MEADOW CREEK HOA

Meadow Creek HOA Annual Meeting Minutes

11/13/2014   - 7:00pm Fireside Room - Hope Lutheran Church

 

1. Welcome - Call to Order by Kevin Thane 7:06pm

50 owners were present and an additional 42 owners were represented by proxies. Total owner representation was 92. The number of owners present and/or represented by proxies constituted a quorum. The following members of the Board of Directors were present: Kevin Thane, President; Bill Erickson, Vice President, Sarah Wilson, Secretary/Treasurer

 

Summary of Agenda - Kevin

2. Kevin explained the current number of lots - 193 total lots (plus 2 units for a total of 3 for Chaparral condos)

-work on Blocks 5 & 9 are in the completion stages

 

3. Lawsuit update: explained by Kevin -Lawsuit by High Five Bozeman says that we hindered a sale of lots to another party. Currently being handled by attorney who was hired by our insurance company.

 

Question from the floor: Does the lawsuit affect the budget? Response: Yes. We've put funds for legal fees into the budget. We don't know how the lawsuit is going to end up.

 

4. Budget: explained by Kevin -Explanation of proposed budget and dues. Explanation of potential units and expected HOA dues. If the lawsuit turns out the way the Board thinks it should then we can expect the income from those HOA dues.

 

-With the proposed budget it will take about $54000.00 to run the subdivision. There are all kinds of things that could change that number. The assessment was computed by taking $54160.00 divided by 195 lots because that is the number of homeowners we can count on to paying their dues at this time.

 

Question from the floor: Do we just expect High Five to not pay? Kevin: The Board is expecting that we will prevail in the lawsuit but we definitely can't count on that. We thought it best to be as realistic as we can. Sarah Wilson explained: We will be offering for owners to pay dues in two payments instead of once of year. First payment due Feb 15th and second due Aug 15th.

 

Question from the floor: Will the insurance pay for some of these legal fees? Kevin: Yes. Our insurance has a $1000 deductible and there are some things that are covered and some things that aren't. There will be a conference call on the 20th.

 

Question from the floor: Where are all the potential units? Kevin: 32 Platinum Ridge Condos that are built. The foundations are poured for 56 units on Block 2 Lot 1. It's the high density lots.  Kevin listed out all the high density lots.

 

Question from the floor: What is the status of Platinum Ridge? Kevin: It is owned by an affiliate of the same company that has sued us. All the docs around Platinum Ridge say they are a part of Meadow Creek. The Board feels there was a mistake when the covenants were last amended. It appears that the current owners are banking on saying that they are not part of the subdivision.

 

Question from the floor: Are we able to cut them off until the lawsuit is resolved? Bill: They have their own sub-association and they take care of that. We do pay for the electricity for the street lights, the maintenance of the park across from them, etc. Bill: We are doing the maintenance on that park and it's a City park. Why are we doing this? Kevin: The City said they would mow it to a level of safety, which could potentially only be once a year.

 

Question from the floor: What percentage of people use that park? Kevin: We don't have any good data but I would guess that it is mostly used by those in Platinum Ridge and those that work for Oracle. There is a picnic table that showed up.

 

Question from the floor: Why isn't the City maintaining the parks? Response: The City will maintain them to a level of safety but they don't have the man power or funding to maintain them.

 

Question from the floor: How many people in this room use Lerner Park? One or two raised their hand.

 

Question from the floor: What percentage of our lawn care expenses are used on Lerner Park? Kevin: probably 50%. More discussion on paying and maintaining the parks continued.

 

Question from the floor: Are we taking care of the irrigation system? Kevin: Yes 5.

 

Report by Playground Committee: explained by Steve Wiechmann -  Committee put out a survey that resulted in people saying they are interested in putting playground equipment in Ainsworth Park. The playground committee came up with proposal. Would have liked to do more but the costs are very high. This proposal was the best we could come up with for the value. The breakdown comes out to $165 special assessment for each homeowner. If this does pass we will try to do what we can to cut some of the cost. We would like to hear from anyone who knows anyone who could donate money, materials, time, etc. We are asking for an assessment that we feel comfortable to cover the costs but hope to be able to cut costs with donations. We are looking at a fall installment. There would be a couple options on paying: paying with the HOA dues or a onetime payment due in May. We are trying to balance something that would get used but doesn't cost a lot.

 

Question from the floor: Can you talk as to why you chose this location? Response: We felt Ainsworth was the best central location for the neighborhood. We wanted the playground equipment to be away from those big trees. The water table is high by the trees and the pond. The City also requires a path that goes to the playground. The longer the path, the higher the cost.

 

Question from the floor: How will this affect the insurance? Response: The HOA insurance would cover it. Question from the floor: What are the maintenance costs? Response: The structure has a 10 year warranty, 5 year warranty on paint, etc. The HOA's maintenance cost would be for maintaining the wood chips.

 

Comment from the floor: Offer by homeowner to help with alternate playground equipment and she suggested wood equipment. She does not like plastic. She would use her resources to come up with another plan.

 

Comment from the floor: The dinosaur park had a couple plastic structures that broke after 5 years. The manufacturer replaced them. They have two maintenance days per year. Comment from the floor: To defray the cost and not have two parks maybe we should give the City Lerner Park and use those costs to go towards the new playground. Kevin: The City already owns it so basically what we are talking about is stopping the maintenance of Lerner Park.

 

Question from the floor: Has anyone talked to Oracle to help maintain Lerner Park? Response: No

 

Question from the floor: Is there a phase two for the playground? Response: Our initial thought was to not propose an assessment now and one later. But there is some interest to add more equipment, tables, etc. later. To keep the assessment down we went with this plan.

 

Comment from the floor: Concern about the lawsuit and paying for a playground now and then possibly ending up having to pay legal fees.

 

Question from the floor: Will Platinum Ridge have to contribute if we prevail? Response by Kevin: Yes, we should be able to collect all of the back assessments. They should have to pay the same special assessment for the playground.

 

Questions from the floor: Does the proposal include labor? Response: The company does the installation. We would ask neighbors to put in the wood chips and the border.

 

Question from the floor: Do we have written permission from the City to put in the playground? Response: We have oral permission from Tom White. The City will come inspect it. We will need to resubmit our master plan to the City. They are in support of it.

 

Question from the floor: Did you price any of the wood structures? Response: Yes

 

Comment from the floor: Homeowner pictured more tables and benches. This proposal is more kid oriented instead of for everyone (with dogs, etc.).

 

Comment from the floor: The amount of space this playground would take up is very small. There is still a lot of space to do more with in Ainsworth.

 

Comment from the floor: Putting a playground on the corner of two streets seems dangerous. I don't see why we can't push it more back into the park.

 

Vote on Playground Proposal: 37 For, 55 Against

 

6. Election of new officer: Kevin thanks Sarah for her dedication and time. We will accept nominations from the floor. We received two bios. The names of those submitting bios are on the ballot. Any nominations from the floor? None

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Dan Frost and Martha Koscinski were introduced. Vote on Board Member: Martha Koscinski was elected as the new board member.

65 - Martha Koscinski 26 - Dan Frost

 

Meeting adjourned at 8:15pm