IT IS ELECTION TIME

02/27/07 Directors Meeting

The meeting started out this time with everyone pledging allegiance to a real flag. Richard Hansen began with questioning the wording of a sidewalk repair-replacement issue. Pat Burke answered with what the board was aware of. Larry D. made a comment. I believe Mr. Hansen argued one thing was said and another thing was done.

Larry D. went through the manager’s report. He said there was $45, 000 left to collect in outstanding fees. He described a new program for the safety meetings that he said are done once a week. They were using a slip and trip training program that's taking up about one hour of the employees work time three times a week so they can learn the best ways not to trip or slip. In closing Larry D. wanted to thank the members of the Board who were leaving.

Armando gave his as usual every job is completed in two hours report

Les Heier apologized about the Grill running out of chicken by six o’clock last Wednesday at Chicken Night. He implied theft as being the cause. Pat Burke came up with “there were reports” of people filling bags and plates in their pocket books. One director said people just ate a whole lot. It was noted our management ordered the right amount of chicken for the number of tickets sold. I guess nobody check the cooler to see if the chicken to be cooked was there.

Leroy Mulch got the Board's approval of the minutes.

Mary Steffensen corrected Larry D. that there was $73,000 in outstanding monies left to be collected. She went into the figures for the park and finalized with the Villages profit and loss report. . Pat Burke got the Board to approve the report

Dennis S. said the Golf Committee made over $20,000 in a fundraiser. This committee and the people associated have done a great job this year and should be applauded. Great Job!!!!

Mary S. said the pool committee is getting several lounges repaired. She also talked about the use of wrist bans from May-Sept. and possible procedural changes. She said there were 3,300 renters that used our pool last year. We're looking at an average of about 165 non-owners using our pools per day if their stayed here was a week. Any way you look at it, the owners will be again hard pressed to use their own pool area this May-Sept.

Pat Burke brought up the issue of Laguna Madre Water District's $23,000 charge for transporting our sewage 2.5 days (Friday July 13th- Sun July 15th) when our sewer line broke. She freely admitted they made just a verbal hauling agreement with an employee of the Laguna Madre Water District who had no authority. She once again made the comment that this mess was possibly caused by someone else. To clarify, that someone else is an owner who went to the LMWD office, presented herself as an LIV resident, and asked for permission to inquire on the particulars towards the transporting of the Villages sewage. That's all this person did and it happened on Tuesday July 17th, two days after this so called agreement had ended. This owner had absolutely nothing to do with the mess created by those in charge and had every right to make inquiries. One should question why didn't the people in charge asked this LMWD employee if he had authority to make any agreement or follow up a verbal with a written agreement during the time area of the agreement. Was some simple business common sense forgotten with Village owners money involved. If anyone knows about mistakes, I do. We all can make mistakes. Just admit them and move on and not play the a “may have” game. It ended with Pat B. will try to get them to settle for what LIV paid to have the Big Red Truck do for over 50 days. That was to truck our sewage for $2000 a day.

Larry D. and Pat B. brought up the issue of buying a new copier. After forty minutes it was left tabled for further debate.

Larry D. proposed to put all records on CD’s. The Board liked that idea but tabled it for review.

Mary S. proposed her final procedures for an asset relocation list. The Board approved it.

Variances came up and boy was that a ring around the rosy. Point of fact the board worked hard to get it right and came up with what I believe was the correct solution. Good job Board members. I believe it ended with omitting the word "rear" in describing deck area for a building code.

New business started out with wanting to sign up a new attorney Aaron Garcia to be our new repo man for foreclosures. Have you paid your dues?

A request was asked and approved to have the Port Isabel junior/senior Prom here in our lovely Village. Estimates are over 350 people will attend. This will be on May 10th from 7pm till 11pm. Expect to stay at home this night owners.

Finally Larry D. inquired if it was legal for management to purchase foreclosure property before it’s foreclosed on. What would your answer be?

I do wish to compliment Pat Burke for the change which occurred in asking the attending owners for questions and comments during the meeting for most of the subjects that were brought up. It was enlightening.

Meet the Candidates

We had more people than chairs at the “Meet the Candidates Forum” Monday night. The candidates at the podium were Martha Nell Dodson, Richard Hansen, myself, Virginia Martin, Ed McBride, James Peterson, Rita Priest, and Bud Sherry. There is one candidate giving out his flyer's named Ronnie Gonzalez who will be nominated from the floor on Saturday. When was the last time there was more than twice as many candidates running than positions needed? I believe this large turnout of both concerned owners running and concerned owners’ listening is the start of a beautiful thing. CHANGE!!!
Since I am running I will hold my opinions on the candidates except for one Ed McBride, who seemed to have done the best job of expressing himself. That said, I do wish to give special thanks to Mary Steffensen for the great job she did as curator of the meeting. Good luck to all and we’ll see what happens this Saturday.

02/20/08 Coffee with the Directors

Our Coffee with the Directors meeting started with Pledging Allegiance without a flag to pledge to. Give this one to management. You should have seen the look our G.M. Larry D. gave Les and Armando. The suggestion box had a thank you to The Church of Christ. The second was a comment about anger control and arrest histories of Candidates. Again pool cleanliness and mold was brought up, not once but twice. Someone wanted us to change the parking signs which few people obey located in front of the activity center from 5pm to 7pm. The reason was so they won’t have to walk so far to get their mail. That was it for what was in the suggestion box. I witnessed an interesting thing before the meeting. One of our Directors asked what is that box, referring to the suggestion box. This Director had no clue we even had a box for our suggestions. Oh well.

Larry D. said we had someone vandalizing the fountain in our pool area.

Selba Campbell had asked Peter Zavaletta, a person running for District Attorney in Cameron county to join our meeting and was told he could not talk to people during the meeting. Selba brought up that Port Isabel’s Joe Vega told her he was going to annex Long Island Village as his first newly elected action.

Martha Nell gave thanks to everyone for their support at the health fair.

Rick Henson asked the board to disclose the names of who writes their suggestions since the Directors have access to the knowledge.

Vivian, who heads the 7am pool exercise group, made a strong statement on her displeasure about the continuing inconsistency of the pools and spas water.

Mr. Price from lot 744 asked why not give a check list to the employee doing the pools.

Larry D. said that they are starting a new person at 3:30 am to do the pools this week.

The next person asked why we don’t heat the outdoor pool.

Jim Peterson said there was mold in the pool and bath showers.

A Mr. Hansen asked about getting the year end financials.

Pat Burke closed the meeting by laying the ground work for the “meet the candidates” meeting.

The Workshop

The workshop was a little interesting. It started with Mary S. wanted an asset removal list from management. She basically wanted the Board to review what is to be removed or moved. Interesting to note that our Board does not have an asset list of items $700 and under. These are kept in Aramark's inventory system. This should amount to a tidy sum.

Dennis Sullivan commented on the tremendous progress happening on the golf course.

Then there came the issue on variances. It seemed Pat Burke was upset that they were even discussing a variance since they just finalized the changes in the building codes. She wanted say no to the variance or change the code. Dennis S. and Dick Y. disagreed and it ended there. Larry D. who enforces the codes made some comments.