TIME & PLACE: 7:00 PM on Thursday, January 3, 2008 at the Moorage Office (C-7) located at 2630 N. Hayden Island Drive, Portland, Oregon, 97217.
Board Members Present:
Mr. John LeDoux, President
Mr. Steve Weisensee, Vice President
Mr. C.W. Taylor, Vice President
Ms. Pat Buescher, Treasurer
Mr. Walt LeDoux, Secretary
Order Of Business
Call to Order; Determination Of Quorum.
The President called the meeting to order and announced that with all Board Members present, a quorum was established.
Reading & Approval Of The Minutes Of Previous Meeting
The Secretary passed out minutes of the December Board Meeting.
Moved, seconded, and passed unanimously to accept Minutes.
Treasurer’s Report
Financial Statements are tentative but complete – waiting for bank statement to be opened.
P&L. Under budget YTD by ~$3,000.
Mainly due to lower expenses for repairs & maintenance.
Probably can’t get any closer than that because repairs are sort of a guessing game anyway.
Balance Sheet - $3,636,322.74.
Our total in checking & savings is $217,878.88
Aging
Assessments are current.
Just received the January check for #17.
35 owners are on AutoPay.
1 Deposits in our bank and sends Pat a notice.
1 has his bank initiate an EFT.
Leaves 19 that still send hand written checks.
Schwab Account.
$204,332.68 in account.
$50,000.00 in CDs – 2 25K CDs with yields of 5 and 5.1%.
$30,574.89 in cash.
$123,757.79 in MM account – yield 4.66%.
Will be transferring some cash into the MM account this next week.
Received the assessment from HIBPA for $2,520.00.
Also received the HIBPA financial report.
Moved, seconded and passed unanimously to accept the Treasurer’s Report.
Old Business
Standing Committee Reports
Facilities & Grounds
o Walkway Leveling.
§ Critical parts are done.
§ Had to tell Dave we would go elsewhere if Chuck wasn’t interested.
§ Dave said anyone else would cost $40 more and CW told him 1 injury would wipe out any savings we’d get by using them.
o Put De-icer out at each end.
o CW said he put the dining room table and chairs in the office.
§ Asked that if the moorage liked it make him an offer for it.
Fire, Security And Safety.
o No Report.
o Speed bumps haven’t been addressed yet.
Architectural Review
o No Report, no new requests.
By-Laws, CC&Rs And Rules
o CCR changes & Ballot Packet.
§ 2 changes to CCRs will need 42 affirmative votes.
§ 2 BOD positions and IRS ruling 70-604 need at least a quorum of 28 votes and a majority of the votes cast.
o Committee volunteers.
§ 2 parties interested in joining.
§ Will go to committee and ask who would like to step down.
Violation & Adjudication
o No Report.
Moorage Valuation Appraisal. (placeholder).
Dredging (placeholder)
HINOON & Columbia River Crossings Project – Jimme’ Peters, Neighborhood Representative, submitted the report to the Secretary.
Meeting on Dec 13th, 7 PM.
Town Hall style with Q&A on Various Projects.
Columbia River Crossings Project - A supplemental bridge with a westerly alignment of the light rail is looking to be the decision for the new bridge.
Movie filming on the island to raise funds for community projects, tabled until January meeting.
West Hayden Island - The Port of Portland is pushing to develop a terminal on the 800+ acres but most islanders are against it for traffic, noise etc and wish to make it a park/nature preserve. This will be a long drawn out battle with environmental impact studies and alternatives forthcoming.
Next meeting 1/10 at 7pm at the Hayden Island Clubhouse.
New Business
Informal Resident Surveys – Esther Wright
Asked that the Board consider her comments.
Asked that members have a right to input.
Not a criticism of the job the Board is doing.
Experienced that Board is not receptive of member’s comments.
Requesting the Board to be more open to input.
Felt there’s no process in place where members can have a say.
After asking around, found that surveys may not be practical.
Involved in 5 other Associations where they don’t necessarily do surveys but do solicit input from the owners when decisions are made that affect everyone.
Requesting the Board try to allow some procedure for open participation.
Steve - asked Pat to give us some idea of what the Board spent.
Pat - couldn’t give an answer to Steve’s request.
- It is highly recommended to allow members time to speak after reading several articles on the subject.
- It allows for a higher level of membership trust.
Skip - thought it was highly disrespectful for Walt to be typing during meetings.
Steve - asked Walt if he was taking minutes of what Skip said. Walt - yes.
CW - we have a procedure in place right now to allow for members inputs at Board meetings.
– the Board has to conduct its business and needs the time to do it without it taking all night.
Skip – felt the Board was implementing Roberts Rules of Order incorrectly by not allowing members freedom to speak.
– expressed his irritation that he has been told to leave by simply raising his hand then got up and left.
John – we did not throw Skip out.
– we have a process - this is a Board of Directors meeting and not a general membership meeting.
– Bylaws call for ANNUAL general membership meetings where members have a voice.
John - If the members want General membership meetings be conducted more often, then the membership needs to call for a vote to change By-Laws.
– We need to conduct the normal business of the BOARD.
– we DO offer that if someone wants to speak at Board meetings, they only need to request an audience and the Secretary will put it under New Business (if it is appropriate).
– the Board wants your inputs but we have to be free to meet the legal requirements of managing the Association.
- when he responded to Esther’s email, he specified that he was responding as a Member, NOT a Board Member.
– it takes an organization (smaller than the full membership) to manage the day-to-day operations of the moorage.
- We can’t have all 56 owners involved in every decision – it won’t work and was never designed that way.
– if this is about the Board’s discretionary spending, he guesses that it didn’t amount to more than 5 or 10 % of our budget.
Esther - it’s not a matter of the membership trusting the board.
- it doesn’t matter whether you have 1 GM meeting or 4.
- it’s about the Board listening to members.
- last year several people came to me and asked me to represent them at the GM meetings.
- don’t know if any of those items requested were ever acted on.
- example: the speed bump issue.
- didn’t want speed bumps but didn’t know that a few owners had requested them for safety reasons.
Steve – you mean that you have changed your mind since you heard from just a few owners?
Esther – the point is that the Board should get a consensus of the membership before making decisions like that.
- it isn’t that I don’t trust you, it’s that I would like to have a say in the decisions.
John - we as a Board have looked at the CCRs and By-Laws and have contacted our attorney.
- the guidance we have is to follow the rules to a “T”.
- example: the 1 dog/2 dog issue.
- the Board must follow the CCRs and does not have the right to allow variances with one exception – if the previous Board (the developer) allowed it.
Pat – could find no documentation of that.
- personally asked him and he listed every variance he allowed and a “2 dogs” variance wasn’t on his list.
Walt – no he just turned his back to it. It’s the same thing he did about parking outside garages.
John – if the owners want to change the CCRs then they can petition to have the issue voted on then it will take 75% of the members’ approval.
Pat – However the first members that should follow those rules are the Board Members.
- the one Board member with 2 dogs should follow the rules just like everyone else.
Walt – asked Pat if she was going to start parking her vehicles in her garage.
Pat – we aren’t talking about parking, we are talking about dogs
- caseload on homeowners associations says you only talk about 1 issue at a time in this case we were talking about dogs.
- and the members of the Board should take the moral high ground.
Walt – moral high ground - you just brought the issue above just dogs.
- moral high ground includes parking.
Walt – Back on the topic of surveys (the original reason for this discussion).
- conducted a survey concerning leaving the gate open last summer.
- only got 25 responses saying no to leaving the gate open.
- where were the other 31 members?
- are they the silent majority?
- or did they not care one way or the other?
- Didn’t even get responses back from 50% of the members.
John – the process in place is that if people want the CCRs changed they can get 25% of the members’ signatures and the change will go to a vote.
- this is a Board of Directors meeting and just like in a courtroom, not everyone is allowed to speak.
- but we have opened up a period under new business for member comments.
Esther – felt John’s response was very defensive.
John – response was as a member not as A board Member and it wasn’t defensive
Esther – Your response was “to let the board do it’s job”
- That sounds defensive?
John – it wasn’t meant to be, remember I was speaking as a regular member.
Walt read Section 4.8.4 of the By-Laws.
- specifically it says that “All meetings of the Board of Directors shall be open to any and all members of the Association. Provided, however, no Association member shall have a right to participate in the meetings unless such member is also a member of the Board.”
- the operatives are right and participate.
CW – we went through this before and that’s why we opened up some time for member comments.
Walt – if the membership wants to legitimately bring an issue before the board then they should bring a petition of 25% to the Board.
- I as Secretary must present it to the membership for a vote.
- if the members would follow that procedure rather than coming here individually then the Board would have a reason to act.
- but when it’s an individual or even a group of individuals, but not 25% then what would you expect the Board to do about it.
John – just because 1 person has a strong feeling about something doesn’t mean it’s a representation of the moorage.
- we want to hear your opinions but its 1 opinion of 56. Its not 29 of 56.
- its really hard for us to determine what the real pulse of an issue is when we only hear from 1 person.
Esther – didn’t want to undermine the Board by surveying the moorage.
Walt – not an issue
- don’t see it as “going behind our backs”
- its better that Esther does a survey or gathers signatures for a petition.
- it adds legitimacy to the issue and gives the Board a better feeling for what direction to go.
- and if we need to put it to a vote of the membership then so be it.
Agenda items for the General Membership meeting
We will have a Board meeting immediately following the GM meeting to vote on the Officer positions Board members will hold.
Secretary passed out a proposed agenda and asked all members to come prepared to speak about accomplishments of their committees.
We will do the Ballot count on Saturday the 26th at 9:00 AM.
The president gave the audience an opportunity to make comments – there were none.
Reminder Date, Time, & Place for next Board Meeting.
Day – First Thursday in February (Feb. 7, 2008).
Time – 1900 (7:00pm).
Place – Moorage Office.
Reminder Date, Time, & Place for 2008 Annual Membership Meeting.
Day - 4th Sunday in January (January 27th, 2008). (The next 4 Super Bowls are in Feb.)
Time – 1600 (4:00 PM).
Place – Jantzen Beach Village East Clubhouse (Community Room)
[~505] N. Hayden Bay Drive, Portland, Oregon 97217