BOARD OF DIRECTORS 10/22/2008

After the pledge of allegiance, our President asked Director Mulch who is taking down our minute information. Jan Mulch and Sandra Etter said Director Mulch. A Director asked why the change from Mary who had been doing a fine job for years? Director Mulch said directors and certain people in the park were bothering Mary. Mary is very sensitive he said, so she is no longer capable. Director Dodson asked who the directors were. President Sullivan said she’s been subjected to stress for reporting supposedly differences as to what may have occurred at the meetings. The President said this was to take stress off of Mary. Director Dodson’s question as to which directors were bothering her was never answered.
FROM THE AUDIENCE
Selba Campbell addressed issues about voter ballots.
A man from lot #326 expressed his displeasure with our Board and opposed in contributing owner’s money to OPM. He stated with a little ingenuity there were other ways to achieve this. Director Burke gave him a summationa on what her intentions were and that they have so far raised $1980 to give to 17 employees who had worked here during hurricane Dolly. They may add some owner money to it.
MANAGER’S REPORT
Fines, late fees, building permits were discussed. Nothing out of ordinary was said until near the end when our GM explained he’s currently having a problem with roofers doing our Rec. Hall and Activity Center roof repair because they along with the insurance adjuster that was assigned to us all went to Galveston. He said as of today no full written damage report has ever been received. The repair appears to be in the range of $100,000+ for our Village. He said he has contacted the insurance agent.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES
When the President asked for the approval of the 8/27/08 minutes, Director Dodson asked for a correction to an answer given by Reta Priest. Director Dodson said she had asked Priest if LIV owners had signed their own names on the recall ballots. Director Dodson said the minutes state that she did not respond when it should read she answered yes. Director Burke immediately told Director Dodson that Priest denies saying that. Director Dodson explained she had to ask Priest three times before she said finally said yes. You don’t forget or misunderstand the answer when having to do that. From the audience Reta Priest jumped up and said I did not answer you. Director Burke suggested leaving the original answer as is and note that there is a dispute. She said that would be an accurate assessment. Many on the board disagreed. The Board would not approve the minutes for 8/27/08. It was mentioned of a taped that proved Priest saying yes. It was said that Mary wrote down that Priest said yes in the minutes. Director Burke in a cross examining way, asked at this time when Mary was taking down the minutes, was she looking at Reta Priest to know it was her that said yes? Director Burke went on to say if we put in the minutes what Reta Priest now currently disputes; it may bring up issues later. Our President Sullivan said he was looking at her mouth and it said yes when asked that third time. The President did ask what issue are we making here? Director McBride responded by saying this is a legal document that should be correct. Director Burke again expressed that this continue as is. Director Dodson asked Director Mulch if he had the notes that Mary took and the tape of this meeting. He gave his take on what Priest said and after being asked three times he finally said yes. Director Dodson said she would like it to be reviewed by appointed directors. Director Burke again communicated like an attorney talking about the validity of anything on the tape. It was voted to table the 8/27/08 minutes until further review.
In the 9/04/08 minutes Director McBride wanted to strike the sentence that reported he said the new fire hydrant recently installed was working. He said he never said such. He said it should read that he said that the fire hydrant was moved and was not working for almost a year. That was noted and changed. There were several more minor changes. These Minutes were then approved.
TREASURER’S REPORT
Other than the report which showed that some of the financial income was affected from Dolly, it was pretty much the same. It showed the Center losses as usual in the profit and loss statement. Director Hansen brought up a shocking discovery. He had the most recent records showing continuous monthly bank balances showing an averaged over $500,000 in one account and minimal or minus in another. It was noted by having that much in one account our Village could have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars from a bank failure. This happened after being assured in a previous meeting by our GM and the treasurer that these accounts are never done this way but instead they are evenly distributed so as to be federally insured. He said that this was totally irresponsible to our organization. The response was, it would be looked into.
COMMITTEE REPORT
Audit committee: (D-Steffensen) Rental Office had one recommendation to vote a change in our Declaration at the annual meeting for lowering the liability to $100K.
Decorating and Entertainment: (D-Dodson) there were too many upcoming events to list.
Golf: (P-Sullivan) Owner daily fees $1 increase, Renters/guests $2 increase, Beverages $.25 increase, credit cards will either stop being used or have a 3% fee. The remainder of concrete will be pour on hole #6.
Security Report: (D-Dodson) Securitas because of the court order will begin on Jan. 1st instead of Nov. 15th. There were no problems with Securitas from this court action that delayed the start date.
UNFINISH BUSSINESS
Employee Hurricane Bonus: (Director Burke) The board approved that the 17 employees received $125 each.
Bathhouse 1 & 3: (Directors Mulch, Peterson) A decision was made to combine the original April’s ideas with Director Peterson’s new plans and not to exceed $28K total for both bathhouses.
Sidewalks: (Director Mulch) The replacement of new sidewalks in front of the Activity Center and by the Heli Pad, plus install a sidewalk starting from the alphabet lots to the security building.1 bid was all that was received for this sidewalk work. Our GM said this is known by President Sullivan to be the cheapest we’ll get. Director Burke made a recommendation to suspend the original requirements to receive 3 bids because of the Winter Texans are coming soon. Motion was made to get 3 bids and was passed.
Margaret Gage Issue: (Director Peterson) Director Peterson through the recommendation of our President, secured an agreement that Mrs. Gage will pay $250 a month for a total of $1000 of the $2000 owed for attorney fees incurred when a restraining order was placed on this 80 year old lady. Our GM said this was done to stop her from capping or damaging Village water lines that she thought were put on her property. It appeared after talking to our GM she was reluctant to speak to anyone with respect. Director Peterson pointed out that this could have been handled a whole lot better by everyone involved and thought that the reason for him doing this was to stop the escalation of the attorney fees.. Director Peterson said he had talked to board members while working on this agreement, but before he could explain that this was done individually, our GM made the comment to the audience about another secret meeting. It was explained by Director Burke in short for her but lengthy for us speech, and by the general manager, of how this 80 year old woman did this to herself. This was seemingly confirmed by our President that he had numerous contacts from her and her daughter that were uneventful. It appears she had only verbally said what she thought of doing, but never physically did anything. Director Mulch said if we were to accept this agreement it will lead us to a very, very, deep hole. Motion to approve the agreement was voted on and was a tie with our tiebreaker Board President voting no to make the motion fail.
Swimming Pool Bids: (Director Mulch) Asked by Director Dodson if there was more than the two bids obtained. The answer was no. She was told by Director Mulch and Director Burke on how hard it is for our GM to get bids in South Texas. Director Dodson said she had found two additional pool companies that should provide legitimate bids and again explained that there was a Board agreement that a minimum of three legitimate bids were to always be obtained. A discussion about the pool steps. It was then decided to obtain more bids.
Other: Director Hansen wanted to talk about what our Village is being charged to do our trash pickup. During the weeks he was here, he had monitored what trash was picked up and what was being charged. He found that we have been noticeably overbilled with trash pickups. He said by his calculation our Village may be overpaying as much as $60,000. He said during the week of the hurricane when the bridge was non- passable, we were charged for trash pickup. Our GM explained that we transported trash to a bin across the channel and that is what they were charging. Director Hansen asked him if we had 14 bins over there, because that the number they charged for. Motion was made for management to implement a plan that includes recycling and get at least three sealed bids from companies. Director Burke expressed her opinion. Motion passed
Director McBride had obtained for our GM a national and a local fire hydrant height requirement off the internet with pictures. At the last Coffee meeting, our GM said he needed a standard or rule to give to the installer to show he needs to fix it.. Director McBride also said he noticed that in a 2006 GM report the sea cottage hydrants were raised to fire department requirements. The GM said the installer in coming out to correct it at no charge to us.
Director Dodson asked President Sullivan if there had been a meeting with our attorneys about the Cowen Lawsuit. Director Burke was the only board member invited by our President to attend this meeting that was dubbed by her as a discovery meeting. That was all that these two wished to say about the meeting. It was never asked or said who else was invited to attend this meeting.
NEW BUSINESS
Cabrera Variance Lot 1 (Director Burke) Variance passed.

Meeting adjourned.