September 10, 2002 - Annual Meeting

Sierra Los Pinos Property Owners' Association
Annual Meeting
September 10, 2022, 2:04 P.M.

The Zoom and in-person meeting at Station 52 was called to order by the Acting President, Keith Rigney, with the following Board members present: Kristi Cross, Ann Cooke, Josh Toennis and David Stuedell. John Hines, non-voting member of the Board was present also.

Members of the Association who attended in person were: Suzanne Star, Barbara Van Ruyckevelt, Mary Moore, Bill Stellwag, Harold Corn, Carolyn Corn, Ken and Martha Gerhardstein, Michael and Josephine Meadows, Vance Taylor, Mana Babicz, John Fredlund, Shae Sanger, Sumner Dean, Samantha Rigney and Naveah.

Members attending via Zoom: Marsha Gaillour, Amber Gaston, Kevin Stephens, Scott DeWitt and TenBears Souter.

Guests: Kristin Gray and Martha Graham, New Mexico Rural Water Association.

OFFICER REPORTS:

PRESIDENT (Vacant):

VICE PRESIDENT (Keith Rigney):

I have been acting President since July of 2022. People are familiar, who have been here awhile, Paul Lisko was our last President. He, unfortunately, had to step away for his own concerns, which kind of pushed me up into this role, and I’ve been here since July.

I am going to go through some of the activities that we’ve kind of done throughout the year and if you have any comments, feel free to ask along the way. If I need to go deeper, more in depth of what these are, just feel free. There’s a ton of effort between all these things and getting them into writing.

The first item is the Road Maintenance Agreement we set up for lots on High Road. There are currently six lots for sale up on High Road. I don’t know if anyone has ever driven High Road, or seen those roads before, this Road Maintenance Agreement, what it does is it kind of protects the Association from these lots tapping into our water system and/or tapping into us for road maintenance. That road is awful and has no availability for us to really improve it. So, to save us from actually having to maintain that road, we created this Road Maintenance Agreement. Any contractors we asked to maintenance that gave us bids outside of our normal venue. It’s not that we don’t want to do it, it’s just – I don’t know if anyone has driven those roads, but you need to go see them. So, we put a lot of work in with our legal team, which is Scott Turner, down in Albuquerque, and we created an agreement to get the current owners to sign, and that will protect the Association from dumping more money into roads on top of our already high budget. If you want to see this Maintenance Agreement, please let me know. If you want to ask questions, let me know, we can answer it now or we can answer it later.

Suzanne Star: Keith, can I ask you a quick question; have we got a quorum?

Keith: I was going to cover that later, right before votes, if that’s okay.

Suzanne S: Normally, they open up the meeting with a quorum, count ahead of time, so we know whether or not the meeting can take any information or votes.

Keith: I had that for later, before we voted, but as everyone should know, I’m new to this, nor did I ever want to be in this position, but here I am. So, if we have to count votes really quickly to see if we made quorum, we will do that.

Kristi Cross: We have a quorum with 49.

Keith: So we have 49 ballots, plus four in the audience, plus a potential one, so we’re at 55. So this is an official meeting.

So we have been talking to the District Fire Ranger about another High Road incident. If anyone has driven High Road, there’s also an alternative route up there. That route actually does lead back to the highway and, for fire instances or other issues that may come up, that is a road that can be utilized by the public. We have been working on opening up that entrance with the District Fire Ranger and it’s a usable road now. So they came through; they completely graded everything; they added water bars, water ditches, drainage, you can name it. We have driven up there multiple times to assess what the road looks like. I would not suggest it with a low-rise car, I would definitely suggest something with a little bit of clearance, but I want everyone to be aware there is a road up there and we have been working on it. The next task on that road is to get the entrance opened up even larger, so if any of these big trucks need to make it up there, they can. This is mainly for fires. So, if that fire would have kept going, they could have used that road to stop it.

Ann Cooke: Because you are invoking it for fire, I do not recommend that anyone take it as an emergency exit. You don’t know where you’re going, you don’t know what the road looks like, and you don’t know who has abandoned their RV in front of you, that you can’t get around. Once you are down a dead-end road, with a fire behind you, you’re going to be experiencing that fire in your vehicle. Don’t do it. If you are going to get out of here for a fire, do it early and don’t take a road you don’t know what’s down at the end of it. John Fredlund, do you agree?

John F: Yeah. So, about 10:00 at night on the fire, three very large, strong people took an hour or two to get through that road, just because of all the trees that had fallen down before the fire got to the road.

Ann: It is not an emergency exit.
John F: If anybody was ever going to do it, you need four-wheel drive, high clearance, a chain saw and at least two strong people to be safe to go out that way. I don’t think it’s too safe, because there could be someone with their low-rise vehicle in front of you.

Dave Stuedell: If a fire was coming through and you couldn’t get down Los Griegos, and that was your only option, because it would come from this direction…

Ann: So prepare your home, make sure you have a safe place in your home and that you’ve done your Firewise. That’s probably the better place to wait it out if you prepare. Right?

John F: Shelter in Place.

Ann: Yes, that’s your only option. I’d rather be in my house rather than over the gas tank of my car.

John: I’m with the fire department; I’m a resident. I’m with the fire department, so I’ve seen a lot, and I personally would never dream of thinking that’s a reasonable escape route for me, personally. I wouldn’t do it. I would run on foot where there is no fire, but I wouldn’t get stuck in the first place, like Ann is trying to convince people.

Ken Gerhardstein: One of the things you guys put out, maybe five or six years ago, the Shelter in Place kind of instructions, we have them up on our fridge. It might be something that these new folks don’t have, and it was really tremendous info.

Ann: The positive news is you have access to the forest now, and I think everyone should go out and enjoy it, out that direction, beautiful.

Keith: It’s a good drive and, as anyone who has ever driven these roads, everything connects to everything. You can get to Kitty Cat Lake up there. There’s a few things. But again, make sure you have a vehicle that can do it. So let’s use our discretion.

The next thing is this is mainly just to test the waters. I want to see who would like this availability. There’s a possibility for thinning along our roads at a 30/70 split. So I guess the long-term goal would be to get wider roads in this area. Some of this does require thinning. This can be done at the homeowners’ discretion either next to the road or there’s a separate grant available right now, where they will do a 30/70 split to your whole property.

John Hines: Who’s 30?

Keith: We are 30; we will be 30. If you want your whole property done, please let me know and give me your information. You can have your whole property cleared for the 30/70 split. If you want just the road done for future use, maybe widen the road in some areas, it’s the same thing right now, 30/70 split. I have not taken this to ground, because they were just telling me about it, and I don’t want to go too far without people even being interested. So, if you’re interested, please send an email to me, or talk to me after the meeting and we can kind of get this rolling.

The next thing is we need some volunteers, and there’s multiple things. The first one is chipping on Aspen and Calypso. If you’re not a part of the SLP Facebook page, please join it. It’s actually awesome. I’ve been able to get a lot of good information out, a lot of good feedback. Due to the flooding, we had to take out a bunch of the trees and there is slash all over one of our resident’s property, and we’re looking to get that cleaned up for them, as this shouldn’t affect them hopefully. So, once again, we’ve got a few volunteers. If we can get any more, please let me know. I’ll be talking to Lee Taylor, in the back, to get the chipper for us. All it’s going to take is bring some gloves, we’re going to drag it downhill to the chipper. Lee’s personnel will run the chipper, and we’re just going to feed the chipper for them. Just a couple of hours. Also, there is some good firewood in there, so if you get there early, be my guest.

Sumner Dean: Lee, do you know when the chipper is available?

Lee Taylor: I have the chipper now. So one reason I’m here is if we can work towards setting another date. For us, right now, the 25th – not this weekend, but the next – would work out the best, Saturday.

John F: Not just gloves, but eye protection and hearing protection.

Lee Taylor: It’s also best to wear a long-sleeved shirt.

Keith: So we’ve been doing a lot of leak detection and fixing pipe. We just fixed a bunch of pipe right off Aspen. Above Aspen there is now a leak. I don’t know if anyone ever drives Aspen, but there’s a puddle that is streaming down. I’m looking for volunteers to help John Hines dig up this leak. Equipment would be great. I think we currently have two people with equipment, Jonathan Morris and Scott DeWitt. So, if you don’t have equipment and you just want to come and throw a shovel for a little while, greatly appreciated once again. Once I get some volunteers, we’ll set up a date with John Hines and we’ll try to get this moving to fix the leak.

So this is more broad. We, obviously, are few and far between as Board members, so if you are active and you want to help out the community, help us in any way you can, you can either join the monthly meetings with us, you can join the Water Management Team with us. You could also follow John around as a water operator and kind of help us in the water aspect of things. If you’re just looking to help the community out, just let me know, we can find a spot. There’s a lot going on between roads, flooding, deteriorating water system. We’re just trying to find some help, trying to get some good assets underneath us and move forward. I don’t know about you guys, but I would like to stay here for another 30-plus years and we need help to do that. So we need volunteers across the board. So if you have any time, I’ll take an hour, I’ll take 30 minutes, whatever you guys have for us.

Something I did kind of want to tag along on this, we did put up to vote this year, a co-mingle project. The co-mingle project was to add a secondary co-mingle line between our System 2 on Los Griegos and System 1 down in the bottom. That was put to vote to the Board; it was not passed. Good, wrong or indifferent, that is what the vote was, and we can get into that later if anyone wants, or anyone has questions of why, who, what, where, but I wanted to make sure this was documented and told to the public. There are things being voted upon, approved, disapproved, things like that.

So now the very last topic that I actually have is the Water Management Team. So they wrote me up a script, so I can read it word-for-word. If you have any questions, please let me know.

(Reading): This past February a Water Management Team was established by now former Sierra Los Pinos President Paul Lisko to assist the Board with water infrastructure planning and financial decisions. The team’s objectives are to reduce the 300,000 gallons per month leak rate on System 1; upgrade our aging infrastructure components; educate members on infrastructure issues and investigate funding options for major infrastructure upgrades, which may include continuing with the current status quo of the HOA budget, special assessments, possible grants, state and federal low interest rate loans that may require establishment of water monthly rate structures.

There are six members currently on the team and we are encouraging interested members to attend the meetings that are held normally every other Saturday at 10:00 a.m. at the community fire station, which is here in the back room.

Some of the Water Management Team’s activities during the past six months include, in June, an isolation test to measure the leak rate on individual sections of System 1 main line. The crew consisted of Harold Corn, Carolyn Corn, John Hines, Shawn Weary, Mary Moore, Suzanne Star; and Frank Stanley, who compiled the data. The highest leaking line section discovered during the isolation test, approximately 900 feet in length from the valve below the Aspen Grove Well to the co-mingle can in the meadow across from the fire station (that’s literally right here, if you guys see equipment up there) is being replaced. Labor is estimated at $41 per foot, plus materials. The final cost is yet to be determined as there was an unexpected break that added $16,000 to the cost. Currently, the replacement is estimated at $59,000 if no further issues arise. This replacement is proposed to be paid out of SLP reserve funds.

Due to the Cerro Pelado fire event in June, two memorandums of understanding, one to Sandoval County, the other to Santa Fe National Forest, are being developed to protect the Sierra Los Pinos water infrastructure from abuse and damage by contractors working a fire incident within or adjacent to the SLP community. SLP water reserves are limited and protection of our water supply is the permanent focus of these documents. These documents were derived because when they were trying to fight the fires over in Mora, they actually ended up collapsing all of their main lines in the entire town trying to put out the fire. So, not only did they have no water after the fire, they had no infrastructure. So these memorandums are trying to be set up by this Water Management Team just in case a fire came through here, they’re pulling water from one of our hydrants, we won’t be left high and dry. Where that point is of where you collapse your system, no one ever knows, but if you have something like this in place, it can save us from an after-fire incident. We’re working on those and will get you further information in the future.

The Water Management Team has proposed to distribute newsletters for the members on a periodic basis to educate on the history of the water system, the future infrastructure and financial issues facing the community, and communicating what activities the team is working on, and progress being made. So these newsletters will be set up to inform you guys of what our current situation is, whether it’s budget, whether it’s activities, whether it’s water outages, to educate everyone as to where we’re at.

Two policies concerning charging a fee to state and federal contractors who draw water from our water system, and increasing the meter installation connection fee are being drafted for the Board. Based on past engineering studies, the WMT will be evaluating and planning the major infrastructure replacement over the next years to preserve the integrity and public safety of our water systems. Unfortunately, costs continue to increase. An engineering opinion in 2011 for basic distribution system replacement was estimated at 1.7 million. A more current 2020 engineering assessment estimated similar phased upgrades between 3 and 5 million for our water system to be upgraded.

We have over five miles of main line water pipe in SLP. We started on the 3.25 miles of System 1 line and replaced 4,000 feet between 2016 and 2019, for approximately $16 per foot. That included materials. For each 1,000 feet of line replacement, a cost estimate would be $15,000 to $20,000. We’ve spent approximately $80,000 on line replacements and there’s still approximately 11,000 feet of line in System 1 left to replace. Since 2016 through 2019 replacements, prices have increased from $9 to $41 for labor, not including materials. Because labor and material prices have substantially increased, the remaining 11,000 feet of line replacement just for System 1 could cost $450,000 to half a million based on current labor prices.

Main line pipe is not the only aging infrastructure the WMT is concerned about. It’s been recommended by engineers that our storage capacity should be doubled. This is another upgrade that may be on a future WMT agenda.

There are small projects that the WMT can recommend be funded within the SLP budget and reserves. These include periodic minor leak upgrades and line replacements, replacing well pumps and other inexpensive infrastructure components; tanks, inspections, meter calibrations and generators, electronic equipment and repair supplies to keep our system running effectively and in compliance with the state.

With funds being limited, the WMT will help guide the Board to create and execute a budget. The WMT is addressing some future funding alternatives to guide the Board on how to access funds to finance some of the more expensive infrastructure upgrades. The EPA and USDA, among other state and federal agencies have billions of dollars available for water infrastructure improvement and, according to a report from NMENB, New Mexico doles out approximately $7 million dollars annually to qualifying systems. The WMT is a work in progress, evaluating, defining and prioritizing our water infrastructure upgrades and determining how to pay for those upgrades. The community has managed to keep the water flowing over the past 40 years; however, with the aging infrastructure deteriorating, how the community will protect and fund the water systems will depend on the members.

So, as you can tell, this Team has a lot on their plate. They’re trying to cover a lot of scope in a little amount of time, and I don’t think time is really in our favor. Any assistance is good assistance. I know that was a mouthful; I know that was a ton of topics to cover. If you have any questions, feel free to ask now or approach me or anyone on the Water Management Team afterwards.

Barbara V: On all these loans and things, the money that you’re talking about, we’ve gone through this years ago. Do we get a mutual domestic, did you want a community well, you know, there’s several different choices, but all the choices come with pros and cons. That’s the dilemma we have now is you’re basically not going to get any money from the government until you can show that you’re financially viable, and we are not financially viable. We’re barely keeping up with our repairs. That’s what the community needs to decide where they want to go and what path to take.

Keith: The Board has been utilizing the WMT to address these pros and cons, to be able to give it to the Board and the members of what these are. And whether that’s the four options listed below: current status quo, how much risk does that solve, special assessments, how much risk does that solve, what does that cost? We’re going to be able to hopefully lay out the pros and cons of every single option to give the members the ability to vote on it and decide what they think is best for us and our community. So that is not determined by us. We can only give you guys the information for you guys to vote. That is all I had under my portion. If no one has any questions for me –

Dave S: How many Board members do we need to actually vote on something and have it approved?

Keith: So I was reading the bylaws last night. It states that the Board consists of nine board members; you need five for a majority of the nine.

Dave S: Do we have five?

Keith: Yes, we do, but it depends. If it involves special assessments, it requires a vote by members, which is Section 3 and 4 in our bylaws. Any adjustments to those assessments have to be voted on by 60 percent of members. So that is where the Board’s power is limited. So 66 percent.

We’re going to move on to our secretary, Kristi Cross, if you have anything to report.

SECRETARY (Kristi Cross):

I don’t really have anything to report. Everything should be posted shortly by our webmaster for financials and minutes. There was a backlog that hadn’t been posted, so I’ve hopefully got him to post that, so they should be up there shortly. Basically, that’s it for me.

TREASURER (Jeremy Oepping):

Keith: We’re going to move on to the Treasurer’s report, which is Jeremy. Jeremy is actually not in attendance today. He was supposed to be out of state. He actually ended up getting Covid right before he left, so he’s actually sitting at his home right now, not able to go on vacation or attend. But I do have his report here and to put it in the record, I’ll read all of his values. I’ll try and answer questions the best I can for the budget, but that is not my expertise. Jeremy has done a great job for us and he will not be continuing on the Board after this meeting, which actually sucks because Jeremy is fantastic. But to get this moving…

The balance in accounts as of June 30, 2022:

◦ Cash on Hand: $259,000. This is lower, versus $304,000 this time in 2021, so exactly a year ago.
◦ Checking balance is $154,000; lower versus $178,000 as of last year
◦ Reserve Balance: $105,000; lower versus $125,000 in 2021
◦ $666.67 continues to be transferred from checking to Reserves each month.
◦ Accounts Receivable - $13.3K, all attributed to unpaid annual assessments. There are six delinquent accounts vs. eleven in 2021. So we got that down from last year.
◦ Other Assets: $4.3K, all attributed to prepaid insurance
◦ Fixed Assets: $15.6K, all attributed to SLPPOA-owned equipment

Income Statement highlighted comparisons (I’m just reading this):

Total Year-to-Date Income: $164,387.88

Year-to-Date Operating Expenses: $93,421.76. We are currently under budget by $4,383.32. There is a caveat here as we have roughly $80,000 of expenses that are at HOAMCO to get expensed. It may look like we’re under budget right now, but we’re soon to be very heavily overbudgeted due to the flooding on roads and our emergency fixes of water. We can break that down more in a little bit.

Administrative: Underspent by $984.61
Common Area: Underspent by $5,079.12
Taxes and Other Expenses: Slightly underspent, entire category has an annual budget of $600.
Utilities: Underspent by $353.83.

We do have these printed up here if you would like to see this for yourself. Other than that, that is all that I’m reporting for Jeremy. But we do have quite a few expenses and we’ll be heavily overspent this year.

Just for you guys’ awareness, I don’t know if anyone saw the flooding up on Aspen this year. We actually ended up having four-foot trenches due to water erosion. That wasn’t covering – you could see our main power line about two feet under that, completely visible. I assume we were about six inches to a foot away from our main water line on that side. To get this fixed, we pulled in our road guy, R.L. Leeder. He gave us a bid for $36,000 to fix this. Instead of waiting, we decided to get it done, just because it was a huge accountability on the Board to have main power lines and main water lines showing, and we didn’t know when snow was coming. At this time, I think this year – last year or year before, we actually had our first snow. It could have put our whole water system at risk if someone were to walk by and fall in that trench and touch the main power. Huge liability there. We got it fixed. If you would like to go look at that work, drive up Aspen, it’s beautiful. It is not 100 percent fixed; it definitely needs some culverts, it will need some top base course done, but all and all it’s better than what it was.

Other than that, after our water loop meter testing, we found a four gallon per minute leak up on this portion here. As we were digging up that leak, the leak actually blew up and put a lot of people without water for the day, which was very unexpected on our end. So that was an extended cost of $16,000 on top of the already cost that he is working on, as he has not finished the project yet. All those expenses will come from our reserves, which is not ideal, but the four gallon per minute leak could potentially pull that 300,000 gallon leak down to 150,000 or even 100,000 gallons. So we could have helped our leak by either 30 percent or 50 percent of the year. So, it’s great news. It came at a cost. This cost is not going away, unfortunately, for years to come, but we are monitoring this and, depending on how our budget comes out this year, we may not have the ability to do our roads next year, or do any line replacement next year. It just depends on how much budget we have and how many emergency fundings we have come through the spigot.

If you have any questions, we do have that breakdown. If you want one of these, that shows our total expenses to-date. They are up here, take one; it’s all yours to take.
The next thing we’re covering for Jeremy, which is covered under the treasurer –

Suzanne Star: Can I just ask you a quick question?

Keith: Of course.

Suzanne: The $80,000 you’re talking about, that we’re going to have to make up in the budget, where is that coming from?

Keith: $41,000 of that is our current roads, so that was budgeted for. The other $36,000 of that was the flooding fix on that road, and $16,000 of that was the leak fix right above our Aspen Well.

Suzanne: Where is that coming from, Reserves?

Keith: $41,000 will come out of operating; $42K or $43K, whatever the remainder is, will come out of Reserves. That has not hit the budget and is not captured here, but that’s where it will be coming out from.

Mary Moore: I have a question about that.

Keith: Of course, Mary.

Mary: I’m just wondering if you have a policy about when you tap into reserves. In many ways I understand that these are emergencies of a sort and you’ve got to deal with them, but it seems to me there should be a policy about perhaps tapping into the community response or, I suspect, you must have taken a vote of the Board to do that, but do you have a policy about when you tap into reserves.

Keith: I do not know if there is a policy. The policy I was given was for non-emergency situations over $500. I could go back through and see if there is another policy for emergency situations. To-date, the $36,000, David Stuedell, was 100 percent voted on by the Board in our last meeting. The line replacement of $16K was notified at the Board level, but has not been voted on since we have not had a meeting since. If we operated on a monthly cadence, we’d never get anything done. So things were done at the Board level through email and have been approved to-date.

Ann C: I would like to thank both you and Dave for your prompt response to this and your executive decisions to get it fixed. Thank you very much.

David S: I’d like to chime in there. Keith actually really made the decision and Josh and Keith did all the cutting of the trees down, that had to be done so they could actually dig the ditches and everything. They really did a lot of work. So, you know, this was a mess. You could see the power lines, you know, we needed to operate on this. I think we really executed on this in a timely manner.

Ann C: Thank you for your prompt response.

(Applause)

Keith: Thank you guys. It was a lot of work. Like I said, it’s hard to pull from Reserves. It’s not like we’re trying to drain, we have leaks, we have 300,000 gallons leaking in our system and we’re trying to fix that. That was dug the week prior to the flood happening, and then we couldn’t leave our mains open. It was just a perfect storm and it was what it was. We are very healthy. We have $259K. Some can argue that’s not healthy, some can argue it is healthy. I don’t know what healthy is. I have no idea. But if everything were to go downhill tomorrow, I can guarantee you we’d need millions. I don’t think we’re ever going to get there. It just is what it is; that’s life.

Barbara Van Ruyckevelt: I’d just like to interject what I interject every year. Our reserves are depleting really quickly, and they have been since I’ve been here. They were building up, and did anybody on the Board read the reserve study that was done back in 2017?

Keith: Did not, no.

Barbara V: We are supposed to have a reserve study every three years or four years, and this was our last study. It wasn’t that great; it was incomplete, but it does show, and I hope the new board pays more attention to the money situation, because it’s not going to be around very long. This is – you can see back in 2015, the blue line is our reserve. The red line is what this reserve study has asked us to be at a healthy place to take care of emergencies like this. It was under $100,000 in 2015, and by 2030, it gets down below zero basically if we didn’t start padding our reserves. One Board did, they put in this $666, and I applaud that, but I’ve always complained that that’s not much if we could spend more and get a better rain, you know, for a rainy day. But you can see from this, and I’ll pass it around if you want to look at it, and it should be on the website; isn’t it?

Keith: I would have to look. I haven’t seen it, per se.

Barbara V: It was done by an Albuquerque firm. But it would be nice to have an up-to-date one.

Keith: And with Jeremy going out, I think we have to do a complete overhaul.

Sumner Dean: What’s the deficit right now according to this study?

Barbara V: Well, that’s what we’re trying to find out, but it’s going to be under $100,000.

Sumner D: You said by 2030 it would be zero, but what is it –

Barbara V: It’s going faster.

Sumner D: You don’t know what it is now?

Keith: Well, we were sitting at $100,000 as of last month. You can subtract $43 from that and we’ll be sitting at $60,000, but crossing the calendar year. Part of that will be with the flooding, and since it was a disaster emergency, I’ve been looking into FEMA and other operations to try to get reimbursed for that $36,000. Whether that is a 75 percent reimbursement or 25, I’ve been working on reimbursement. Anything we get back from that, we’ll directly put back into Reserves. The Reserve amount of $666 is an arbitrary number that someone chose. As a Board, if we want to start replenishing that, we can. As I said earlier, we will try to assess our budget next year, and whether that’s not do roads, or not replace water line, we can replenish that at whatever rate we deem as feasible. It is hard because we do have a lot of infrastructure here, and any logical reserve amount for our miles of pipe, number of wells, miles of roads, it’s millions of dollars to replace and we would never have high enough reserves according to any logical explanation. But that’s where we live and what we have to deal with. It is what it is.

Sumner D: May I add, I totally trust the Board to manage the funds. Whatever you want to do, you’ve got my support.

Keith: Like I said, none of us want to go bankrupt here, we’re just trying to teeter that line of getting our 300,000 gallon per month leak down and keep our infrastructure healthy. I’m going to rely heavily on the Water Management Team to create those options for us, see how far funding can get us on the status quo, see what it takes to get government funding. We need to see that in writing, on paper, in our hands, so we can give that to you guys of what are the pros and cons. I’ll be relying upon them to give that to you guys.

The last thing I’ve got to cover for Jeremy is the following changes of property ownership since the last annual meeting.

October 2021 Ryan and Janie Rettinger; 41 Hovenweep Loop
Konstantin Borozdon, 11 Lauer Lane
December 2021 Thomas R. Hafera, 1112 Los Griegos Road
January 2022 Jose Vigil IV and Courtney Winter, 248 Los Griegos Road
Michael and Josephine Meadows, 168 Los Griegos Road
Melissa Hardcastle, 102 Trilobite Trail
Anders Stromberg, 23 Scouts Lane
February 2022 Scott Dewitt and Amber E. Gaston, 170 Aspen Grove
Sheryl Pounds, 1341 Los Griegos Road
March 2022 ComNet; High Road – that’s LA Net
April 2022 Sarah Wright and Erik Alberts, 1309 Los Griegos Road
Henry P. and Tara D. Polaco, 527 Los Griegos Road
May 2022 Philip and Mana Selan Babicz, 62 Chaco Road
July 2022 Kyle D. Spielvogel and Taylor V. Fetrow, 560 Hovenweep Loop.
August 2022 Russell P. Givens, 41-3 Trilobite Trail
Mark Whitcomb, 123 Mimbres Way

And that will do it for the treasurer’s report.

Now we will look to our standing committee reports and we’re going to start
with our water operator, John Hines.
STANDING COMMITTEE REPORTS:

Water (John Hines):

John: Thanks, Keith. First up, I’d like to let everybody know, when they put the water meters in, one of the things the water meter, when we read them monthly, is it actually gives a flag if someone is leaking, over a 24-hour period, a gallon a minute. So, when that happens, when I read them, it’s actually segregated out of the readings so I can tell if someone has a running toilet, or if they have a leak in their house. One of the things they directed me, when I became the water operator, was they wanted me to start a program to where we could actually notify people, let them know. So, I just want to let you know that, so when you hear my stats, where most of my information comes from.

This past year we repaired leaks on the main twice. We had two main leaks that we had to repair. We had five service leaks we had to repair. I responded to four service calls, had 13 line locates, 4 water disconnects and turn-ons, 8 well or booster pump repairs.

Some good news. I know this meeting so far has been a little bit of a downer, but here’s some good news. Twice a year the state hydrologist comes and measures the level of our water table at our wells. We are one of only two places in the whole state of New Mexico, our water table has risen this year. We just tested it again last Tuesday, and they were up another foot. So the good news is, we’re not losing water, running out of water, like down in the valley and things. Even though we are in a drought, he thinks part of the reason was because we had a great monsoon year, but last year it rose a foot also. So the water table is rising for whatever reason it might be, because we haven’t had that great of winters.

Of the projects that we had go on this year, we talked about the co-mingle. We had NV5 do an engineering study to see about doing a co-mingle, where we could actually pump water from System 2 into System 1. So we did the engineering report on that, the Board voted on it, and it was denied because they decided the monies that would have cost would be better to spend on repairing leaks.

We had the Rural Water Leak Detector come, and he and I walked all of System 1, to every valve and listen to it, to see if we could hear a leak on any of the water lines, and he found four potential leak sites. So we actually dug those four sites up and didn’t find any leaks.

Then we did a meter loop survey in System 1, and we had quite a few volunteers help us do that. Harold has worked with Mark before, and so what they basically do is we had to shut off everybody on System 1’s water meter. So if anybody had a leak from the water meter into the house, it would not show any usage. So then what we did, we had a computer and an ultrasonic device hooked up at the water tanks, and they could measure how much water loss was on System 1. Then we would isolate. Starting at the very end of System 1, we shut the valves off on the main lines. If it didn’t show any reduction in leak loss, we knew that part of the line was good. So we traced the line all the way back to the well. What we found was two sections of line that showed a high leak rate. The lesser one was from Mimbres, the main intersection, down to Forest Road 10, and the worst one was from the well down to Forest Road 10.

So we decided, after we had gotten line locates and bids for a contractor to fix other places, not knowing about these, instead of doing those, we decided to concentrate on this line right here to fix, because it was the largest. In the process of digging that up, we hit highly saturated soils and we found a leak on the main. So we repaired that. In the process, we went down another 20 feet and the main blew out and so we had another leak and we had to repair that. So we got away from the old main and we’re putting in all new line down to there. Hopefully, that’s going to eliminate that four gallons per minute, what that line showed was leaking, and hopefully we’ve gotten that leak repaired.

Also this year we had line at the very end of Los Griegos stop flowing water, and we lost five customers. So we tried to find out why there was no more water running, thinking it was frozen. It wasn’t frozen. We spent money to have a roto-rooter come up to see if they could camera the line, to see if they could find where the problem was. Eventually, they couldn’t do it, so what we ended up having to do was replace 400 feet of line, to get new line there, and we never did find out why that water line quit running water. We’ll never know now, but it’s new and it’s been running good ever since.

During the fire event that we had, if you recall the power was out, so the wells don’t run. When the wells don’t run, the tanks run out of water. When people stay here and use water, it drains the tanks. The tanks were empty. I was in Utah at the time. Shawn Weary, who is on the fire department, actually came – he used to be a water operator – and he hooked up the generator on Hovenweep and got Hovenweep running, pumping water back into the tanks. By the time that all got done, the power came back on, and the tanks started refilling, but that’s the way it is. What we learned in that process was we have three places we need generators if we run out of power. We only have one generator. So, in the future, on my wish list is to get two more generators, so if we run out of power, which we all know we do here in SLP, sometimes for 24 hours, sometimes for five days. When that happens, if we run out of water, you’re not going to have water, but if we have the generators running, then we can still get water pumping and you’ll still have water. So, that’s one thing on my wish list is to get that set up.

After the floods, because of the fire, I walked all of the lines, and we had quite a few water lines exposed. My main concern was we didn’t want freezing temperatures to show up with those water lines exposed and have frozen lines. So, thankfully, these guys got right on it and got everything covered back up, so I think we’re going to be in pretty good shape.

I attended the New Mexico Rural Water Association conference and was appointed as the SLP representative to the Rural Water. So we are now a voting member to them, so we can actually help in statewide water issues.

Since September of 2021, System 1’s wells pumped 7 million, 510 – almost 11 – thousand gallons, with a total usage of 3,500,000, with a leak loss of 3,981,000 gallons of water leaking back into the ground. That’s why System 1 is so critical for us to get it fixed. Fortunately, like I said, we’re not running out of water yet.

System 2 pumped 2,056,000 gallons, with a usage of 1,834,000, with a leak loss of 221,000 gallons. So System 2, basically, is almost rock solid, knock on wood. We have a one-to-two percent rate on System 2, which is utility standard. I mean, that’s just really good. System 1 is obviously what we need to concentrate our funds on and repairing.

As far as water compliance goes, we sample the water randomly every month and we test for e-coli, which is the bad stuff that allows people to get sick, and also for disinfection rate, chlorine residuals that are in our water. That’s the only thing we add to our water is chlorine. This year we had no issues of any violations as far as e-coli or as far as having chlorine residuals.

Every year the federal government requires the state to require us to do a report on our water system. They check for heavy metals, chloromethanes, all sorts of chemicals. Eighty different things they test our water for. The report is up here if anybody wants it, it’s called the CCR 2021. Of that, it’s randomly chosen each year at someone’s house that we take samples. Last year, we had one sample come up bad. So, when that happens, we have to go and we have to randomly take samples from everywhere at that place. At that time, I conducted samplings out of the kitchen, their bathroom, everywhere. They had no lead in their water, except in one bathroom out of the bathroom faucet, which basically means that our water is not corrosive, it doesn’t cause lead leakage in our water. We have no lead in our water pumped out of the ground. But, obviously, their house had been plumbed with either lead solder or whatever, and it was leaching it out of that one faucet. So basically the state said I could tell them, don’t drink out of that faucet. We don’t have to re-plumb their house, we don’t have to do anything, it’s just that faucet isn’t safe, unless they want to re-plumb it themselves.

The reports are up here, they’re posted on the webpage. You are allowed to have this and any questions you have on it. It has a lot of good things on water conservation, a lot of things all of us can do.

One of the things I wanted to mention when I talked about all of the leaks, on System 1 there were 12 leak flag customers. Of those 12, four of them were repaired by the homeowner. On System 2, there were 7 and five of those were repaired. Last year we had 17 leaks on surfaces that were repaired by the homeowners themselves. Basically what that means is we are being really conscientious about that. If we have leaks, I notify you and our customers are very good at fixing those leaks. We had one leak this year at a house that used over 300,000 gallons in one month. So it doesn’t take a lot of water. Fortunately, when we found that, it was right after – I read the meters on the first of the month every month. If the leak rate is out on the second, I’m not going to know there’s a leak there, unless it surfaces, until the next month on the 1st. Fortunately, when that happened, we caught it, because the tank level started going down, so I re-read the meters in the middle of the month, we found out where it was at, got the water shut off and he got it repaired. The year before we had one where the house, they had nobody living in it, it was under the house, and we lost 100,000 gallons in a month. So, it’s very easy to lose a lot of water with just a little bit of leakage.

It’s important for all of us, if you’re notified of a leak, to try to get it fixed. I come as a free service, sponsored by SLPPOA, with a sonic leak detector. I help you find where your leak is, help you dig it up. Sometimes I can do it, sometimes I can’t. It’s just a matter of – our soils are not real good for that, because we all have pumice underneath the loam and the water goes down instead of surfacing. Just like the leak up on Aspen Grove right now, we’re fortunate that it actually surfaced. Since I’ve been here, out of 15 leaks, only two have surfaced. They’re all just going in the ground. So we’re fortunate that it did show up. When we get that one fixed, it’s also going to help on System 1’s leak rate. And who is to say it hasn’t been leaking all along and it finally surfaced.

With all that being said, I want to bring up Martha Graham, or at least have her talk to you. She’s the Source Water Protection Specialist for the Rural Water Association, and Martha came to the Water Management Team meeting a few weeks ago. Basically what she talked about was protecting our watershed when we do have fires and things like that, and how there might be some money available for us to do some watershed protection, that comes from the feds and the state to help with that.

So, Martha, would you like to say a few words?

Martha Graham: I am with the New Mexico Rural Water Association. Kristin Gray, who is up in Jemez Springs - I’m from Albuquerque – also works with us. I have the Source Water program with Rural Water, and one of the things I’ve been doing with the Source Water program is making this link between wildfire and people’s drinking water. It’s been underappreciated, that link has been underappreciated for many years. Sadly, it’s really hit home in the last couple of years here in New Mexico. The Calf Canyon/Hermit’s Peak fire has affected between 15 and 18 different public water systems there.

I think you guys said the other day that Cerro Pelado, you guys experienced 3 percent of the entire fire shed, is that –

Keith: Yeah. So those floods that we got were only 3 percent of the overall flooding; 3 percent did all of that damage.

Martha G: So there’s a couple of things that I am going to be working on. On Monday, I’m going to be talking to the Sandoval County Emergency Manager about the grant that she’s applying for to update the Sandoval County Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP). There’s millions of dollars out there for doing forest treatments and watershed health, but at this point, most of that money is accessible once you have an updated CWPP. Sandoval County’s is from 2012, so it’s out-of-date.

Ann C: And we need a new one.

Martha G: And you need a new one. The good news is they are working on it. My goal on Monday is to make sure that water systems and communities are well-represented, and particularly funding in this area. One of the things I’m going to be doing, that I’ve never done before, but a general source water protection plan for the Jemez Mountain area, where the focus, rather than on – typically, I look at potential sources of contamination on a fairly fine-grain level. What this one is going to do is talk about communities, the threat of wildfire to drinking water in your communities. So, as I talk to the Water Management Team about this, they invited me to come here. I’d love to be able to include SLP as one of those communities that I’m specifically going to use as an example for some of the source water protection. I’m very long-winded, but if you have any questions.

Kristin: We’re not asking for money. We are actually paid through the USDA Rural Development and your leak specialist that came actually works with us. We are here to help the communities, because we’re already being paid, and you are already a member of our association. So you’re already paying a yearly balance for that, so use our knowledge. I’m a Water Resource Engineer; Martha is a Source Water Protection Specialist for all of New Mexico, so she has gone to every corner of this place and I can’t even imagine. But we’re not here to take over, we’re not here to cost you anything, we’re here to get a yes and a confirm, and then we can go from doing the Jemez Springs source water project, that’s already been in process for the last year, to continuing it farther up and to just prevent water from escaping where we need it. That’s where our key thing is, we’re trying to preserve water for the community.

Martha G: Source water protection is entirely voluntary. So what we do is make recommendations. It doesn’t commit people to anything. We’re not government, which some people are afraid we are, but we’re a non-profit. As Kristin said, we’re here to help. It’s a privilege to be able to come into communities and say, “We’re here to help.” Thank you.

Kristin: And like I said, I’m more than willing to help you guys. I also do work for the EPA. I work for the EPA in association with USDA Rural Development, and I create small system emergency response plans and operation and maintenance plans. So that’s what I tie into that, as well, for small systems specifically.

John: Thanks, Martha. I only have one more thing to say, and this is probably the most important thing I’ve said, with all my other boring stuff. This system can’t operate without volunteers, and we’ve had some great volunteer help this year, and I just wanted to point them out: Harold has been here for a long time, and he knows this system better than anybody in the world, and I count on him all the time, and I’m sure he sometimes wishes I didn’t, because I probably bother him a little too much. But he just knows so much, that it’s so helpful for me. And also Josh, Shawn Weary, who has helped many times. Jonathan Morris and his children have helped many times on problems we’ve had, whether I need them to dig or whatever it might be. Keith, Suzanne, Steve, who is at the end of Los Griegos, Pete Godfrey, Mary helped with the water meters, and anybody else that I forgot to mention. I just want to tell you that I, personally, really appreciate all the volunteer help. I can remember when we had the water leak on Aspen Grove and Los Griegos in the middle of winter and the blizzard was hitting, Josh was down there in that hole in waist-deep, freezing ice water putting pipe together, and I was like I’m glad he’s doing this, because if it had been me getting in that cold water like that, I still wouldn’t be walking. So I was really impressed with all the volunteer help we had there to get that leak fixed. So, to all of you, thank you so much.

Roads (David Stuedell):

David: Mine is going to be short and sweet. We currently grade our roads every year. We don’t have to; it costs us $41,000, and we do budget for that. If someone knows of a cheaper grading organization – we use Tug Leeder, and he has to travel here with all his equipment, but I didn’t get any complaints this year from anybody, so that was kind of a plus on the roads. Does anybody have any comments on the road grading?

John F: I think they’re getting better at sloping the roads so that the water doesn’t run down the road anymore. And as much as we can encourage them to do that, it will make life a lot easier.

David: I think Danny does the grading, and it does seem like he’s getting more of a slant to the road, and the bar ditches are kind of in place a little better.

John F: That makes me happy, especially up there on Trilobite Trail, where in prior years, they leave a sink place where the water collects and turns into ice until April or May. They’ve gotten much better at sloping.

David: So we can get loads of fill and, you know, if there are areas that are difficult, that need – they use like an aggregate asphalt-type fill that we can put on the roads, but it does cost us $1500 per load, packed. So we can normally get four loads. We got five last year, but I cut back because they did increase their price a little bit. So, to keep within budget, I cut back one load.

The culverts are the responsibility of the lot owner that the culvert is on. So, I know it’s a problem, especially for somebody who is older. I can literally dig my culvert out ten times a year. It just gets that much. And usually, it will block up the culvert with the sticks, and then you’ll fill in – the culvert might be under three feet of dirt, but you can dig that out, and it will clear. So, don’t give up on a culvert that has filled in and covered up, make it – it’s yours. I’m not going to do it. I’m not going to come to your house and dig your culvert. Josh might.

Plowing, we have Jonathan Morris, he’s local, he’s done a great job, good price. We’re lucky there. So the community is in pretty good shape as far as the roads, I think. Then what we did over here on Aspen and Calypso, these guys, they did the heavy lifting. I got the contract in place and kind of said, yeah, go ahead and do this, spend a bunch of money. The actual cost was $29,000. We had another big runoff that dug out stuff over there on Los Griegos that actually cost us $5,000, which I think we got over-charged on, but anyways, it was out of budget so that came out of our Reserves. I think we can only increase – now, I’m asking this. We can only increase our dues 10 percent per year?

Keith: Yes.

David: So that’s a restriction about getting a special assessment. So we did eat into the reserves to fix this water runoff from the fire, and hopefully we’ll get some reimbursement for that.

I think that’s pretty much it, but you can send your concerns about the roads to roads1@slppoa.org and I’ll look at it and see if there’s any issues that we can resolve.

Suzanne S: I have a question for you. Up there on Calypso and Aspen Grove, I know that they filled it in and it’s sort of – I don’t know, a lot of mud came down from where the runoff was. How does Leeder think that that road will hold without any more base course on it, during the course of the winter?

David: Excellent question. Actually, it was down here, I have it here on my notes. We need to get a quote for about four loads, at least, before – it will probably dry up for this year. Josh was just up there and he checked it out. He says it’s drying up pretty good, but it doesn’t get a lot of sun. So, we’ll probably get a quote, it’s going to come out of Reserves, it’ll probably be about $10,000, or something like that, to put some gravel on there. Otherwise, in the winter, after the snow, it’s going to be a mess.

Suzanne S: Before the winter gets real strong, it’ll get muddy and those people get stuck up there, as well. I was just wondering because when I was up there, it did look like it could be problematic with just the ground you put on there.

David: Right. We don’t have a culvert where the water crosses the road. We have a large ditch, and so if we do get – and I guess we didn’t get any water yesterday?

Josh: We didn’t get any yesterday.

David: So it did rain, and if it does, it’s going to wash out part of the road, and so we don’t have a culvert there yet. That’s also on our wish list.

Keith: If you do drive out there, it’s not a permanent fix as of now. There are long-term fixes that we could not do, due to our budget this year. We’re trying to space this out between this year and next year. The long-term goal, due to the state engineer that came up here and looked at it, would be a couple of culverts up there, a couple of low-water crossings. There’s options there, it’s just we couldn’t do that this year. We did put a ditch in the road, which sounds very bad and wrong, but instead of fixing two football field-lengths worth of road, we want to fix one stretch of 30 feet of road and be done. So we kind of minimalized the effort in the future, is what we were trying to do. That will be fixed long-term, it’s just we needed to fix something now and not keep deteriorating what we have. So, short-term fix; long-term goal.

David: So any other questions on roads?

Legal (Vacant):

Keith: The next portion is legal. We currently do not have anyone on legal. I don’t think we really have anything to report on legal. If we have anything we need to address, we normally contact Scott Turner, our legal guy from the law firm that’s contracted to help us. I don’t believe we’ve contacted him for a while now, which means we’re either doing really good or we’re really bad. I don’t know; we’ll figure it out.

Firewise (Ann Cooke):

Ann: So this year it’s been touched on, but there are grants from Cuba Water and Soil District for thinning on your property. I believe they are either a 70/30 split, meaning you pay the 30, or they’re 80/20. For this year, they have their allotment settled, but if you’re interested, and I would recommend it, and you want thinning on your property, either contact me at firewise1@slppoa.org or contact Cuba Water and Soil District for that.

David S: Has anyone used that, because I definitely need it?

Keith: Scott DeWitt is actively using it. I can contact him and we can talk about it.
Ann: Now, this is just an aside. I understand that there has been some confusion. The contractors, each one of them has a different story that they’re telling the homeowners. Some of them, the wood needs to be removed within 48 hours, all of it, which isn’t true. So there’s all sorts of things. You’re going to have to thin to a standard, meaning they don’t come out and remove the one tree you really want gone and leave. All the ones you don’t want done, but they will do you more good. So, it’s a discussion and it should be candid as to what’s required and what they are going to support. But I do recommend it. Cuba Soil and Water is the one that’s managing the grants.

Carolyn Corn: May I just add to that? We applied for that in February. A person came out and walked our entire property. We have an idea of what it is. Now, we were told 80/20, and so we are prepared to do that. Well, we’ve been waiting from February until now. We’ve received no further notification, so I’m guessing they are very behind. But we got to a point where we thought it was going to happen, and this would have been a good year for it, but alas, not to be.

Ann: Be patient.

Barbara V: Carolyn, I think I would call the lady. She’s not as good as Jan, the lady that used to be there.

Carolyn C: Well, Harold has called any number of people and it still is just in a holding pattern, I guess.

Ann: As I said, they’re trying to get their ducks in a line. Like anything you start new, they’re breaking it at this point. So that’s really the good thing.

I want to say thank you to the La Cueva Volunteer Fire Department for curbside chipping July 30th, I believe it was.

John F: Two weekends.

Ann: You guys came by all the mountains, I think, but the VFD has generously and kindly brought the County chipper by to chip slash piles that residents basically bring out to what we’ll call the curb, so that it’s easily accessed. You need to get on their list though. They need to know whether they need to go to get your slash. But thank you very much for this year, and if you could give me a short synopsis of the time, volunteer hours, or money spent, that goes to my last issue. I’m going to be recertifying our Firewise status. I need to know, and I will pass around a handwritten form here, and I’d like to know a guesstimate. Most of the time, people really underestimate, but the time or money you’ve spent this last year reducing fuels on your property. That could be splitting your wood. I mean, you burn it, you reduce the fuels. Clearing your gutters out of pine needles, that counts too. If you cut trees, thin, if you paid somebody to do that, that counts also. I’d like to have just a guess. Nobody will ever come back and ask you to prove it. But thank you if you would volunteer that information.

I will say that one of my main goals was to get Black Bear Park, which is that long, thin area with playground equipment on the left as you come down Forest Road 10, all the seedlings in there are now gone, if you hadn’t noticed. Did anyone notice?

Carolyn C: Yes. Our grandson thanks you.

Ann: That was about $2,600 worth of work. It was one day. Three men and me volunteering to remove 20 years’ worth of seedlings on two acres. So, if you’re thinning your property, now you know about what it costs, and that’s level property. So, if it’s on a hillside, I expect it will go up.

I’m going to pass this around. I’ve filled in the first two as kind of an example. State your name, and I asked for unit lot, but you don’t have to give me information, how much either time, volunteer number of people that were out there doing it. Believe it or not, a volunteer hour is like $26. That’s what Josh is worth in an ice storm.

John F: No, he’s worth more than that.

Architectural (Josh Toennis):

Josh: My name is Josh Toennis. I do architectural. We actually have three other members, as well, that help approve the requests, so it’s not just me saying yes or no to your request. There’s a group that it goes to and they evaluate it, as well.

For the year, we had eight requests come through that were approved. And then we had other people who reached out and asked general questions on other things. So, if you ever do have any questions, please feel free to reach out. It’s architectural1@slppoa.org. We do our best to get back to you in a timely manner and kind of help if anyone needs something. That’s my skill. Thank you, very much.

Keith: The big approval this year was LA Net. They are currently offering service in our area. Our architectural control board spent a lot of time trying to get them here, get their tower approved, and they actually have a tower up there from LA. So if you can’t get Starlink, and you’d like someone local to talk to, LA Net is in the area. They’ve been pretty backlogged and don’t come up here often, but if you want to search them out, feel free.

Parks (Cindy Hines):

Keith: The very last of our standing committees is actually Cindy Hines. She is not here; she had other obligations. Cindy Hines is for parks, so she has been regularly taking care of our parks, whether it’s mowing, whether it’s painting, whether it’s fixing chains due to broken swings, whatever it may be, she has spent a lot of time in fixing that. She, just as Jeremy, will not be continuing on the board. She has been on the board for many, many years and has decided it’s her time to leave. She will still be helping on our webmaster, as I understand, and I’m sure I’m still going to be reaching out to her for help in the future.

That finishes all of our standing committee reports. So I kind of added in this section for volunteer appreciation, and I am sure there are plenty of people I can thank. I know John already did this. I went into depth a little bit more. So I thank Josh Toennis once again for the tenth time today. He spent his entire weekend, after the road maintenance crew came up and he actually cleaned 90 percent of the culverts on Los Griegos with a shovel. Lower Los Griegos; upper Los Griegos is mine, he told me. So, I’ll be working on that soon. But he actually went down and cleaned out all these culverts. With a budget of $43K and spending $41K on roads, if we can get these culverts maintained, this $41K will go a lot further, and we want it to. Just please keep your culverts clean. If you need it, please give me a call and I’ll definitely come down and help. But I just really want to say thank you, because even from the small rains we have gotten, they are flowing. Our roads are in a lot better shape than they have been for a long time. So that was a huge, huge help.

And the last one, Shawn Weary. I feel like every meeting we’re in, we’re always thanking Shawn. If you haven’t met him, he’s a great guy. He helps all the time. John Hines touched on this, but during the Cerro Pelado fire, he was here. He was kind of our man behind the fence that was allowed to be here, due to his experience. He was getting generators ran. Also, on top of that, if you go past Black Bear Park, he did create a sign for the park. So make sure you look over and see that. He did make that by hand. He’s always doing artsy stuff with wood, actually cut his hand open doing it, but he really enjoys it. So, if you ever need a cool piece of furniture or you want a cool sign, he can do it for you, and he’s local. So, super great guy.

Before we move on to our nominations and board volunteers and our voting kind of layout, I want to ask if there have been any questions, to-date, of any information we went over. Is there anything that we – I – as a Board can do better for you guys? I’m sorry this is just an information dump. I’m sorry it’s been the last hour and a half of just talking your ears off. I’ll take any and all criticism, please let me know. I’ll open the floor for just a little bit. (Pause) I’ll take that as we’re doing a stellar job – oh, no – Barbara?

Barbara V: You are doing a great job, but we can always do better, all of us.

Keith: Agreed.

Barbara V: I would just like to see the Board run a little bit more as a business and maybe, when possible, get two to three bids on a job, rather than just relying on the same people all the time.

Keith: I completely understand. Sometimes, the kind of issues that we have, it’s hard to get people up here. We’re not convenient; to even get materials dropped off here is a nightmare. And I think that now a Water Management Team is formed, if it is water-related, we’re going to rely on the WMT to get these two or three bids. If those bids are not produced, we’re going to have to go with who we have on a timely matter. If it’s road-based, we’re kinda going to lean on David for that. And I know he asked earlier for volunteers to get more bids –
David: Yes. You can help. If you know of somebody who is willing to do work, great. Like Keith is saying, it’s hard to find people.

Keith: And I know we have scared off many contractors just because of our repayment processes. I’ve been working that up the chain of HOAMCO, and I actually got reimbursed very quickly. I kind of did it as a trial run, and it was fast. So we’re getting better at reimbursing people. We’re hoping we can keep people at hand. But we are trying to work that angle. It’s just some things were an emergency this year, and now we have teams set in place that can help us do that. Any other comments?

John F: I guess I will add. The fire hydrant down at Los Griegos and 10 is still, as long as we keep getting these heavy rains, getting filled in. So, I’ll keep it not filled in, if somebody tells me on the day, because I don’t drive by it unless I’m coming here. Let me know if it’s gotten plugged again. And was it a volunteer activity that created the by-pass?

John Hines: I’m working on getting Jersey barriers placed there, to where we can divert it around it, so it won’t be in jeopardy anymore.

John F: It was buried three times by the flooding. There was a point where I had to figure out where it was, it was that deep. It’s not for us, the fire department, it’s for SLPPOA. So, all of you guys let me know if it gets covered up.

Keith: Volunteer appreciation; thank you, John.

Now we’ll move into the more political line out. I’m going to highly rely on some people in this area to help me do this, because I’m not politically savvy at all, I’m just here to do work.

SLPPOA 2022 General Election:

So we need to verify eligible members present to make a quorum; we already did that. I had 47, but that number was updated to 55, and I believe we met that earlier as we stated.

Is it normal to take nominations first?

Suzanne Star: Yes.
Keith: So what I would like to do is if there are any nominations on the floor, this is your time to announce them.

Ann: So I’m going to ask this question. How many returning Board members?

Keith: I’ve got four.

Ann: Therefore, we need five, and we have two that were on the ballot; is that correct?

Keith: Two on ballot; three in the newsletter. One of them came out late.

Ann: So we have five nominations. Can you read their names?

Keith: Three nominations. So we have Scott DeWitt; he was not here to be with us. He is actually on the call. We have his wife, who is Amber Gaston. They both live at the same residence; they are both volunteering their time to try and help us. Then actually we have Mana Babicz, who is sitting in the back here today. Those are our current three nominations.

Ann: And the husband and the wife, they’re one owner; correct?

Keith: Correct. So that’s something as a Board we’ll have to discuss, whether they get one vote or two on the Board. But we are obviously starving for help, so it’s a situation where we can’t –

Carolyn C: There has been a precedent set at least four times in the past, so I say if a couple is willing to do it, you ought to let them do it.

Keith: Agree wholeheartedly. And that’s something we will determine in the future, but right now I’m not turning down any help.

Ann: So we need two more nominations from the floor?

Keith: Ideally, two would be perfect. We did talk earlier that there are nine total positions according to our by-laws. Ideally, we would like to fill the nine. If not, we’d need a minimum of five to have a quorum at every meeting to do official business.

David S: You know, a lot of times people can’t make it to the meetings, so if we had four people, even if you’re just on the Board and you’re a voting member, then we can at least vote on things. A lot of times now, if we only have four people, like you were saying, we can’t approve anything. You can’t approve an expenditure to do the roads.

Keith: Can’t approve the minutes.

David S: So keep that in mind, even if you’re just on the Board.

Keith: And we would be safe, technically, because we have four returning; three nominations; if they all get in, that will put us at seven, which is actually pretty good. It’s pretty healthy.

John Hines: Just to clarify, I’m a non-voting member of the Board, so I don’t need to be counted.

Keith: Ann, are you planning on returning? I guess that would be the question between three and four.

Ann: I can be talked into it.

Barbara V: I have a nomination: Suzanne Star.

Mary Moore: I second the nomination.

Keith: I would like to nominate Kristi Cross. She is currently our secretary, nor did she ever get voted in, but she has done great for our minutes, probably have the cleanest minutes we’ve ever had in years. I would like to nominate her back on the Board, and whether she chooses to be secretary or not, I would love to have her there again.

Ann: I will second that.

Keith: And I don’t know how nominations go, I assume they have to get at least one vote. Is that correct?

So, the two nominations are Suzanne Star and Kristi Cross and Ann Cooke.

We have two volunteers to count votes; Bill Stellwag and Carolyn Corn. So they will adjourn to the back room.

All votes and positions will be determined at the next regular board meeting, which is scheduled for Tuesday, September 13, 2022 at 6:30 p.m. via Zoom. Let me know if you want to be added to the list for Zoom invites. I haven’t talked to the Board about this yet, but I would like to start doing quarterly in-person meetings.

Mary Moore: I want to thank you guys for your service. That’s really wonderful. (Applause).

Keith moved to adjourn the meeting; several people seconded, motion carried and the meeting adjourned at 3:42 p.m.