November 15, 2022

Sierra Los Pinos Property Owners’ Association
Board of Directors Meeting
November 15th 2022, 6:37pm via Zoom

The meeting was called to order by the acting president Keith Rigney, with the following members present: Keith Rigney, Scott Dewitt, Suzanne Star, Amber Gaston Dewitt, Mana Babicz, Ann Cooke, John Hines, David Stuedell and Josh Toennis. Kristi Cross had a family emergency and wasn’t present.

Guests: Barbara Van Ruyckevelt, Ed Partridge, Harold Corn, Marsha Gaillour, Mary Moore

Approval of agenda: Keith Rigney moved to approve the agenda of the November 15th meeting, seconded by Amber Gaston Dewitt and David Stuedell and, there being no opposition, motion carried.

Approval of minutes: Keith Rigney moved to approve the minutes of the October meeting, seconded by Suzanne Star and, there being no opposition, motion carried.

Keith Rigney moved to approve the minutes of the September 26th emergency meeting, seconded by Scott Dewitt and David Stuedell and, there being no opposition, motion carried.

OFFICER REPORTS

President (Keith Rigney)

1. Board Email Addresses
I believe I have them all correct now. So my first question is Suzanne, are you receiving the board emails or have I just been double emailing you for the past week?

Suzanne: I seem to be now accepting the board minutes as well, thank you.

Keith: Ok, perfect, thank you so much. I just wanted to make sure that was fixed and working as should be. Sorry that took so long.

And I also want to make sure we are using personal emails, or not personal, the board emails as much as we can when we’re sending out reports, information or anything like that. Because with the litigations on the table I would hate for us to get our personal emails pulled or whatever it may be. Let’s just try to use the board emails as much as we can. I think it’ll be good for all of us.

2. Cerro Pelado flooding reimbursement
This will be picked up by Scott Dewitt so I might just summarize.

There has not been any progress on the Cerro Pelado flooding reimbursement. We need to send an email out to Miss Greeno (I don’t remember her first name). I will find this in my email, I’ll make it an action item on my list. I still doubt the USDA application, along with one more application that was sent to me under her guidance. I haven’t heard anything back but I also know she is busy working on the Intel tanks so I’m really hoping we can get some money back. The next option is I will have to go to the homeowners’ doors and present them a FEMA form because FEMA to date has not helped private organizations; it will only help homeowners. So if we could get the 5 houses and their properties take pictures of the current flooding, they can get assessors out and from there they can move forward with FEMA and get fixed independently. I don’t know how this works as it does affect 5 people, not 1, but that might be another option if this thing continues. I don’t know. Scott and I will have a meeting, probably after this, to do a hand off or to tackle this together in the future to see what we can come up with. Any questions, concerns?

3. Zoom Meetings Package Reimbursement
Paul Lisko purchased the Pro version for Zoom for last year. That has lapsed and right before this I had to purchase the Pro version for the 2023 year coming up. The total was $159.27. The reason why we have to go to the Pro package is because the basic only allows 40 minute meetings (we blow through that in the first half of our meeting). It also allows us Cloud storage and the ability to share recordings through Cloud. So this just allows ease of use through the board to get minutes recorded, documented and uploaded, and vice versa. I believe it also gives us 1 GB of storage; most of our meetings only take about 200, so we can hold up to 5 meetings of storage, just as a back log or just in case. So it’s $159.27 for the year. I did put that on my personal card and I can give a receipt to Amber after this, but I’d like to request reimbursement for $159.27.

Amber: I second it.

Keith: I might need you to make a motion because I can’t motion my own reimbursement.

Amber: I motion for Keith to be reimbursed $159.27.

Scott: I second it.

Keith: Wonderful, thank you guys so much. I can get that receipt over to Amber.

4. Rigney Resignation from President - January 10, 2023
This is something I did not want to do and it honestly hurts my heart that I have to do it because I don’t like it, because I do enjoy this, being in the community, I do enjoy trying to help. But withint he past 6 months I’ve dealt with multiple flooding incidences which require contractor work, which required me paying contractors, which required me getting trees moved, my weekends gone... It required a lot of talking to members, and on top of that there have been 3 potential litigations since then that I’ve had to deal, with multiple hours between us and our attorney. I actually had to skip work multiple days so I could talk to the attorney since I can’t do it on my LANL line... This is a lot of work as president and I am stressed. It stresses my wife out which then stresses our 9-month old daughter out, and to me it’s not worth it at this point of my life. I’m not resigning to not help anymore; I still want to be on the board where I can, whether that’s parks or somewhere else. I still want to help wherever this board needs so I’m not leaving. I just can’t take this overall brunt anymore. And I’m not saying the board has to decide where I need to go now; we have until January 10th. So I’d like for everyone to just think on where they would want me and I’ll do my best to support. In my email resignation I clearly stated I will gladly help with emergency leaks, tractor work... whatever the board or the community needs, you can count me in. I just can’t take the whole brunt of this anymore. I’m not enjoying it nor is my family. So I’M sorry I didn’t finish my full term; not as a promise but as I wanted to. But I’m hoping I can still help on the side.

Mana: That makes complete sense. This is a volunteer position and the way that things have been going on these last few months... it’s a little crazy. I’m a little surprised seeing members of this community attacking the board and individuals the way they are, when this is a completely new board. I would say don’t feel sorry; your family, your life, your health is of priority and not the volunteer position in our community.

Keith: Thank you, Mana, it has been crazy. I don’t know the workload of the board prior to me 2 years ago but I feel the last 6 months has been the most active this board has been since I have been on the board. And it’s just something I can’t deal with with my full time job. If I had more time I would gladly stick through it but I just can’t, unfortunately. And I’m just here to help; I have no intentions, no agendas. I’m just here to fill a spot.

David: Do we have anyone interested in this position on the board currently?

Keith: I think that’s a hard question to ask as everyone on the board has seen the email traffic in the last couple of months. I don’t know who would ‘volunteer’ to be the next person on the fiery line. And that’s just personal opinion, but it’s rough. I know it kind of falls on Scott and that’s why I’m not leaving because I will help him in any way I can. I don’t know if we just tag team this more or what. That’s why I put the January 10th date out there and if the board wants to reconfigure and Scott and I handle this together... I don’t know. I’m open for options; I just can’t do what I’m doing now.

So think on it, everyone. We can obviously have more discussions later; we got time. Let us know what you guys think.

David: Just my 2 cents: I think you’ve done a great job, Keith. You know, I think you took it on as a job rather than a volunteer position. I think we all just need to take a step back and say, “Ok, what do we really have to do?”. It seems like you kind of took on more than you could handle and I was worried about that from the beginning. That’s all I have. I think we just have to say, “Ok, this is a volunteer position.” And even if the president just runs the meeting, that’s doing something. But that’s all I have.

Keith: It for sure feels like a job, there’s no joke there.

5. Water management team Liaison and update
I’m sure Suzanne will touch on the water management team update later, she’s better at that than I am so I’ll just let her run with the updates. So I don’t know why I have this on my agenda. But we’ll touch base with that later.

Vice president (Scott DeWitt)

I volunteered to help Keith out with the Cerro Pelado flooding reimbursement. I’ve been keeping track of the emails going back and forth regarding Ashley Lane and I’ve read everything that’s been attached to those emails. I don’t see anywhere where Sierra Los Pinos HOA is required to maintain or repair Ashley Lane. With that said, even if we were required to maintain or repair Ashley Lane, we need to have something as a reference to maintaining against or repairing to. I don’t know why there’s so much conversation back and forth. With the gentleman, Mr. Hotchkiss, he just needs to be told, this is how couch hit the cut and if he doesn’t like he can sue us, because we are not required in any matter by the documents I’ve seen to do what he is asking. Anybody else have any comments on that?

David: Let me just fill in because I’ve met with him. Let me fill in for the board what he’s asking for.
He is a difficult person, for one. What he wants is, he wants the road, so that the runoff goes into other people’s properties as it goes down the hill and so it does not flow into the bottom. The recent grating and the way the road are grated; they’re grated to flow downhill. In the past they were crowned or runoff in various areas along the downhill slope. He doesn’t care about the width or the road; he just cares about the water coming down towards his property. Unfortunately, he’s downhill and the water flows downhill, but he wants the road to basically sluff off the water along the way. And that would mean re-doing road in a complicated way. So it’s just complicated. I told Suzanne what we really need from him is an exact proposal of exactly what he wants done, and we would get a quote on it and as a board make a decision whether we want to pay for that and if not, like you said, let him sue us.

Scott: I’m fine with that.

Keith: I want to make it very clear here. Marsha, I’ve been talking to her on the side here, and she is in this meeting. So there are 2 separate issues on Ashley Lane right now. The main issue is what we were just discussing with Bob Hotchkiss, which I’ll touch on that in a bit. The second one is there is actually a property where all this runoff, at the top of the hill, right when you enter Ashley Lane on the left, all the runoff drops down their driveway into Ashley Lane, down and around the corner and into Marsha’s property. So that is one area of an issue. I believe local contractor Pete came out. He talked about giving a bid to the upper most house. Once we can fix the drainage from upper most house, we can fix our road drainage. So that is one issue and it needs to be resolved sooner rather than later. It’s just pushing the drainage across the road and into the natural drainage but that is another one we’ll have to look into.

And then the Bob Hotchkiss case: while I was at work today my wife actually reached out to the county clerk and she received all documents from the county clerk on file of the Bob Hotchkiss case. Which was actually a waste of money because they are exact same documents that we have. I took this step just to make sure we have everything. Because in some of Bob’s emails he claims it needs to be restored to 2008 status. In other emails he claims the restore has to be 9.5 feet wide. So I wanted these documents in hand to state where is this references, what’s the 2008 state? There’s nothing documented so far that states what it looked like in 2008. And yes, we want to alleviate the situation and hopefully not go to court. But we can’t alleviate the situation if we don’t know how to fix the road. And we can go over there and have a meeting with Bob and he can tell us, “This is what it looked like in 2008.” But did it actually look like that in 2008 or are we just wasting a ton of money to make him happy for his request.
I don’t know nor can we have a proof for right or wrong. So the next step that we can do to really get all the paperwork in hand, is we can contact the judicial court district, the 13th district, and we can request all documents from said court case to be sent to us via snail mail, email, whatever, and see if actual dimensions and pictures are documented somewhere in that request. But we have the court signed documents that clearly states the road not to be altered from the 2008 status. And we can’t prove it’s different than 2008 without a reference. So I don’t know the best path forward here, I don’t. But that’s kind of what I’ve been working on my end. We can perceive to get more documents which will cost more money, I don’t know.

David: Suzanne, what do you think about this?

Suzanne: Well, first of all I think that the drainage as you suggested, getting that resolved would certainly help mitigate the problem. The neighbors that were going to go ahead and use Pete apparently have not used Pete and they may not use Pete. I saw they did some mitigation work; I don’t know how effective that will be and I don’t know why they didn’t use Pete. Maybe it was money, could had been something else. Unfortunately, they happen to be residents and as I mentioned to David before, it’s the same problem we had with culverts: you can’t compel people to fix their driveway or to clean their culverts, at least not now. We don’t have any policies in place.

My recommendation would be – we got the documentation we need, we do have some pictures and it’s not a matter of altering the road. I think that that word is being used incorrectly. It's actually the road shall not be widened, and that's actually in the document itself. Now, as far as being able to prove the width of the road back in 2008 is going to be difficult for Bob. The road has been altered a bit, it has been widened a bit. It was widened by Leeder. But my feeling is that Bob is a difficult person to deal with. I think that it's most important that we keep a communication open, let them know that we're looking at this, we're working on it. We're not going to go to court and he's not going to go ahead and sue us, because this is just a matter of him going down to court, as he has said, and having the judge just issue a document that says you guys have to, you know, do what you're supposed to do. This isn't going to be another court case. So I don't think that would be an issue. But I think my biggest concern is, is that I've been trying to talk with Bob now. I saw his last e-mail come in. I haven't talked to him about that since. I'll try to go back and talk with him again. I can't guarantee anything because I think his big problem is and this is something that I have a big issue with, no matter what: people want to be communicated with, I don't care if you don't like the idea. That's too bad. You just have to get out there and you have to talk to people. Keep communicating with them, let them know that you understand and acknowledge. But right now, we really don't have any place to go. We don't have any drainage problems right now. We need to get somebody like Pete or somebody who can come in here and say, “What can we do with this? What's the amount of money that might cost us?” And then bring that to the board and talk about it. But I don't think, David, that we should really go to Bob and ask him what he wants, because he'll give you a list, you know, three pages long. I think what we need to do is to decide with Keith or some contractor what would be the most appropriate way to, first of all, divert the water, make sure we get a runoff, try to make sure that the road is, you know, banked properly, if that's the case. And I don't like to say, you know, we're not going to go ahead and redo all the roads. It ain't going to happen because it's just too much money. So that would be my suggestion. And I can talk with Scott a little bit more about what's been going on. I'll try to talk with Bob again about it, depending upon how the board wants to handle it, but that would be my suggestion. We just have to let him know that... don't drop the ball. I know that he's been rude, but unfortunately there are going to be a lot of other people in this association you're going to run into in the future that are rude and you're just going to have to grin and bear it and try to be as cordial as you can, as diplomatic as you can to try to make things work. And that's what I'm trying to do with Bob. Bob's my neighbor. He and I work together on occasion. He and I have had our disagreements on occasion. We went head to head in the courtroom on this. So if you would like me to, I'll try to talk with him. But I really need to have the input from you, David, Scott and Keith. You know, we just need to have some communication going. Let him know that, listen, we didn't drop the ball. We're trying to work this out. If that works for us.

Scott: Suzanne, can I make a correction with something you said? The width of the road isn't specified. It's the width of the easement.

Suzanne: Okay. Does it say that on page four on number 11? I don't have it.

Scott: Yes. It says the parties agree that the width of the easement granted here in and in the easement shall be no greater than the width of Ashley Lane as it presently exists.

Suzanne: Right.

Scott: So the easement and the road are two different things.

David: Right.

Suzanne: That could definitely be an issue. That's something that the easement is the easement, which has always been. And the easement happens to be the road. So I guess you're right. It could be a matter of terminology.

Scott: If Ashley Lane were to go away today, if someone planted trees in the middle of it, there would still be an easement there.

Suzanne: Right.

Scott: But I'm very willing, I guess, remedy or otherwise make people less mad about this.

Keith: So we really need to see those pictures, Suzanne.

Suzanne: I'm sorry. I didn't hear that.

Keith: We really need to get those pictures because we don't even know what we're messing with. And once again, the documents that we have don't state it. It says it shall be held the 2008. But are there pictures from 2008 that are referenced in that document? Because I don't know. He has been extremely rude to me directly when I have done nothing but help. I was literally sixteen years old when this court case was going on and now he's directly blaming me and is threatening to file criminal charges against me and the board. And I can't have that. When I hear that I don't want to help him. I don't, because it's just it's hugely disrespectful to a volunteer position. And when I tried to help, it just blew up immediately. So we need valid points, valid things that we can work off of and get to a common goal here. Because if we go in there and we "fix the road", that is once again altering the road, which I don't know how that works written up because all the terminology is so uncirculated in itself. And we need to be very careful what we're doing here. And I'm just worried about how this pans.

David: I think Scott brought up a good point and actually makes a lot of sense. I mean, if, you know, it probably should be, you know, the documents should be given to the lawyer and have them interpret what this means, because the easement is just an easement. It has nothing to do with the topography of the road. It's just an easement. You're giving somebody an easement. You're not going to change the easement. An easement is something that's like is locked into, you know, a fixed. You have an easement for electricity, you have an easement, whatever, you know. So the easement is one thing. And if it says that as far as the easement, then I think we should probably give the documents to the lawyer and have him interpret what we should do going forward as far as, has it changed, has the easement changed? I doubt the easement has changed. Easement is something that's recorded.

Keith: And that's why I pulled out all the reports, because I wanted to know what the easement was recorded through the county, which there is no easement recorded through the county, it's literally the document that we have. And I also did forget to include that, I guess he filed a report with the county sheriff against SLPPOA in his last threatening email. Marsha also had her hand up. I don't know if you want to speak, but I did see your hand was up and I don't want to skip you. I'm sorry.

Marsha: Oh, not a problem. I know, Suzanne, you're talking about meeting with Bob, and I would be willing to be part of the conversations with the neighbor. I don't know the neighbor above us, you know, where most of the water is coming from. But if you wanted to have everybody involved, you know, be part of conversations, I would be willing to be part of that.

Suzanne: Well, thanks, Marsha. I think we all have kind of a plan here as far as trying to move ahead, trying to mitigate the anger and what's going on. My first inclination would be is that it should come either from Scott or Keith or David. Just a quick email to him saying we're working on this, we're looking into it. You know, we'll get back to you shortly. And then in the meantime, the rest of us, Marsha, myself, Scott, David, Keith, we can sit down, check this out a little bit, decide where we're heading on this. And I still think we need to get Pete involved in this. And, David, I don't know that we've got enough money to be able to take this to the attorney at this very moment. But we may have to. So would that be acceptable? I mean, I'm just saying get an email out to him. Just say we're acknowledging that you're having these frustrations or whatever's going on, but we're working on it. Give us a little bit more time and I'll try to talk with him in the meantime. And Keith, I know you took this personally from Bob. Bob's just kind of an angry individual. He's going to take it out on somebody who happened to be the president. So you get targeted. Unfortunately, I'm sorry to say that, but I've had that experience myself. So if you folks think that that would be a workable thing, that would be my first suggestion. Get something out to him, communicate with him now. Does that work?

Scott: Suzanne. Does Bob like pie or tacos or fruitcake or something?

David: Fruitcake. He likes fruit.

Scott: I'll bring about peace offering.

Amber: I can make him some good, sweet potato empanadas.

Suzanne: I think probably what Bob needs the most is just to be communicated with. It doesn't have to be much. It just has to tell him, listen, we're listening. We're here. We're not ignoring you. That's simple as that. And I think that you probably realize that that's the way it is in life itself. When we ask for things, we hope that somebody would respond with in a timely manner, and that's appropriate. So that would be my first suggestion. And I don't know if he likes tacos or what he likes, but that's a nice suggestion.

Marsha: I know that in having conversations with him, he had asked me, you know, what would discussions that happened when I met with Dave and you, Suzanne and Pete. And I told him that there were conversations about Pete, you know, perhaps doing the work to fix the road. He actually thought that was a good idea and has a great deal of respect for Pete. And that was the last conversation I had with him.

David: So the issue with Pete, let me just chime in here. You know, I asked Pete, are you licensed and insured? And he never responded to me. So, you know, as far as this Pete thing, I think we need to find out. You know, Suzanne, if you could check with Pete to see if he's licensed and insured, I have a feeling he's not. So that makes it hard to use him for the community. As Keith brought up at the last meeting.

Suzanne: Well, I'll do that. I'll go ahead and get in touch with Pete. I'll try to figure some things out.

David: I would just say what I said, you know, please provide us how you want it changed and we will get a bid because we're going to have to pay for this. And then we can decide as a board, is this worth us doing? I mean, there's no other path, okay? Because we don't even know what he wants. I know what he wants because I spoke to him a year ago or something, and I was just like, you know, my mind just started spinning. You want the roads, you know, completely reworked. I think what you could probably do is put bar ditches in, you know, along the road to divert the water down into other people's property. But now you're diverting the water into other people's property. So, you know, that's essentially what that driveway above was going to do is going to put bar ditches in along their driveway, so that it diverts the water down their property and then it's absorbed in their property rather than running all the way down their driveway. That's the way the forest roads work. And, you know, essentially, he just cares about the water and the mud and that's all he really cares about.

Keith: And I can work on getting an email even though I don't want to, because everything I've ever sent to him, even the kindest I could possibly create has literally turned around in my face and blown up. But I will send out an email just as I did prior, because every email he sent to me, I've always sent one back. So I will send out another one. But in my last email, I clearly defined that you, Suzanne, and you, David, will be helping to now clarify that it will be me, Scott, and then the two and yada, yada, yada. But another thing I want to make very clear is Marsha is kind of getting thrown into this huge debacle, which technically doesn't entirely involve her. The end of Ashley Lane does not involve her and it should not involve her. If we do get a contractor in here, yes, let's involve her and let's work together. But realistically, her situation is much different and we won't be able to fix it this year, Marsha. But when spring comes around next spring, if this is not fixed by then, you can email me personally and I'll take my tractor up there and at least divert the water so it's not falling down the road. So keep that in mind. I will gladly do that for you. It should not take long. I should be able to at least divert the water. So if we do get some heavy spring rains again and record late summer rains, I can help there. So you're not left in the backburner with this huge ordeal going on.

Marsha: Thank you, I appreciate it.

Keith: No problem. At least that will solve something when the time comes. I'm hoping the run off won't be for a while. I'm hoping as long as it stays cold and then we can just survive until next year. We'll have a flush budget then; David will have his normal amount and we can dictate where that needs to go.

Marsha: Great. Thank you.

Keith: Of course.

Scott: Keith, do you think it was less stressful if that email were to be sent by me versus you?

Keith: I think the outcome is going to be the same most likely. But if you're all for it then I'm not going to say no.

Scott: You have a much better filter than me. If I get back a response that is unacceptable, I'll let them know.

Keith: Yeah, I don't know. I've tried to let him know that I won't work with that type of mentality. I'm here to help and if you don't see that, then that's going to be your problem, because then I won't help. But unfortunately, we have court documents holding us to this one, which makes it fishy. But I still just don't want to help. If I can push it off a day and send an email a day later that I'm probably going to do that if I can. It's just facts. I'm sorry. I don't want to be that person, but it's hard sometimes. But go ahead, Scott. Just cc me, Suzanne and David in it. And we'll just continue progressing forward. We'll leave this on the agenda and keep helping.

Scott: Okay. Can you forward me the latest, the last email you got from him? Would you mind doing that?

Keith: Yeah, I can for sure do that. I believe it's the one that I copied the board in, but I'll send it to you individually, just so you have it at the top of your box.

Scott: Okay, great. Thanks.

Keith: Perfect. So I believe that's the end of Scott.

Scott: Yeah, one more thing. Did you want to send the agreement to attorney Scott and get his thoughts on it?

Keith: We can for sure do that.

Scott: Okay. All right, that's all for me.

Keith: Cool. Thanks, Scott. We'll move forward to the current secretary Mana.

Secretary (Mana Babicz)

Mana: I have nothing new to report.

Keith: Perfect. And all of your stuff got submitted, all of the minutes got approved earlier, so we'll get those on the website. I did have one portion underlined, that you're still waiting for the new board member certifications. So if you have not got that in, please get that in very soon to Mana and we can work on where we need to save those with Mana.

Mana: Yes, sorry, I forgot about that part. I need to get with Kristi so she can help me figure out. She has to give me the laptop and all that stuff for the secretary and then help me figure out or tell me how the rest of the secretary work goes.

Keith: Okay. Perfect. Thank you so much for all your help, Mana, we'll get that handled for you. We'll move on to treasurer Amber.

Treasurer (Amber Gaston)

The balance in accounts as of October 31, 2022 is as follows:
operating account: $71,190.34 (down $14,813.97)
reserve account: $42,335.70 (down $27,683.05)
as of October 31, we have 7 delinquent accounts (of which 6 are over $500), totaling $14,481.89. (an increase of $1,085.52 from last month).
liens have been filed on each - per SLPPOA lien policy (accounts exceeding
$500)
we have one delinquency below $500
the amount of $666.67 was transferred to reserves during the month of October
there were two changes in property ownership in October. We welcome: Arrin Arensman at 10 Outliers Road and Donald Cash at 1268 Los Griegos Road.

Amber: On other news, much like Keith, the stress and other things are starting to bottle up. And I do feel like I'm letting everybody down but I am resigning treasurer. And on that note, I know that we need a position for Suzanne. So like I put in my email, it might be a consideration of the board that we put Suzanne as treasurer. That's just my opinion, everybody else can go from there, and that's all I have.

Keith: Well, thank you, Amber. I, for one, have seen every single e-mail you've sent out since you started, and I can't thank you enough for the effort you put in. You've been great and it sucks to lose you, so we've had 2 really great treasurers. With that being said, I would like to pose the question to Susanne. Susanne, would you like to be treasurer? I don't want to force something on you, but if you would like to be treasurer, I think you'd be fantastic. I believe you've done it before, but you know the area, you have always hold us accountable to our budget, you've always held us accountable to our policies of spending said budget. I think it's a good fit and I would gladly accept you as treasurer. I don't know what other people think about it, but I'm all for it. Would you like to be treasurer is the first question, Suzanne?

Suzanne: I would be happy to accommodate.

Amber: And I would also back Suzanne the entire way on anything she needs while she's coming up to speed. And I wanted to mention also that if there's like special tasks or, I forget what you called it, but any special volunteer help, I'd still like to be around to be able to pitch in and help out. Just the full time of this has gotten to me and it's something that I think Suzanne would have a very good amount of time to be able to dedicate, whereas I do not. Thank you.

Scott: There's still parks.

Amber: Not speaking to you, Scott.

Keith: No, I can't thank you both enough, Amber and Suzanne, for everything you've done and for Suzanne stepping in. I know your statement "I will accommodate"; I feel it, but thank you. I think it'll be good. I'd like to sit down with you some time and figure out a good budget for us, cause that's kind of the next big task. But, you know, you and I have been trying to figure out on the water management team, so it'll be good for us. So thank you so much.

Keith: So there is one more big topic that I'm going to that I threw into the treasurer position that needs to be discussed, approved and notified to the public soon, within 30 days of the new assessments. Sandra Partridge has her hand up.

Ed Partridge: This is Ed Partridge.

Keith: Yeah, I can hear you. You're kind of cracking, it's static.

Ed: This is about our property owner.

Keith: Yeah, I barely hear you.

Ed: Okay.

David: You're breaking up.

Ed: Can you hear me now?

Scott: You can use the chat.

Keith: Yeah, it sounds like it's Ed on the line. If you want to use chat feel free or if you want to type up an email to me and send it, we're going to touch on whatever later.

Ed: Okay. I'll go to the chat and I'll do that.

Keith: Perfect. Thanks Ed, sorry.

Ed: That's all right. Where do I find chat?

Keith: Let me see.

Scott: So the bottom menu, in the middle.

Keith: Bottom menu next to screen sharing participants.

Ed: Can you hear me at all? I mean, I could just tell you. I'm not seeing it.

Scott: You're sounding a lot better.

Ed: Just on Saturday, we received a letter from HOAMCO. It said our payment of January 19th was returned from the bank because they weren't able to locate account. I mean, that was the first we've heard of it. And I tried to call back and send an email back to HOAMCO to pay it or whatever, and they haven't got back to me. So I wondered if we're one of them that's on the lien list.

Amber: I can follow up with that and get back with you. Let me try to get that done tomorrow and get back with you tomorrow evening.

Ed: Okay, thanks. Meanwhile, I'll keep trying to get in touch with HOAMCO but they aren't the easiest to get a hold of.

Amber: Yeah. I'll follow up with you. Thank you.

Ed: Thank you.

Keith: Thanks, Ed.

So we'll circle back a little bit here. So in our bylaws, if we change our end... *the signal broke out, I couldn’t hear anything* So that means the next board meeting we’ll not be able to do this. This needs to be decided and voted on and approved tonight to allow us to notify HOAMCO and notify our membership. Also, according to our bylaws, we cannot change our assessment more than 10% up or down. But now it is time to discuss what it needs to be. I hate doing this, I hated this last year. I know we are very low in our accounts; everyone knows that on the board. I will, for one, say we need to raise it to 10% and that is raise 10%. I will repeat: I don't like that. But we had $40,000 in flooding last year, we had an astronomical amount of attorney fees due to litigations, we are currently trying to get our water management team some information so we can start replacing 800 to 1000 new feet a pipe every year and we don't have enough money to do all of these tasks. And I hate to do it, I do, but I think we need to raise and one of the things we did last year, we didn't raise by 10%. We raised by like 9.95 and that rounded off to a solid value. So if we want to do that again, we can. I try to look for my bank statements today to figure out what the last assessment was so we could do some math and vote on it. But if anyone here would here know exactly what it was last year for our assessment, and then we will start discussion.

Scott: I think ours was $970 or something like that.

Mary: I've got the budget here. It was $996.

Keith: Thank you so much, Mary. And that was even.

Mary: Yes, it was.

Keith: Gotcha. So we'll discuss now, what percentage do we need to increase? This is a board decision.

Ann: Ann would like to move to raise the annual assessment 10%, rounded down to the nearest dollar.

David: It will be $99.

Keith: Is this the official motion?

Amber: Does anybody have anything to say on that?

Scott: I'll second.

David: Dave Stuedell makes a motion to raise the annual dues by $99.

Keith: Any more discussions before we accept this? I just want to make sure that we validate this because I know it's needed. But Keith Rigney will second if no one wants to talk.

Scott: Well, I was just going to say, if next year is the same as this year, then we're broke.

Keith: You are correct, Scott. So with the flooding of $40,000 this year and then the pipe going in at the 800 feet of main line going in, we spent roughly $80,000 more than what we had budgeted. Then the other issue was that everything we had budgeted, we spent and then some. So it wasn't like we saved in any areas this year; everything was high, which is not good for us. So next year we will not be able to do any linear feet of pipe, it will be solely fixing leaks. We will not be able to improve our flood area anymore unless if some of the roads budget goes towards that. We've talked to David a lot about if we can save some money in the road area and maybe just by checking this next year. Or just something like that. We need to figure out a plan, which I've been asking for for quite a while, but everyone's been busy and I get it. But you are right, Scott. We need to figure something out, whether it's cheaper contractors or whatever it may be.

Suzanne: So raising the dues to 10% or something close by, we're at $1,095, is that correct? So everybody's figuring.

Keith: Yes, that's exactly what I have. You're correct.

Suzanne: Okay. I don't think any of us have to apologize for doing this. I would just say, just go ahead. And if everybody else is in favor of it, I certainly am. So I'll go along with it.

Scott: How many how many properties are here?

Suzanne: 155.

Scott: So that's an extra $15,500. I mean, that's not a lot of money, really. But that's all we can do. I guess what I'm saying, it probably needs to be more. But, you know, we are limited by our bylaws.

Keith: No, you're exactly correct. We're going to definitely have to increase by 10% for another year or two until we can get our reserves back up, because those are very low until we can start actually getting some plans in place to start getting some pipe back in the ground, getting our roads fixed, getting our roads widened, whatever it may be. But this next year, we'll definitely have to lay low a little bit, which sucks but we’ll make due. We all moved to the mountains knowing what it was like.

Ann: Is the motion passed?

Keith: Yes, I believe so. Unless if there are any people opposing at this time. Wonderful. Well, thank you, everyone. I am new to this position and I don't remember what was done last year. How do we notify our members? Do we have to notify them? What is the correct path forward? That's so we don't get in trouble.

Suzanne: The only thing I can recommend is I thought that what we do is we send out with the budget a newsletter and let people know that we're increasing the dues at the same time. But I don't know. Ann, what do you remember of that from last year?

Ann: I believe HOAMCO issues out a bill or a newsletter. Making the announcement would be appropriate. And then have the HOAMCO issue the bill.

Suzanne: Yeah. I think we have to send out the budget and I think it's appropriate to go ahead and let everybody know at the same time with the budget that the dues will be increased to X amount of dollars and then like Ann said, then it goes to HOAMCO. And then the Invoices go out in January or end of December.

Amber: Do we need to go through approving the budget? Anybody looked at it and put their recommendations in?

Suzanne: I never got it. So, sorry.

Amber: It went out to the board.

David: It looked good to me.

Keith: Let me look here. That might have been the weird time where Suzanne wasn't getting emails. We will get that to you, Suzanne, and we can move forward with that, because I think, regardless, I don't know how our budget is going to change because we overspent in every area. So I think the approval is a nominal thing of: this is what we're going to try and spend or keep this year, if not less, hopefully less.

Amber: FYI, I had to juggle the numbers around to get $5500 out of it for the reserve study. So I did juggle some numbers around.

Suzanne: Amber, are you talking about the reserve study or the audit?

Amber: The audit, you told me was supposed to be done by December. And it is what it is, I didn't do last year's budget. The reserves study, Jeremy said it was going to run about $5,500.

Suzanne: The reason I'm asking is we do need a reserve study, but...

Amber: It's due next year.

Suzanne: Do we need it right away? The audit is important. The reserve study might be able to be pushed off till next year.

Amber: I think you're on your last of five years. I think. If I read right, it was 3 to 5 years and I think you're at the cusp of that due date. Might double check me. Because trust me, if we have wiggle room, we can postpone it. But I don't know if we do.

Suzanne: Ok.

Keith: Let's for sure look into that. I think the audit is very important. The reserve study. I know what it's going to say. It's going to say we don't have enough money there. Our reserve study is done in my mind.

Amber: And we have to pay for that.

Keith: I know it goes a little bit more in depth than that, but I feel that that is what it's going to tell us. And we know that we just don't have a good way of raising that at this time. This next year of, I don't want to say coasting, will really tell us what we can increase our reserves by. So time will tell. But we'll look into that and figure it out.

HOT TOPICS

The Cerro Pelado, fire, flooding:
So I really tried to get some volunteers out there before the snow hit to chip all of the trees that were cut down due to the new drainage. That did not happen before the snow. So we'll most likely try to do that in the spring. I'm just going to leave this on the agenda so it keeps seeing the board to try and do this. The homeowners’ property where we made all these alterations to were great. I haven't gotten any complaints and I can't thank them enough for allowing us to do this to their property. So to pay them back I really want to get all that brush off their property as soon as we're allowed to. We'll keep bringing this up every month. But other than that, we should be good.
David just put in a check. He says, “I think we need to vote on approving the budget.” Why not? Let's just do it, just so we can. Do we need that vote to be individual, or can it be a motion?

Suzanne: I think it can be a motion.

David: Yeah.

Keith: Alright, Keith Rigney will make a motion to approve calendar year 2023 budget.

David: David Stuedell seconds.

Keith: Wonderful, thank you. And thanks for catching that, David.

STANDING COMMITTEE REPORTS

Water (John Hines)

So, not to throw any cold water on the parade, but I don't have a great report this month. In the month of October, we actually repaired 5 leaks in the first couple of weeks of October on the main lines. Four of them were on system 1, and one of them was on system 2. Because of that, we lost a lot of water. So it's going to skew all of our water readings as far as what we pumped and what we used. We did use Salazar on three of those repairs. And then we had volunteers help on two repairs that we were able to do.

Most of the leaks, it seems to be that the water lines had been sheared off of the main where they had broken. And most everybody that was there looking at it suspect that it was probably the vibratory roller that caused that because it actually shoved the pipe down to where it broke. We don't know that for a fact but we all suspect that.
I had one homeowner assisted in repairing here at a home or leak. I had my knee replaced three weeks ago. So the last couple of weeks of October I haven't been very active, I've kind of been bedridden. And in that process we were getting ready to tie in the new line from the Aspen Grove well down towards Forest road 10. And our contractor actually shut off the water mains and then didn't bother to turn them back on. He shut off system 2 instead of system 1, ran into a lot of issues with them, and then he refused to complete the work. So as of last week I let him go, even though it's not completed. So that line still needs to be tied in. What I'm suggesting is: Harold Corn, Dave Raue and I went and looked to see what we had left to do to finish that line and there are three options. One, we could hire Dave to do that line, finish it. Two, we could find volunteers to finish that line. Or three, we can just bury it and wait till next spring to do it. Harold and I are of the opinion it's probably better just to bury it, since now the weather is finally turned on us. We do need to go there and cover up some of the line that is exposed so we don't have freeze ups. But we're of the opinion that it might just be better to wait till next spring to tie that line in.

Another issue that I had come up was the state water inspector who inspects and does our monthly water sampling and takes care of our chlorinators. Two out of the three chlorinators on our system went down. He's got them going temporarily but his recommendation is that we buy two new chlorinators. I've sent the board and everything the quotes for the chlorinators. They got three quotes; they range from $778 per coordinator to $1,229. The pumps that we have right now are the $1,229 ones. Even though I know it costs a little more money, we do have repair parts already in the shed for those pumps. So I'm not so sure it wouldn't be better to go with the standard pumps because that's what we already have and we have some repair parts for them. So I need to inform him as soon as possible on to what we decide tonight so he can order those and get our chlorinators repaired or replaced.
I’m trying to think of what else I had on my list.

I'm not even going to give a report on how many gallons were pumped and everything. But our leak rate on system 1 was a 52%, and on system 2 I couldn't really get it because we actually showed that we use more water than we pump. That was due to the leak on system 2. We had to drain the tank because there's no drains on the line, for we had to do the repair. So we lost a lot of water.
Other than that, I think that's all I have to report, unless someone has any questions.

Ann: Ann would like to move that you replace the chlorinators and decide based on... I would recommend doing the ones you have parts for.

John: That was the pumps at $1,229.90.

Ann: Yes.

John: And we need two of those.

Ann: Fine.

Keith: Keith Rigney seconds.
I did talk to John about this and I was like, do we have to have these? And the answer was a stern yes. Once again, it's just something we need to buy. So let's get it bought. Let's get them in. And is that cost on... Is that for installing everything or is that just buying?

John: That's just for buying them. Frank will install them as part of his contract that we have with the state on doing our water sampling.

Keith: Perfect, thank you. I just wanted to make sure there wasn't any more expenses on top of that to come.

John: No.

Suzanne: John, I have a question, please.

John: Sure.

Suzanne: Do you know the status of the tanks that are coming in now? Do you have any update?

John: On what tanks, the Intel tanks?

Suzanne: Yeah.

John: No, I haven't heard anything.

Suzanne: Okay, then I have one other quick question. We talked about it at WMT, and my question is, is that when the tanks come in, they're going to be put in the park, they're going to be put there until they're ready to be installed. But Lee Taylor made a comment, and I think some of us agreed that we're going to need to put some fencing around those tanks to prevent people or kids from going in, making their whatever. They just have to be protected from access. And my question is, who might be responsible for doing that? Should we tell the fire department that they're going to have to provide the fencing and make sure it's installed? Or are we going to have to provide that and pay for it?

John: We have some construction fence and some T posts in the shed. I don't know if we have enough construction fence, but I think we might to where if they put it in the right place, we can come right off of the existing fence and run it over towards the watershed and keep them all fenced in. But we do have some of that available to put around it.

Suzanne: Okay.

Keith: In the past when I was talking to Lee Taylor, on the side, I should say, I did tell him that if they are stored on SLP property, I don't want SLP liable for anything that could possibly happen. And he's fully aware of that and ready to remedy whatever that takes to “make them safe”.

John: Sounds good. I also need a decision made on what we should do with the water line.

Keith: I would like to leave that up to our water operator: you, John. I know me being the perfectionist, engineer, manager I am... Let's get it done. But I know winter is here; there's snow on the ground, and getting someone else up here to get it done might be a nightmare. As long as we have it marked accordingly, we dig it up next year, we don't destroy anything... If that's the best method since that line was leaking and we fix that, then let's wait. We'll get a fresh budget next year. We'll be able to tap into that budget and not this already overspent budget, and we can move forward.

John: Okay, sounds good. Dave said that he could do it for $200 an hour and it would take to a minimum of two 8 hour days to do it, and that was before the snow fell. So you can just add more time to that if you want. And because of where our budget is right now, I kind of concur with you, Keith, on that. I'd rather wait till next year and not spend any more money on it until next year.

Ann: I concur.

Keith: Does anyone oppose burying it up and waiting till next year when we’ll have a fresh budget to finish that line replacement?
Perfect. John, let's bury it. If you need help burying it, let me know. And we can move forward with that next year.

John: Okay. Thank you. That's all I have for my report.

Barbara: Keith, I have a question. This is Barbara.

Keith: Yes, Barbara, what do you need?

Barbara: On number six of John's report: letter received from New Mexico water testing lab. Was that covered? And what was it?

John: Yeah, I'll answer as soon as I find what we're talking about on my report.

Keith: I might have that too, John, let me look on my end.

John: Barb, could you refresh? What did it actually say?

Barbara: All it says is letter received from New Mexico water testing lab. And that's all there is.

John: What that was about was our wells have to be tested every 3 to 5 years. Different wells at different times because they're on a different 3 to 5-year program. And what that was, there was a letter received from them. One was basically saying that they received our CCR, that our water report for the year was approved and everything was good. And the other one was that our well water that we pumped out that was checked for heavy metals and radionuclides and volatile organic compounds and heavy arsenic and lead and copper, all those kind of things that they test for, everything and then came back out really good. And they were we're happy with this on all of our reports that our water sampling was done.

Barbara: Great. Thank you.

John: Uh huh.

Keith: Perfect. Thank you, John, thank you for all your help.

John: Thank you.

Keith: We're going to move on to roads, which I believe everything was already touched on for roads. I don't know if you have anything else, David, any new snow stuff or something like that other than what's on the agenda.

Roads (David Stuedell)

I submitted the receipt for the tarp the $64.31 to I believe, Marsha, I think. I don't know if we have to have a motion for me to be reimbursed for that or if we're good. We talked about it last time, but I don't think we made any kind of motion to reimburse me for this $64.31 tarp I put over the cinders.

Ann: Ann moves to reimburse Dave for the price of the tarp.

Amber: Amber seconds.

David: Thank you. That’s all I have. Any more questions for roads?
Very good.

Keith: Thank you, David. We will move on to legal, Kristi Cross.

Legal (Kristi Cross)

Keith: She is not in attendance tonight; she has been busy with some family emergency stuff, she's just been busy. So we'll move on from legal as there is nothing on the agenda. And most legal matters were covered earlier in Ashley Lane and some other topics so... worked out good. Next is fire wise, Ann.

Firewise (Ann Cooke)

I have basically two things to report. One is that fire wise community assessments was submitted and accepted, for another year of our lives. We have a... I can't remember their term for it, but action item report which is pretty simple, which is to continue to encourage residents to be fire wise, clean up the property and pay attention to issues of burning, etc. ... The WCP, which is the community wide protection plan: Sandoval county has one; it needs to be updated. That is not necessarily any particular person's responsibility, but Sandoval County does need to be encouraged to do that, which goes to the second point. There's Martha whose last name I don't recall. This particular person invited SLP to be a member of a set of water utilities, if you will, in the Jemez mountains. I have accepted this conditionally; I don't see any real downside to not being part of this. It's mostly information and there is no real obligation associated with it. I also think it isn't necessarily a matter of water, but more of a matter of the consequence of fire and discussing how to prepare for it, etc. If no one has any objections to that, I'd like to leave it as Sierra Los Pinos being a member of this coalition. And there at least Martha's starting to help and be a resource for Sandoval county getting their community wide protection plan up to date. That concludes my report.

Mary Moore: I have a question for Ann.

Ann: Okay.

Mary: When we drove home today, it looked like somebody, I'm not sure if it was the forest service or not, were finally cutting down trees on those lots facing the road. Have you heard anything about that? It looked like they'd taken quite a few trees down.

Ann: No, I have not heard anything. But which road are you referring to?

Mary: The two lots that the forest service owns on the top of the subdivision by Forest road 10 up on the top the lots that they own. Remember, I'm the one who's kind of been grumbling about how really ugly they look with all the downfall. I just noticed today somebody was working on those lots and I felt really good about it. I just wondered if you knew more about it and whether they were going to proceed across the road to the lot that's over between Forest road 10 and Mesa Verde.

Ann: I think that's all great news. We'll keep an eye out for it. I'll let you know if I hear anything.

Mary: Thank you.

Keith: Wonderful. Thank you, Ann, for your report. Sorry, I was away from my computer. We're going to move into architectural, Josh Toennis.

Architectural (Josh Toennis)

Josh: No new requests submitted for the month. And then on the email; I am receiving emails again. I received a couple of people just asking general questions, so that seems to be working now. But besides that, nothing else to report.

Keith: Wonderful, thank you, Josh.

Parks (vacant)

Keith: Onto our last position: parks, which is vacant. They're all covered in snow. That’s about it.

OLD BUSINESS

I had final assignment of board positions in here. We kind of did that earlier with Suzanne, with the new treasurer; thank you once again. We'll probably re-discuss this in January, if not next month, with Amber. And we'll just kind of keep being a little flexible as the board and just keep getting the job done.

Section B old business: I should have taken out. I'm sorry I didn't read these. This is what happens when you rush to get an agenda out right before the meeting.

NEW BUSINESS

Budget preparation deadline: we covered that earlier up in treasurer. We approved the budget, we approved the new dues.

And then the intel tanks discussion grants set up time. This question was asked earlier about Suzanne. I did not hear of any update from Paul Lisko either. This is something we could maybe ping Paul and/or Lee Taylor on to see if they actually are moving up, especially in winter now. So that will be continued.

ACTION ITEMS

We already completed this today; my wife actually did. We contacted the county clerk for the Ashley Lane debacle. We did receive those reports which are identical to what everyone else already had. I’ll most likely be requesting reimbursement for those pages next month, just because I haven't sat down to figure it out. I did see Amber asked the question of how the board wants to accomplish something. So, Amber, if you're still on, would you like to summarize this the best way possible?

Amber: Well, jumping into this... I understand that any bill over $500 needs board approval to pay, which is new, because I was also advised just pay everything. And if it's big dollars, send it out so everybody knows. If we've already done the service or consume the product and I'm then supposed to get board approval to pay it... That does not give me a warm fuzzy, but I wasn't sure how to handle it. And now understanding that I have an approval requirement over $500, should I just pay it and email the board for every single bill that's over $500, which are probably about 95% of our bills? Or do I just get approval for ones that are not like monthly regular? Or how does the board want me to handle these bills that we've already incurred? They're not quotes, they're bills. Anybody have suggestions?

Ann: May I ask what type of bills? I mean, if it's like the electric bill, I don't see that we really have a choice.

Amber: A lot of is roads and mostly water, and actually electrics, my easy one. The most expensive one usually is anywhere from $150 to $200 and something, which means each bill individually treated is a separate bill to be paid. So none of those ever exceed $500. It's the bakers and the attorney and the all the repairs that are $2,000 and $14,000 and whatever, that kind of big stuff that's already been done and spent. And, you know, the work's been repaired. I didn't want to flood everybody because trust me, for a while there, it was pretty intense on the volume and I was driving under a different direction. And now that I realize it's $500, hopefully things are slowing down with the winter and the water repairs. But I just kind of wanted to know how everybody wanted this handled with the big bills over $500.

Keith: And I think this was kind of a hard one, and Amber got very thrown under the bus. Not only was she brand new, but I think is probably one of the busiest four months we've had with bills and things and projects and whatever it may be. I think it was just bad timing in general. But some of the bills she's talking about are when we had five leaks come up, as John stated earlier. If he wasn't able to get volunteers, the leak wasn't going to get fixed, which would potentially put our system at risk or put people without water. So if he wasn't getting volunteers, he was reaching out to David Salazar, a contractor at the time, and he was driving the equipment over, some was already here, digging a hole, getting it fixed. If that can be over $500...

Ann: I can express my own opinion about this. First of all, if it's a bunch of items such as the roads and Dave Stuedell is basically the chair of the roads and Dave has a budget of, I'll say, $20,000 and he authorizes the payment of the contractor for $1,000, the contractors should be paid. The board doesn't really need to be second guessing Dave in his decisions. That's my particular opinion. The risk, I suppose, is that if (I'm using this as an example, Dave) Dave is not is frugal as the board would like him to be, then we could probably ask him to be better. We can get a different person in the roads. We could do all of those kinds of, of things. But I think that basically we're trusting the chairs like Dave in the roads to do the best job he can, and here are the resources he has to do it. The one caveat I have is that Dave should not be paying himself to do the work. So Dave doesn't get to approve Dave to go out and fix the road and pay himself the entire budget.

Amber: Okay. So those things where they're having to be reimbursed, I should bring it to the board for motion to pay. And everything else, if it's chair presented as approved to submit for payment, then I should go ahead and pay them. Correct?

David: Yeah, I think, you know, if we have an approved budget and, you know, the amount isn’t over the budget, then we've approved the budget. I don't know if we need to approve each individual item on the budget. I think, like you were saying, we just submit those items as long as they're within the budget and not paid to the individual.

Suzanne: Can I make a comment, please? I think we're going to need to pay attention to that $500 policy only because, Dave, you might have a $20,000 budget, but if you have a project that's going to cost over $500, it does have to come to the board for approval. Not if it's an emergency, but if it's just a project like we had this line replacement, the board really needs to be aware of the fact of it's over $500 and make sure that we know what's going on. So I'm going to say that I think we all better relook at the $500 policy. It's not for emergencies because you can use the reserve account for that. But any project that is not considered an emergency, we really need to follow the bylaws or the policy. It's not a bylaw thing, it's a policy and then we can take it from there.

Amber: Okay. So the question begs that we have a meeting once a month and I've got these bills over $500. Do I send them out to the board and then we vote on them next month and they’re paid the month after? Or how do we work that? Because that's what it ends up being, is waiting for the board approval, meeting for approval and then submit to HOAMCO for payment.

Suzanne: Yeah, I understand. That's kind of complicated because we weren't following it to begin with. Maybe the best thing would be, I don't know, I can't really tell you how I would do it. Other than what I would say is maybe just accumulate those and send them out to the board and get the approval. It's already done, a done deal, and they have to be paid. We can't postpone it anymore and we move forward from there and start paying attention to the $500 policy from this point forward. What do you think, Amber? Okay.

Ann: Basically, you do not have (from what I can understand), you do not have a purchase order system. You don't get permission prior to spending the money, and therefore it's already spend, let's pay the bills. If you have an objection, you can stop future payments. But you're not going to be able to really affect past commitments. So, again, if Dave's Stuedell is in charge of the road's budget and it's $1,000 and it's already been done, I think it's his budget, it's authorized. He can report to the board that it's been done and it's paid. And if we have an objection, then we address.

David: So, you know, in general, I get a quote for the roads and we get approval for that quote for regular items. And then the work's done and then we get the invoice. So that's the process the roads has been going through. So I guess if we were going to replace a thousand feet of line and it was going to be $20,000, you know, we get a quote for it, we present it to the board, the board approves it. And then once the board approved that, then when the bill comes in, you just pay it, right?

Amber: Okay. Yeah, correct. That would work wonderfully. I guess I'm new enough, I haven't really stepped through that process yet. I'm just catching up on old business, probably.

Keith: Yeah, you're exactly right. You've been catching up on old business, so it's been hard because you didn't know the history of it. And we're stuck between a rock and a hard place here. I understand Ann’s side: the budget that we approved that we want people to utilize and not have to micromanage. The issue, as Suzanne stated, is we have a policy written that we have to approve anything over $500 for non-emergency. Whether we like it or not, we have to follow that policy. And yes, it is an extra step. So how do we make this extra step and not slow down progress at this monthly cadence meeting? And I think that step forward is we need to be able to approve said invoices over email. So if something comes up to be like, what if something comes up tomorrow that needs approval the next day or within a week, right? Well, then, no, we’d have to wait till the next one in December. So I think if we give ourselves the ability to approve through emails with no objection, then we can proceed with billing items. The other thing is, a lot of these things coming in might have been poor planning on the board. If you get a bill that is already done but it’s not an emergency, it could have been just poor planning or poor communication on our part for getting this bill approved. That's something we'll have to work on as a board. Hey, roads are going to be done in August; we need to make sure that it's approved two months prior. Or we want to do 1000 feet of line in July; we need to make sure it's approved two months prior. So that is planning on the board. But then we also need to make our treasurer aware, hey, we had a leak come up. This is an emergency. Done, right? That's all that needs to be said. So those are all things that we need to work on as a board. But we are held to this policy, whether we like it or not. We are held to the $500 policy.

Amber: I also want to state; I'm just thinking about it. I might just be able to send out an email once a week unless it's a real critical, it's got to be paid immediately, which I would shoot at an urgent payment approval request. But maybe once a week just send anything pending that's over $500 so that you're not getting bombarded with tons of email. And that way the board can look through each of the bills attached to that one email and I just need a vote across the board approved or whatever needs to happen. I'll minimize the email traffic.

Keith: That sounds great to me as long as everyone else agrees. It's just something we're held to and we got to follow.

Wonderful. Well, that went longer than I expected but I also knew we had a lot of big ticket items tonight, so it doesn't surprise me. I will give everyone the rest of their night back. I am going to end our recording and make a motion to finish our meeting for the night.

Amber: Amber seconds.

Scott: Scott seconds.

Keith: Wonderful, thank you everyone. I will see you Tuesday, December 13th, 2022 at 1830 via Zoom. Thank you and have a good night. We'll jump into executive session really quick.

Keith Rigney made a motion to adjourn the meeting; Amber DeWitt and Scott DeWitt seconded, motion carried and the meeting adjourned at 8:18pm on 11/15/2022.