get the financials and keys once we decide who the treasurer will be. Whoever is the president or vice president has to call the members of the old appointed board and request that they turn in their keys, etc. at such and such a time with whatever day they pick. The bank account turnover, once the new treasurer is chosen, takes about three days. He then goes with a set of minutes down to the bank and they verify the information and gets a signature card completed. Then the president and vice president set up their signature cards. They then are also on the list of signatories. You also have the right to question any check to your satisfaction.
Our budget is about $32,000. When we don’t spend all the money in the budget that’s when the projects list is important. We can then accomplish more of the projects approved by the Association. The budget is a guideline to help guide the expenditures. All our expenditures have increased, including every service from the State. (example: dams inspections three years ago were $800, now they’re $1500/inspection). I will help everyone with these positions but I’m going to duck out in July when three new positions become available and, hopefully, you guys can get three new faces. We will probably have a problem with the old board and their way of doing things – my way or the highway. I hope you all can handle it. It will be a little difficult on the transition. What’s behind you is the membership elected you by a large margin. There has never been any minutes from the appointed board as to how or what things were done. By April or May it’ll start running a lot smoother. Follow the laws of the State and the county and our bylaws. We will have some costs from the previous board and those things will come up at the board meetings so we will have an idea of what they did or didn’t do and how much money we have to operate with.
TERMS:
Rick Smith – 3 year
Joe Dickinson – 3 year
Jeff Toffer – 3 year
Charlie Bennett – 2 year
Bill Pease – 2 year
Chris Cato – 2 year
Jim Boothby – 1 year
Richard Miller – 1 year
Not solidified yet – 1 year
OFFICERS’ ELECTION: (by secret ballot)
President- Bill Pease (5 VOTES)
VP- Rick Smith (5 VOTES)
Secretary- Charlie Bennett (5 VOTES)
Treasurer- Jim Boothby (4 VOTES)
GOOD OF THE ORDER
Our first meeting (October meeting) Jim Boothby will put together a budget and it can be approved line by line when you put the newsletter out. Rick Smith, can we do a new budget now without association input? Jim Boothby, if we can put together an abbreviated budget based on what is left from the 2019 budget to take us until July, 2021. At the annual meeting in July of 2021, we can present a new budget for 2021-2022 for approval. That’s the one that membership has total approval over everything we put forward.
All officers need to be prepared to hit the ground running. Our budget is finished on October 6, 2020. The remaining budget that will take us until July. Membership will need to approve. Jim will put together a budget that lets everyone know what our current status is.
Winterize cart. Security committee will need to take care of that. We also need to get the final person on the Board.
Charlie, I need to contact the attorneys and stop the transfer of the water rights right away.
Rick thinks we should post minutes draft immediately instead of reviewing first. Jim, these first minutes need to be done right away.
Every board member should have a key to the building. Only officers should have a key to office. Only secretary and treasurer should have keys to filing cabinet with the financial and secretary information.
Bill Pease motioned to adjourn and seconded by Jim Boothby.
Prepared by Vonnie Hutchison. Voice recording is being preserved.
Bill Pease, President
Vonnie Hutchison, Association Member