Lake Linganore Association

Meeting Minutes

February 3, 2003

LLA president Jim Reed called the meeting to order at 7:05 p.m. Board members in attendance were: Jim Reed, Alan Dinkelacker, Jerry Dorsey, Grant Sheehan, Andrew Twillman.

Absent: Todd Young.

Also in attendance were: LLA general manager Stephen Hembree and LLA office manager Joy Gurley.

LLA board president Jim Reed gave no report but asked for a period of silence in memory of Carl "Junior" Thompson, a longtime LLA employee who died January 28, 2003. Mr. Reed said that the association would like to do something to memorialize Mr. Thompson and told the audience that he was interested in suggestions. Brian Kopec said that his company A Neater Nature was interested in planting an apple tree in memory of Mr. Thompson and that he was speaking with Land Stewards LC about changing the name of the North Shore marina area to incorporate Mr. Thompson’s name. Mr. Kopec also suggested changing the name of North Shore Way to Carl Thompson Boulevard. He said he would forward information from the county highway administration to the LLA as to how to change the name of the street. Staff is awaiting receipt of the information.

Mr. Reed turned the meeting over to Deputy Roger Venzin who introduced his supervisor Sgt. Gary Morton. Sgt. Morton presented the LLA with a "portrait" of the new law enforcement "mall" building, which he described as state-of-the-art. He said that one portrait was given to each community that participates in the community deputy program. He said the new building was as much a part of Eaglehead as it was to each of the law enforcement agencies. Sgt. Morton also took the time to commend the work being done by DFC Venzin in the Eaglehead community. He said that five patrol teams are assigned to the area and that those individuals are always complimentary about the work DFC Venzin is doing in the community. Sgt. Morton noted that Venzin " does good criminal work," working hard to get people involved to cooperate. President Reed commented that "Roger has been good for us."

The minutes were approved with the following changes:

• Under Unfinished Business, Farm Pond- add the words "the estimated" before the "$90,000 in the budget for the WRA original repair estimate...."

• Under New Business, Request from Aspen Associates Limited Partnership- correct the typographical error on the word "review" and attach the original letter to the minutes.

• Under New Business, Open Board Position- a sentence needed to be added to reflect in the board’s explanation that one of their concerns was that by appointing someone to the open board position that it would limit that individual to a total of three years on the board rather than giving them the option of running for two, two year terms.

Security Report— DFC Venzin reported that January was a busy month primarily because of a case that involved a series of car thefts that included eight arrests.

DFC DeniseWyant read the statistics from the past year’s security reports. She said that 74 cases have been solved by DFC Venzin during the past year.

ECC— Joe Frank, chairperson, said that there is one house in Nightingale village to be finished on lot #14 that has not installed the super silt fencing and that the construction trucks involved had torn up the parking lot area next to the beach. He said the committee had no one going to check on these siutations to ensure that construction activity does not generate negative impacts. He complained that because the builder had not been properly instructed about the silt fencing that the soil erosion was flowing into the nearby lake. He said that the builder was not taking seriously the ECC suggestions. Mr. Hembree said that the ECC file on the home showed that the previous ECC administrator had not required them to install a super silt fence and that the ECC had approved no silt fencing. Mr. Frank said there was nothing that required that the super silt fencing be used at the lake. Resident Karen Frazier, a former board member, said the requirement was stated in the ECC guidelines. Mr. Frank said he could not emphasize enough the need to get a replacement for the ECC administrator.

Mr. Frank said that Eaglehead-on-the-Lakes (EOL) signage was still a problem and that he had contacted State Highway Administration and that they had told him that all the EOL signs were illegal. He said that now there is an EOL sign in Meadows directing traffic to Indian Cave. Mr. Hembree said that the sign should be taken down because Land Stewards did not inform the LLA BoD about the sign. The board instructed the general manager to have staff remove the sign.

Nightingale resident and ECC member Fred Pfistner said that all the damage noted by Mr. Frank to the Nightingale parking lot and surrounding area was done by the construction on lot 14 and not by activity on lot #9. He also expressed the opinion that super silt fencing would not be the solution to the problem iin that area.

Mr. Frank also noted a seminar he had recently attended at Hood College about land planning. He said the LLA needed to hire an expert to do a study for Eaglehead on land use/planning.

Audubon Terrace resident Bo Brosius commented that the developer is sterilizing the community out of existence. Aspen resident Kathy Brown agreed and said that the tree cutting recently done at Eaglehead Perch was " counterproductive to the spirit of the community."

Finance Committee— Sue Young, committee chairperson, was unable to attend and LLA treasurer Todd Young was out of town on business so LLA president Jim Reed presented a truncated version of the monthly report. He said that the committee chairperson said the association was in "good shape" and should "be able to make its reserve contributions, barring any snow catastophes." Mr. Reed reported that the LLA should end the year with $5,000 in the budget. He added that the LLA currently is working on the budget and should be able to meet the budget, which was to be finalized in the next four weeks. He said the remainder of the report would be given when Mr. Young returned.

Social Committee— chairperson Rachael Kopec said the committee was to meet on February 13 to discuss the egg hunt. She said she found a Westwinds resident (Julie Maher) who had volunteered to do the egg hunt this year but that more volunteers were needed to help. The date for the egg hunt is the Saturday before Easter weekend. LLA director Andrew Twillman was the only person who was able to make the February meeting date, and he suggested the date be changed so that more committee members could attend. March would be the next meeting but no date was given.

Communications Committee— chairperson Karen Frazier said the only item to report was that she had received a copy of the new design for the web site and would be reviewing it.

Coldstream— Traci Wasson said the village had met and there were no issues to bring to the board.

A. Check amount authorization— Mr. Hembree said the Finance Committee had not yet put anything in writing but would probably recommend that the LLA either create a policy or an addendum to the general manager’s contract stipulating a requirement for board approval on expenditures or contracts involving capial improvements such as computers, furniture, etc. Mr. Hembree said that his contract already provided enough safeguards for authorized check amounts. Following some discussion among board members, LLA president Reed said that he would draft a policy on the matter and send it to LLA Finance Committee chairperson Sue Young to review and then bring it to the board. Mr. Reed said he preferred to draft a policy and then later decide where to place it in the general manager’s contract.

B. Auction of lots with delinquent dues/liens— Mr. Hembree said the issue was more complex than just a yes or no and that the association attorney was drafting a written opinion on the matter and it would be reported as soon as he received it.

C. Associate pool membership fee— Mr. Hembree said the Finance Committee recommendation was to increase the associate pool membership to $450 for a family membership and that the number of such memberships be capped at 100 per season. LLA director Sheehan made a motion to accept the recommendation. The motion was seconded by director Dinkelacker. The board voted 5 to 0 to approve the recommendation.

Mr. Dinkelacker asked for clarification on guest pool passes for associate and LLA members.

D. Credit card policy recommendation from Finance Committee— Mr. Hembree read the policy as written by Finance Committee chairperson Sue Young. The concept of using a corporate credit card as opposed to using smaller store cards had been approved by the board in 2002 but Mr. Hembree said that a policy needed to be developed in order to institute it. He added that county government had recently changed its practice to a corporate card policy because it can be better controlled. Director Sheehan asked why the cards had to be done with individual staff names on them as opposed to a card with just LLA name on it. Mr. Hembree said that the banks that issue the cards will not do any way other than individual names on the cards. The GM said that the new policy has all the tracking safeguards needed to be able to determine who is spending what and how much. Director Dorsey made the motion to approve the policy recommendation as written. Director Sheehan seconded the motion. The board voted 5-0 to approve the policy. (See policy copy attached.)

E. Forest Conservation Deed of Easement— LLA president Reed read the text of the referendum letter that he had prepared. The easement must be granted to the county or else the LLA had to pay approximately $35,000 to the county in lieu of the easement. This easement is required for the CDA. Mr. Reed said the easement had to be voted on by the association membership and noted that it would require a 90 day notification period. He said the letter had to be done now in order to dovetail with the annual meeting in May. Mr. Hembree explained that the easement would not be a public easement and that it was a guarantee to the county that the LLA would leave the land alone and never develop it. Director Sheehan made a "motion of intent" that the board go forward with the referendum, that a letter approved by the LLA and county attorneys be sent to the membership, and that the referendum letter recommend to the membership that it support the easement. Director Dinkelacker seconded the motion. The board voted 5 to 0 in favor of the motion.

F. Farm Pond—LLA director Sheehan asked whether anyone had followed up with Meadows resident Jay Decker about his offer to help on the pond drainage. Mr. Hembree said that he had spoken with Mr. Decker and will continue to keep him apprised of future engineering plans. Mr. Hembree also pointed out that drawings presented by Mr. Decker are contradictory with plans done by the engineering firm of Whitman Requardt and Associates but will work to merge the two.

B. Update on Building Addition— GM Hembree said that he had met with the fire marshal the week before and that the board will need to approve modifications to the addition plans. He said the problem is that the new second floor office/meeting space being planned for would have to come under the new code requirements and would most likely add another estimated $100,000 to the project. Mr. Hembree said that the fire marshal’s interpretation of the code would treat the first floor meeting room addition separately and would not come under the new code requirements. After discussing the fire marshal’s decision, LLA president Reed said that in essence the project falls back to its original scope. Mr. Hembree said that the cost total of that former project scope would be less but would require some engineering/architectural changes. He said that the association had already spent $18,000 on preparing the project for construction. If the changes are approved by the board, the permit is closer to completion. He also said that because of these changes the critical path schedule of the project would be delayed and that the project could not start until September 2003. He said that the site plan has been approved by the county and that the permit was 90 percent through the process. The next course of action was to get direction from the board to pursue the engineering costs and reprice the project. GM Hembree estimated that it would only require an additional outlay of approximately $2,000.

• Coldstream resident Michael White complained to the board about the "lack of road maintenance" in his village. He said he had called the ECC administrator four times during the past year and did recently get a response from the GM and wanted to know what the association was doing to keep the roads in decent shape. Several members of the LLA board and the Lake Linganore Conservation Society (LLCS) explained the CDA project to Mr. White, who has lived in the community one year. Mr. Reed assured Mr. White that the association was indeed working on the roads problem. LLCS secretary Larry Dusold said that his organization had asked the LLA not to do road work because doing so often adds to the costs of the CDA but he said that because of the delays the CDA is experiencing due to planning and design of the county’s water and sewer project, the LLA probably should move ahead with some maintenance projects. Director Reed asked staff to accelerate some of the plans for roads maintenance.

• Aspen resident Karen Frazier told the board that she was very disappointed by the Gazette article from the previous week about the alleged issue of use of staff in moving furniture to clear out the twin barns for LLA use. She said she was also very disappointed that "hang ‘em" flyers were posted in the community disparaging LLA president Reed and LLA general manager Hembree. She said that both had done a lot for the community and the LLA and should be commended for their efforts. Many members applauded her comments and showed support for Reed and Hembree. She added that the Gazette should be upset with the "29 members of the Members For An Honest Lake Linganore" Committee for using the front page article as the graphic basis for the flyers. She said what bothered her the most was that people who do not pay close attention to the happenings in the community will see the flyers and think that it is representative of the overall sentiment in the community, which she said was not.

• Aspen resident Dan Hogan said he thought the Gazette article was "deplorable" and complimented both Mr. Reed and Mr. Hembree. He said he was very glad to have Mr. Hembree as the general manager.

• Meadows resident Larry Dusold told the board that he was disturbed by the Gazette article. He proceeded to outline all the projects, resolutions, meetings, conferences and more that Mr. Reed had accomplished, attended or written during the past two years on the board. He also listed numerous activities accomplished by Mr. Hembree on behalf of the association.

LLA director Sheehan said that the board is aware that there are disgruntled people about this issue regarding the barns. He said that there was a lot of time spent getting the facts when the possibility of the project was first discussed. He said that the board would take seriously any allegation of impropriety and added that it was also serious to allege such charges without facts to support them. He said those responsible for the flyers and the allegations should come forward with evidence and if they have no evidence should come forward with a retraction and an apology by the "members For An Honest Lake Linganore" committee. He said that unfounded accusations deteriorates our relationships.

• Coldstream resident Rachael Kopec told the board she hoped they were putting money in the budget for the bridge that she got from the county for the LLA.

Mrs. Kopec also told the board that some young boys that she thought did some "good neighbor" actions needed to be rewarded and wanted the board to turn the east end of the LLA office property (next to tot lot) turned into a ball park.

Mrs. Kopec said she is a member of the ECC and wants the ECC administrator to give the reports at the board meetings. She and Brian Kopec criticized ECC chairperson Joe Frank for having "his own agenda" and criticized the board for allowing him to operate in that way.

Mr. Dinkelacker made a motion to adjourn the meeting that was seconded by Mr. Sheehan. The meeting adjourned at 10:37 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Stephen Hembree Jerry Dorsey

LLA General Manger LLA Secretary