January 11, 2022

Sierra Los Pinos Property Owners' Association
Board of Directors Meeting
January 11, 2022 at 6:32 p.m.

The meeting was called to order by the President Paul Lisko with seven members present: Josh Toennis, Ann Cooke, Jeremy Oepping, John Hines, Kristi Cross, David Stuedell, and Keith Rigney. Cindy Hines and Paul Rightley were excused.

Guests: Suzanne Star.

Approval of Agenda. Jeremy Oepping made a motion to approve the agenda; seconded by Ann Cooke, motion carried.

Approval of Minutes: David Stuedell moved to approve the minutes of the December 14, 2021; seconded by Keith Rigney; motion carried.

OFFICER REPORTS:
PRESIDENT:

Paul Lisko reported:

Pursuant to discussion at December meeting about variance for LANet, he forwarded the statement from the attorney of 9/23/21 regarding this to all the members of the Architectural Control Committee on December 27th. He has heard nothing back.

They would be finalizing the contract on the co-mingle project with NV5 sometime this week. By the next meeting we will already be underway with the bid process hopefully and I’ll report more at that time.

There is a NM State Forestry/Sandoval County CWPP meeting planned for January 21. He had contacted them to get a seat at the table, but was advised invitations were only sent out to select individuals. He checked with Chris Romo and was informed that this particular planning meeting they were just going to discuss where the finances for the community wildfire protection plan are going to come from, a combination of state forestry, US forest service and Sandoval County Emergency Management. After that they are going to have a kickstarter meeting where many more community members will be invited. So I’ll look forward to attending that. I learned who the Emergency Management Officer is for Sandoval County and I sent her a request about if they could help us earmark some funding to get our water tank. I’ve lived in the community since 2014, and up to this point there have been three attempts to try and get these tanks from Intel placed up here and, for one reason or another, it just didn’t happen. So I let her know about that, too, and hopefully she’ll be able to come back to me with some idea of how we can accomplish that. I cc’d Ann Cooke, being our Firewise Coordinator, and also John Hines, being our water guy, so they were in the loop on this. Are there any questions about any of that, comments?

He wished to be reimbursed for two months of increased Cloud storage from Zoom in the amount of $84.10. This is for December and for January. And once the minutes from the November 6 Special Meeting on Water are finally transcribed and approved by the Board, then he can delete that recording from the Cloud storage and go back to the regular storage that we get with our being able to use Zoom.

Kristi Cross moved to reimburse Paul $84.10 for the extra storage on the Cloud for Zoom. Ann Cooke seconded the motion; motion carried.

A desire to upgrade the Zoom Pro Plan to the Business Plan. Right now we pay around $149 for that plan. To upgrade to the Business Plan would be $50 more a year, or a total of $199. The reason why this was suggested, and David kind of led the charge on this, it may be more beneficial for Kristi to have this transcription already prepared of the recording, and then she could go back through and edit it based upon – sometimes when you get this AI transcription, they will kind of goof up words occasionally. So this way, at least most of it will be down on paper and then Kristi can go back and edit it as necessary. In an effort to save the $50, he investigated the closed captioning and taking down things as close captioned, and will check that file once we get through with the meeting and see if it actually did anything. The bottom line is, I think the $50 extra a year is probably a good investment, especially if it’s going to save Kristi time and trouble with transcription. So if nobody has anything to say otherwise about that, I’m going to open the floor to discussion if anybody does; otherwise, if they don’t, I’d like a motion that we go with this business plan.

Keith R: I say buy it now, but I have one question. Does the business plan have more storage online as well?

Paul L: No, unfortunately it does not. You have to actually pay for that additional storage. It has one megabyte of storage and usually what would happen is, is that was enough to cover whatever the board meeting was that we had. And I can’t delete that file until we actually approve the minutes that were recorded. And so, the next meeting there would be another recording and I would get a notice from Zoom saying that you have exceeded your Cloud storage capacity. But as soon as the minutes had been approved from that previous meeting, I was able to delete that recording, and then there wouldn’t be an issue with it. Is there any further discussion about this?

Kristi C: Under normal circumstances we wouldn’t have to exceed the gigabyte that we currently have, it’s just the fact that the special meeting is sitting out there, which I’m working on, that’s taking up that extra space. So that’s the only reason for the overage at this time. You are correct with the transcript of Zoom, it will probably be about 80 percent accurate because of the AI capacity of it. Even with Dragon Naturally Speaking, you’ve got to train it to recognize your voice. So across-the-board transcription like that won’t recognize every single person’s voice, and it’s also based on clarity. So that would also necessitate me going back through it.

I think it will also alleviate any potential misconception on the part of anyone who thinks that, you know, things are not fully being vetted on the minutes, or being left out on purpose. So that, to me, would be a huge bonus as well.

Paul L: I agree with you, and I think it would help to make your job easier, so I think it’s the way to go. I will entertain a motion that we upgrade the Zoom plan from the Pro Plan to the Business Plan.

Keith Rigney moved that the Board update to the Zoom Business Plan. David Stuedell seconded the motion; motion carried.

VICE PRESIDENT:

Keith Rigney reported:

Starlink is now here within our area. Anyone that preordered as of six months or earlier got their dishes in December. I initially set mine up on my deck on two ladders, and I was getting intermittent service, or I was getting cut-outs. Every 15 minutes to about an hour, I was getting a ten-second cutout, and then it would be back up and going. But in the meantime while it is going, I’m getting anywhere between 90 to 280 megabytes per second. So it’s a lot; it’s fast, really fast. Since then I moved it to my roof, and I have not gotten any interruptions at all and my speeds are consistently around the 180 to 150 megabytes per second range, with no data cap, no nothing. So if you’re looking for good internet, and you’re not scared of having someone not local, I’d highly suggest buying Starlink. They are currently about six months out for anyone that does want it, but it’s an investment and it’s definitely worth it. If anyone has any questions, let me know.

With regard to the household water meter calibration concerns, I got the anonymous numbers from John Hines. It showed that my household used over 8,000 gallons in the month of December, which is a huge red flag to me, because we were gone for a total of 20 days in December. I didn’t understand how 8,000 was even a thing. But since then, I was able to log into my SLPPOA online, and that one states that we used around 2,000 for the month of December, which is still high, I think, but that could be my washer/dryer, whatever it may be, but it made more sense. So right now there is a miscommunication between our anonymous numbers and what’s actually getting submitted, at least from my household. I’m going to start ignoring the anonymous numbers and only going after the submitted.

He had not made any post on Facebook. I saw that Paul wanted me to make one, but I wanted to make sure it sounded nice before I submitted it, and I understood everything if anyone had any questions. Paul, I’m going to try and get that addressed. To clarify, this post is going be about the grants for thinning. I will get that posted this week and try to get people in the community to apply.

Paul L: With regard to the grants, the form is pretty simple, and they need to complete them as soon as possible because it’s a first come/first serve basis

David S. asked for more information on Starlink.

Keith R: Latency is 82 milliseconds. The max that he has had in the last 12 hours is 110 milliseconds, and the minimum he’s had is 25 milliseconds. In the last 24 hours, I’ve been obstructed for 22 total seconds. It’s great. It’s very temperamental to trees and obstructions at this time. It literally gives you a picture of blue and red and what’s clear and what’s not when you are setting it up. Latency is not an issue.

David S: As far as downloading Netflix, how is that?

Keith R: There were no hiccups, no buffers, no loading screens, nothing. I think if you look at the statistics for Netflix, it only takes one megabyte per second consistently to actually stream low quality Netflix. Here you are streaming in the hundreds of megabytes per second. You could stream Netflix on ten TVs while downloading documents, while listening to youtube, while streaming music, while playing video games all at the same time, and I’ll bet you, you wouldn’t even know that that much traffic would be going on. It’s night and day difference. I feel like I’m in the modern ages again.

John H: We just installed our Starlink this weekend. Originally I put it on the deck, and I was like Keith, getting obstruction and stuff, but now I’ve moved it up to our roof, and the highest we’ve gotten is 5 megs, and we have no complaints. We’ve been able to run four different things at once, download Prime video or Netflix, emails, everything has just been awesome. Like Keith said, there is no data restraints on it. The latency doesn’t appear to be any issue at all, no drop-offs. So we’re really impressed so far.

David S: This is a big move, a big transition for people in our area, because once you have connectivity, basically, who cares where you are at. So this is huge news and it’s really good to hear these reports.
SECRETARY:

Kristi Cross reported:

The minutes through December should be on the website. I sent everything to Mark and he says they were posted. I wasn’t aware that I needed to post the financial statements, but I can get those to him.

Jeremy O: I sent him all of the financial statements for the second half of the year, so he has those PDF documents in hand right now.

The transcription of the special meeting is progressing. She asked Paul to help verify voices. The biggest problem is you can hear the person that is presenting as long as they are facing the camera, as well as people who are asking questions in the gallery. It’s impossible to verify who the person is most of time and depending on how far away they were from the microphone it’s hard to understand everything they are saying. When people start talking overtop of each other and you’ve got several people talking at the same time, it’s very difficult to hear. So just know that it may not be completely verbatim because there’s a lot of it that you can’t hear, and not being there you can’t control the room. That’s why it’s taking longer is trying to figure out who’s talking, what are they saying and getting that done.

Paul L: I’ll be able to help you with identifying some of those voices, because I’m used to hearing them doing the Zoom meetings. And then, based upon what they’re asking, I can pretty much identify who the folks are, and I will assist you with that.

Kristi C: My understanding is it’s more important to get the information down from the people who are presenting, than it is the questions from the gallery.

TREASURER:

Jeremy Oepping reported:

The balance in accounts as of December 31, 2021 is as follows:
Operating Account: $124,002.41
Reserve Account: $128,033.10

As of December 31, we have 5 delinquent accounts totaling $5,891.59 (decrease of $4,344.85 from last month). So we are whittling those down.

The December amount of $666.67 was transferred to Reserves during the month.

There were four changes in property ownership in December.

Jose Vigil and Courtney Winter, 248 Los Griegos Road
Michael and Josephine Meadows, 168 Los Griegos Road
Melissa Hardcastle, 102 Trilobite Trial
Anders Stromberg, 23 Scouts Lane

I’m going to move to item number five under the treasurer’s report, approval of year-end financial documents from HOAMCO. We need to do that, but I’ve got a little bit of additional information there, and then I would like a motion to approve the financials for year-end, please.

A couple of items of note from that particular set of financials. For the 2021 year-end, we were overspent by a total of $17,016.75. We were overspent in legal from budget – again, we set the budget based on historical numbers, what we’ve spent in the past. So overspent versus budget for legal by about $20,000. We were overspent in water (general) by about $16,500. We were overspent in roads, again versus budget, by about $6,000, and overspent in water sampling versus budget by about 1500 bucks. We also had a couple of items that were underspent fairly substantially. We were underspent versus budget for System 1 water by about $15,000, and underspent in System 2 water by about $3,500. So again, overall, we were overspent versus our budget by about just over $17,000. Any questions?

David S: The thing that I sent for the tarp, the receipt for the tarp, I’m just wondering if you submitted that?
Jeremy O: It has been submitted, yep.

Suzanne S: Jeremy, this is Suzanne. I don’t know if you just went over this a minute ago. Did you make a comment, or are you going to comment on if we had any carryover from last year to this year, or not. That 128 that you just mentioned a minute ago, does that include a carryover, or is that all new for this year.

Jeremy O: The total in the operating account of $124,000 includes the overspent from last year of $17,000 and change. So there is no carryover, there’s under-over, or however you would state that.

Suzanne S: Okay. I didn’t quite hear that. Thank you.

Jeremy O: If we could approve the year-end financials, then I can get that back to HOAMCO and they can get started on taxes and that other fun stuff.

Kristi Cross moved to approve the year-end financials. Ann Cooke seconded the motion; motion carried.

Jeremy O: I do have a list of questions from one of our members, and I’d like to just walk quickly through the questions and answers here, and I’ll take any additional comments or questions.

There was a question around the entire amount of $22,892, plus tax, for NV5, the design cost; did that come out of the $6500 water general budget? The answer is yes, that’s where that came from.

How much did we overspend that particular budget line item, that 6500? Again, that’s water general. We overspent that this past year by $16,700.

The next question: The dollar amount that has been carried forward from last year’s operating fund? Again, we were overspent, so we are just over $17,000 in ’21-’22. Just for reference, looking back at the carryover, if you will, from 2020 into last year, into 2021, we carried over $705. So we were pretty darn close to budget a year ago and, again, overspent by about $17,000 this year.

How many delinquents are being carried forward into 2022 delinquent accounts and what is the total amount? As I stated in the treasurer’s report, there are five delinquent accounts currently that are carrying forward and that total amount is $5,891.59. Again, we’ve whittled that down quite substantially.

There was a question around reformatting the annual review required by the bylaws. There hasn’t been an annual review posted to the website since 2016, and when can we expect to see the 2021 annual review posted? I have sent that to our webmaster to have that posted. I also thought that that was included in the annual meeting agenda this year, and Paul, maybe you remember, but in any case, it’s been submitted to be posted. So that new format that I reviewed at the annual meeting is submitted to be posted.

There was a question around: Are we due for an audit at the end of 2022 and has this been budgeted? We are not due for an audit in 2022. That will be budgeted, and it will be done in 2023. So we do those every three years. The last one that we did was back in 2020.

The financials have not been posted since July? We talked a little bit about this before. I have sent everything since July, all the way through December, to our webmaster, and have asked that to be updated as quickly as possible.

Paul L: What were you asking me about with respect to the annual meeting, Jeremy?

Jeremy O: Was the treasurer’s annual review included in the email that went out to everyone for that?

Paul L: You mean with like the breakdown of the – yeah, the budget and all that, yes.

Suzanne S: Question, Jeremy? I think the last audit we had was December 2019, not 2020. Could you recheck that to make sure?

Jeremy O: I can double-check. Typically, we would run – yeah, I’ll double-check.

Now, I’m going back to Roman numeral iv on the agenda. Just as a heads-up, there’s some questions that have come up recently with our partner HOAMCO. So I had a conversation with a couple of the portfolio managers back at the end of December. Most of what I found out there was things I just didn’t know in transition to coming into treasurer a number of years ago; so, having that conversation was very helpful. We actually now have got a new and a different resale report that is provided to me, to make sure that we are capturing all of the transfers of ownership. Those things were happening in the past, but now the report I’m receiving actually provides a little bit more information to make sure our member listings and so forth are being kept up-to-date. So that was very helpful.
We’ve had some issues recently around bills not getting paid in what I would consider a timely manner. What we did discuss was that HOAMCO had some turnover issues and some new employees over the last several months, sort of fall into winter and so forth. And there’s been some sickness going around, as we can all probably attest to, and so they are doing some additional reviewing of processes to make sure that some of the things that I had brought up there are not falling through the cracks. So, again, all in all, I’m pretty confident and comfortable in that conversation as well.
And then we did have a little bit more conversation around aged owner balances, so that was a follow-up to a conversation specifically that was brought up at our last Board meeting. I did clarify the process a bit, and one of the things we found was – I’m going to over-generalize it, but basically, everyone thought everyone else was doing something with those delinquent accounts. So now I’ve got a bit of clarification around that, and I’ll be working more closely with Turner Law to run down some of those delinquent accounts.
And the last item under that is around member listings.

I have asked HOAMCO if it’s possible that they manage the member listings, and I’m not asking for a decision tonight, but some consideration, and maybe I need to bring this up again when Cindy is around, as well, because she probably knows a little bit more. I continue to use Quick Books on the laptop that I have as treasurer. Each month when we’ve got a change in ownership, I switch out the owners for those particular properties, but really from what I can tell, I’m not doing any payments, I’m not doing any collections, and any of those sorts of things that’s basically managing a member list and keeping track of the water system, the end-point serial numbers and those sorts of things. Having a conversation with HOAMCO, they could actually manage that for us, and we could discontinue use of Quick Books. And before we make any decisions around that, I just wanted to sort of put it out there to see if anybody has any thoughts around, you know, why that might be a bad idea. Otherwise, I may continue to explore that. Any thoughts or comments on discontinuing Quick Books?

Paul L: I’m willing to go along with whatever you suggest on that, Jeremy. I mean, if you’re finding it’s a useful tool, then I would say continue.

Jeremy O: I’ll double back and check with Cindy. Pre-HOAMCO, we managed our finances, is my understanding, through Quick Books. I’ve never done any of that because we’ve had HOAMCO since I’ve been in this role, and it just seems like a bit of double work.
Paul L: I did want to mention something about the delinquent accounts, working with Turner Law to address those delinquent accounts. I mean, we spent a whole lot, going over-budget on legal, and I’d like to avoid doing that. I mean, I realize a lot of it had to do with that property at the top of High Road, that tied up a lot of that money, but one of the things I would like to suggest is we would initially send out a letter to whoever has a delinquent account. It could come from Paul Rightley as director of legal, or from me as the president of the Association, and just sort of develop some sort of form letter that says, hey, your dues are in arrears by this amount of money, it is a friendly reminder, and give them a date to get it paid, and then say, you know, we don’t really want to proceed legally against you. If we can handle this in-house, that will be great. And then give them a certain amount of time to get into compliance, after which we can then go to the attorney. That’s my two-cents’ worth anyway.

The last item on my list -- Thank you, John Hines, for getting me the well readings so that the January water conservation fee has been submitted to New Mexico Tax and Revenue. If you remember, there was a snafu there where one of our payments from the past four years was actually sent to a different tax department at the State. We’ve got that all cleared away. They’ve got it in the right spot. We have a credit, and so our second half of 2022 will be paid by that particular credit that is on our account.

I have submitted documents and design to the webmaster to update the financials web page. Originally, it was thought that I was going to be able to do some of that work. What I have found is, is that site itself was not all that user friendly. It takes a bit of programming, I’m going to call it, because I don’t know what it is, some sort of code language that it needs to do that. Our webmaster has mentioned it probably needs a complete rework if we wanted to do some things that are a little bit more user friendly. I have asked to bring the financials current. I have submitted those particular documents, to get those added, and I also did a bit of double-checking to make sure – I’m trying to be, from a treasurer’s standpoint, as transparent as possible in getting everything, all those documents out there. I did a double-check with HOAMCO, as well. They thought it was a great idea, make sure it’s behind a firewall so you’ve got to log in, in order to access those, which on our website that is the case. So I will continue to work with our webmaster on that. But, again, that’s not his top priority necessarily to work our stuff, but I know he is working it.

The last item on my list was around our annual taxes for business personal property declaration, I have completed those worksheets and submitted that to the Sandoval County Assessor. Again, that is looking at any property that we own as an Association. And, really, it’s pretty minimal. So I do the new amortization schedule and submit that each year.

That is all I have; any comments or questions? Sorry that was so long today.

STANDING COMMITTEE REPORTS:

Water:

John Hines reported:

For our water maintenance, general: System 2 well quit working on December 19th, due to a relay being taken out by, I suspect, the lightning storm that we had. We replaced it with the last new relay we had, and I have ordered and received two new ones for the future.

We replaced the batteries in the Levelcon sending units, because they started having glitches in telling us the levels of the water tanks.

We had a power outage, as you know, on December 31st to January 1st.

Forest Water 10 well, the Meadow well, quit working after we had that outage, so I had to reset the Levelcon on it. For some reason, when the power went out, it didn’t come back on.

We had our frozen waterline at 165 Forest Road 10, and I called for line locates, began to excavate. In the meantime, having it warming back up and being exposed, the valve became unfrozen, and so we didn’t have to actually excavate or dig. What had happened was the pipe, the PVC pipe that was over the valve had been hit and broken off and so cold air got in there and froze it. So temporarily I stuffed it full of insulation and sealed it so it wouldn’t freeze and we haven’t had any more problems there.

I did weekly well and pump inspections.
As far as my operator exam goes, I was scheduled to take it this week, but due to, I assume, Covid, it was cancelled, so I’m waiting to hear back from them when they’re going to reschedule it.

The recalibration of the well meters, I’m still waiting to hear back from them. I have not heard anything from them. I think they took time off during the holidays.

The payment due for the New Mexico Rural Water Association is $219, and I’d like to request someone make a motion to pay that. They are very beneficial, especially when we have to do any kind of excavation or installation, they are also there, and at no cost to us, plus their expertise is valuable. So I think it’s really important that we stay a member of the New Mexico Rural Water Association.

Dave Stuedell made a motion to pay the annual dues of $219 to the New Mexico Rural Water Association; Ann Cooke seconded; the motion carried.

Paul L: I did have one question before we moved on, John. Were you called for the line locate? That was to 811; correct?

John H: Correct.

Paul L: So they have that program now that they warned us about last month, where once your line locate has been confirmed, you have to call them back and make sure to verify that it was confirmed. So, was that done?

John H: When I called them, I did all that they required that I do, and they did not show up to do the line locates anyway, so I did not call them back. Since they never showed up in the first place, I didn’t figure I had anything to tell them.

You’re going to notice on these reports that we pumped and used a lot more water in the month of December.

System 1:

Pumped 693,978 gallons
Used: 543,863 gallons
Average Household Usage; 86.28 gallons per day
Lost: 150,115 gallons; leakage rate of 21.6%
Leak Flags – 12 (all 12 were repeats)
Users over 7,000 gallons – sixteen, with ten having leak flags. I suspect one of the reasons was, was it was a long month and a lot of people had visitors.

System 2:

Pumped 224,140 gallons
Used: 258,000 gallons.
Now, you’re going to say how did we use more than we pumped? I’ve noticed this happen before. When we’ve had a power outage, or we’ve had to co-mingle, or we’ve drained the tanks, then we have to refill and we actually end up using more gallons than we pumped. The reason why that is, I suspect, is that we’re using gallonage out of the tanks and, when I read the meters, the tanks haven’t been refilled yet, so we’ve actually had to pump as much as it was to get the tanks back to full. So it’s actually showing we’re using more than we are pumping. For me to double-check this on the meter readings, I actually, physically went and read the meters and they did concur with what the meter reader actually read, so I’m sure the meter reading was right. This is the second time it’s happened and both times it’s happened after we had drained the tanks, so I think that’s what is going on.
Average Household Usage: 168,000
Lost: 136 gallons; leakage rate of 1%
Leak Flags – 4, with 4 being repeats
Users over 7,000 gallons – 17 (versus 2 the month before) Once again, I think that’s due to the people using a lot more water over the holidays and having guests.

Mark had a program that was doing the calculations for the anonymous readings. Since he left, he didn’t leave that program, and so I’ve had to re-do the program. And I did find some fallacies in my program that I’ve redone, so I’m still working on that and you’ll have to bear with me.

Both System 1 and 2 are in compliance: System 1, Total Coliform, Absent; Total E. Coli, Absent; Disinfection Residual 0.11 mg/l
System 2, Total Coliform, Absent; Total E. Coli, Absent; Disinfection Residual 0.9 mg/l

Roads:

David Stuedell reported:

There were two items on the agenda, the first being people complaining about the plowing. I did talk to Jonathan. He wanted to get a feeling for the plowing early on, so he was plowing when there wasn’t much snow. So we had some mild complaints about that. I’m more concerned about people complaining about their driveway getting blocked by the plowing. I mean, this is going to happen unless we – I don’t know what to think. I mean, what do people think? I mean, when the plow comes by, it’s going to plow stuff in front of your driveway. I don’t know what to say, I don’t know what to do, I’m kind of at a loss. I mean, I’m thankful we have someone who is willing to plow and so enthusiastic on every front. So what are people’s thoughts here?

Jeremy O: I’m with you David, it was a pretty heavy snowfall, and you’re going to have some in front of your driveway. We can’t go around and clear driveways.

Suzanne S: This is Suzanne. I wanted to let you know we did go ahead and talk with – I don’t remember his name right off, sorry – but what he was able to do, and I think we’ve notified him of it, is to go ahead and if he just lifts his blade just a little bit, he can just ease over some of the driveway areas. He did it for us down here on Ashley, and it made quite a bit of difference. I think when he was aware of the fact that when he plows and puts a big berm in front of your house, and if don’t immediately get after it, it could turn to ice, that makes it very difficult, but I think we were able to tell him he could do that, and he did that a couple of times and it seemed to work. So maybe he will do that more for other people, as well, just to not have the inconvenience of having to try to drive through two feet of ice if they don’t get at it right away.

David S: That is very, very good to know, and Jonathan seems to be – I’ve talked to him about various things, and so I appreciate you talking to him, because I didn’t know that, so that’s good information, Suzanne. Hopefully he keeps doing that going forward and I don’t get more complaints, so that’s really good news.

Paul L: He actually sent an email to us, probably about ten minutes before the meeting started, where he addressed these complaints and it pretty much covers everything you were saying, David. People complaining he plowed when there was only a minimal snowfall, and he wanted to gain experience with his truck and the plow before a larger storm hit. So he said he’s learned his lesson, it’s not going to happen again. He actually had one person that the guy hired Jonathan’s kids to remove the snow from his driveway. I think he’s being really conscientious and I think we should be thankful that we have a gentleman who is so conscientious about doing a good job. Especially since he went out of his way to try to fix that cinder spreader. I think he’s a very dedicated individual and I’m glad we have him onboard doing this.

David S: Thank you, Paul. And actually, Suzanne, you bring up a really good point. It might be something for our newsletter, because if you don’t get that bank of snow, if there is one, before it freezes up and becomes hard, you’ve got a real problem. I mean, you’re out there trying to chip it away. Sounds good. I think things are going pretty well. I’m pretty happy with the plowing, other than the issues that we’ve had.

On the other front, Jonathan has been working on this cinder spreader that has obviously reached the end of its life. I sent you a video last week. You could see. I mean, he tried his best to get it going. So he has identified a new unit, which I put in the chat, and you can look at it. Essentially, this is why we need a reserve because things like this come up where we need to do a purchase. We didn’t know we were going to need to do a purchase. We always don’t want to do a purchase if we can avoid it. But I think having the ability to spread cinders when we need them can be pretty important. Anyway, we’re looking at this spreader. I think it’s probably going to be around $5,000 with shipping and everything, but you can see here, if you open that link, that it’s quoted at 3900. I think there’s shipping and other costs associated with it. So I would like to request a motion to proceed with the purchase of this SaltDogg poly hopper spreader. It’s an electric spreader, so we’re not using a gas engine that, you know, is one of the big issues with the current spreader. And then we’ll mothball the current spreader and maybe try to fix it in the future, but we did get a quote of over $1,000, maybe $2,000 to fix it, and there just isn’t any point. It’s reached the end of its life and we’re not going to try to fix the current spreader.
Ann C: David, I would suggest you make the motion.

David S: I would like to make a motion to purchase this new electric whiz-bang SaltDogg poly hopper spreader, 1.5 cubic yard capacity, Model SHPE1500 for a list price of $3949.99. The motion was seconded by Ann Cooke. The motion carried.

Paul L: What generated this discussion in the first place was I received an email from Chief Taylor with the fire department and, in that email, it basically said unless there were cinders that were spread up on Los Griegos Road and about four other places, that we should expect that they’re not going to be able to get a fire truck up there. So that’s what kind of generated this whole thing. In terms of having a reliable cinder spreader so that we can assure that we’re going to get fire trucks up on Los Griegos and other high points within SLP, I think it’s well worth spending 39 and change to get this done.

David S: Are there any other road issues that we need to discuss? (No response)

Legal:

Paul Lisko reported: Paul Rightley is excused from being here tonight. He had family issues, but he sent me a report:

The status of the vacation rental permit for 66 Ashley Lane. He has since sent out that letter to the gentleman who has the Airbnb on Ashley. I think it just went out today. He gave him until the 28th of February to comply.

The other issue has to do with the puppy mill. He did send out a personal email to the people that had that puppy mill and kind of spelled out for them that, you know, they would need to do something to resolve this issue by the end of January. So he actually found out – he went to look at their website and the notice there says: Due to ongoing health issues, the difficult decision has been made to retire from breeding my beloved poodles. I took some time off to see if we could get the issues under control, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen any time soon. Therefore, consider Dream Time Party Poodles will no longer be providing puppies for adoption. So they are shutting down that puppy mill. Any questions about any of that?

Firewise:

Ann Cooke reported:

She had notified everyone who had expressed interest in thinning of the application and contact information to the Cuba Soil and Water District. So that is in the works.

As to the GOAT fire assessment, I have not been in contact with Chris over the holiday season. That’s something to do for February.

Architectural:

Josh Toennis reported:

No new architectural requests received in December.

On the other item, has not received any updates from LANet with regard to their progress on installing the tower.

That’s all I have, unless anyone has any questions.

Parks:

Paul Lisko reported: Cindy Hines was unable to attend tonight, and she told me that she had nothing to report as far as parks went.

ACTION ITEMS:

Paul L: The next item is the water rate billing structure to be developed with help from RCAC. Ann, do you want to address that, please?

Ann C: We have not done anything in the last month, mostly due to the holidays and commitments by a lot of other people or not working at this time, out on break. Besides, Paul isn’t here and we haven’t met, so we’ll leave it at that and, again, something for February.

Paul L: I got a notice from someplace called the Environmental Finance Center Network, and they have a no-cost Webinar series that’s coming up. It’s entitled, 2022 water loss series for small water systems. The flier details six webinars to show small water systems why and how to complete a water audit, and will provide guidance on using the audit results to future water loss control within their utilities. Those interested must register for each session individually and are welcome to attend any number of the six sessions. So the session number one is entitled: The Importance of Water Auditing and it’s scheduled to take place January 27th from 1:00 to 1:30 p.m. Next one is February 17th, Session 2, Developing a Results Oriented Water Loss Control Program.

But the first one on January 27th, it says this 30-minute session will explain the big picture of water loss control for small water utilities. A water loss audit is only a part of water loss control and a loan does not reduce water loss. Therefore, systems should understand what a water loss control program includes and the role a water audit plays in such programs. This session will outline the benefits of implementing a water loss control program that includes water auditing. I’m going to sign up for this webinar. Is there anyone else who wants this information?

John H: Paul, I’ve already signed up for it.

The next regular board meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, February 8, 2022 at 1830 hours.

Paul L: Before we adjourn, I noticed one other person that came into the meeting a little late was Marsha. Marsha Gaillour, that’s you, the TSH; correct?

Tim Harrison: We’re both here, Marsha and Tim.

Jeremy O: One quick follow-up. I think Suzanne is still on the line here. Your question about the last audit. The last audit was done for year ending December of 2019. The audit was actually done in May of 2020. So three years would put us an audit at the end of this year into next year. So we will budget for and plan on a financial audit next year.

Jeremy Oepping moved to adjourn the meeting; Keith Rigney seconded, motion carried and meeting adjourned at 7:55 p.m.