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Zeb-Brevard

Quick Takes on the April 28th Board Meeting

May 4, 2008 By LakeHolidayNews

GM Ray Sohl and Secretary Ken Murphy
The April 28th was long – over 3 1/2 hours, not counting an executive session.

Review of a new front gate contract took about 5 1/2 minutes, but review of a $1500 reimbursement for additional lifeguard open water rescue training took over 30 minutes. The latter issue apparently stemmed from roving patrol/lifeguard supervisor Zeb Brevard, rather than the board, authorizing an expenditure made by the parent of one of the lifeguards.

Just because review of the front gate contract took 5 1/2 minutes doesn’t mean there was serious review. The board rubber-stamped GM Ray Sohl’s recommendation of keeping the contract with Haines at a cost of $15 per hour rather than accept a much lower cost proposal from Spartan at a cost of $13.33 per hour. The potential savings from Spartan’s proposal? About $15,000. The board couldn’t spend a lot of time on this $130,000 contract because it had to have enough time to discuss a contract with the lifeguards requiring them to reimburse the $100 training cost if they failed to work the entire season. At one point, presumably just to shorten a ridiculously long (or was it just ridiculous?) discussion, an audience member volunteered that he would reimburse the $100 training cost if that event occurred.

For the monthly staples, Martel gave the Treasurer’s Report and GM Ray Sohl gave the Management Report. Martel also put forward a motion to fully expense rather than capitalize all of LHCC’s depreciable assets. No director asked whether that was GAAP-compliant. For that matter, no director asked what GAAP is.

Dave Buermeyer gathered up some projections from Miller & Smith and some boxes of old documents. He rolled them into his Vision 10, a plan for the next 10 years at Lake Holiday. It drew applause from the board, which is the only group that will pay any attention whatsoever. Buermeyer also brought back more modifications to a policy to fill board vacancies. Secretary Ken Murphy secured approval for a new Rules Tracking System. At least they’ll look pretty. Early topic of the video: picking the right font. We’ll state the obvious: when a simple community association has to have a rules tracking system, it has too many rules. The board also approved a motion to hire a new collection agency, Debt Recovery Bureau, to try to collect old LHEUC debts on a contingency basis. According to Ray Sohl, these debts are outside the 3 year statute of limitations, and 1 firm has already tried a similar approach and given up after about 2 months.

On a positive note, director Steve Locke brought up negative communications relating to architectural compliance during the Committee & Task Force Reports. He was critical of his own experience and said the board needed to find a “much more neighborly way of going about things.” He thought “a little conversation would have gone a long way.” Perhaps his wife Deborah is working with him to try to develop a “kindler, gentler” side rather than the pseudo-tough guy tactics he displayed in our Keep It Over Here Punk video. Imagine: one LHCC director thinks “a little conversation” with an adversary could go “a long way.” Believable? Enduring? Let’s wait and see.

In earlier meetings, the board concluded that LHCC lacked the money to install guard rails, a safety issue, but evidently the money is there for the GM to solicit proposals to improve the acoustics at the clubhouse. Safety, no. Better acoustics for board members to hear themselves talk, yes.

The biggest topic of the night: re-financing the clubhouse loan. GM Ray Sohl started the discussion by stating that the “Board of directors has expressed an interest in re-collateralizing the existing clubhouse loan.” Oddly, there’s no expression of such interest during open meetings. Since the board voted on a motion to direct the GM to get bids on changes to the clubhouse acoustics, why is there no approved motion to direct the GM to investigate refinancing the clubhouse? This is just more evidence of the backroom discussions that Wayne Poyer denied the existence of when questioned by Bill Masters at the February Round Table.

In a sometimes heated debate, the board decided what to do about the fact that it pledged common assets without first obtaining 67% approval of the membership. To those who say the board never violates LHCC’s governing documents, this is just 1 example. The board acknowledged it didn’t follow LHCC’s governing documents on one of the largest transactions in Lake Holiday’s history. Jo-anne Barnard expressed the view that had she been given a chance to vote to incur a big mortgage to remodel the clubhouse, she would have chosen not to do so.

According to some board members, to fix things would require:

  • pledging over 90 LHCC-owned lots
  • paying $18,000 in closing costs
  • paying an extra $1400 per month for 5 years
  • putting a bank hold on $150,000-$200,000 of LHCC deposits for 5 years

The hold would prevent LHCC from using the money. The board’s fix relies on an artificial distinction between “common area” and “common property.” Mortgaging the clubhouse without member approval was wrong because the clubhouse is “common area,” but mortgaging 91 lots without member approval is acceptable because these lots, according to the board, are something entirely different – “common property.” The extended debate is covered in a total of 9 parts, the first 8 of which include the discussion and the last of which includes the final vote.

Several directors expressed the view that the fix was expensive at a time when money is tight and the damage from violating LHCC’s governing documents can’t be undone. The decision: put the issue to retroactively approve pledging common assets to a member vote (which will almost certainly fail, as Poyer himself acknowledged), and if it fails, to enter into the refinancing, probably in early 2009. Martel asked that the record reflect that this decision to refinance is a breach of directors’ fiduciary responsibility, and when Poyer objected to the minutes reflecting Martel’s comments, he withdrew them. Not to worry, John Martel. The record of your inability or unwillingness to stick to your position is amply reflected on YouTube.

We extend our continued thanks to Bill Masters for his unflinching efforts to let property owners monitor the conduct of LHCC’s board. Despite the board’s talk of openness, they blocked Masters’ videographer from the boardroom on the grounds that he wasn’t an LHCC member. Property owners should be deeply troubled by a board that blocks openness and at the same time denies it is doing such blocking.

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Filed Under: Board Conduct, Board Meeting, Finances Tagged With: Buermeyer, Haines, Jo-anne-Barnard, Locke, Martel, Masters, Miller-&-Smith, Murphy, Poyer, Ray-Sohl, Wachovia, Zeb-Brevard

Quick Takes on the March 27th Board Meeting

March 30, 2008 By LakeHolidayNews

Wayne Poyer, Pat Shields, and Dave Buermeyer
Here’s our quick take on the March 27th board meeting. We now include video thumbnails directly in posts. If you click on the thumbnail, a video player will pop up and begin playing the video. Look for this feature in future posts. If you have problems using this feature, make a comment on our Help page.

We’ve uploaded 15 videos from the March 27th meeting, representing over 1 1/2 hours of about a 2 hour meeting.

One of the first orders of business: fill the board seat vacated by Rick Bleck, who did not meet the 1 year ownership requirement for nomination set forth in LHCC’s bylaws and was invisible on the campaign trail but was elected anyway. There were 2 candidates: Bill Masters and Mike Sweeney, who is the husband of board member Robin Pedlar.

Mike Sweeney
LHCC’s own Articles include the requirement that “A Lot shall not have more than one membership, but the single membership shall be shared by all owners of the lot.” Since Robin Pedlar is a director, she must be a member. If there’s only 1 membership for a lot, there’s no membership opportunity left for Mike Sweeney. LHCC’s directors get around that major roadblock by obtaining a legal opinion from Juan Cardenas of Rees Broome. That opinion starts out “Assuming Mike Sweeney is a member of LHCC….” As far back as Aristotle in 350 B. C., this con job has been understood to be a logical fallacy, often referred to as “circular reasoning.” Check it out: Assuming pigs can fly, then pigs can fly. Use it, like Wayne Poyer did, to impress passive directors and gullible neighbors. Just don’t actually try to fly, because that will expose the fallacy pretty quickly. Buermeyer gave a speech intended for the camera that encouraged diversity on the board yet offered Masters the hope of joining the board only if he became a clone of Buermeyer himself. Buermeyer and Pedlar abstained; Murphy and Marcus avoided controversy by skipping the meeting. Task #1: pass a resolution to make the vote on this charade an open vote. Watch LHCC’s rules trampled on and tossed away in these 2 clips, Breaking The Rules Pt 1 and Breaking The Rules Pt 2. This action shows the board will recklessly violate LHCC’s own governing documents to keep its grip on power.

GM Ray Sohl gave the management report, Mar 08 GM Rpt Pt 1 and Mar 08 GM Rpt Pt 2, in which the topic of the effectiveness of the Roving Patrol was raised. Is it effective? The board moved that question to Executive Session, so members will never know just what the roving patrol led by Zeb Brevard, the roving patrol supervisor, actually does all day. Treasurer John Martel, who sometimes struggles with accounting issues, offered a friendly health tip in his Treasurer’s Report. Wayne Poyer raised a concern that an owner/builder was possibly blocked from using white garage doors, which should automatically be approved, in our clip Garage Doors and asked Judy Platt about stocking the lake with non-native fish.

There have been 2 serious accidents on West Masters Drive, so the topic of guard rails (Guard Rails Again Pt 1 and Guard Rails Again Pt 2) came up again. We’ve heard reports that a driver was very seriously injured, perhaps paralyzed, in a recent accident on West Masters. If guard rails had been installed, the seriousness of these accidents may have been reduced. Steve Locke did offer a suggestion: put up caution tape. Action on the guard rail issue was “tabled” because of LHCC’s “serious financial headaches.” Estimates for dam culvert work (just 1 part of a much bigger project) came in at approximately $175,000 compared to a budget of $45,000. This $130,000 surprise didn’t find its way into Wayne Poyer’s April 2008 President’s Report, which discussed dam costs.

Changes were made to construction guidelines, apparently requiring a member to be in good standing for all properties owned, rather than the property for which construction approval is applied, before approving new construction permits. If allowed to stand, this will just about kill any new construction at Lake Holiday. The board also discussed taking more aggressive action against serious compliance violations. That could mean spending more money on lawyers at a time when money is in short supply. With her husband’s help, Robin Pedlar outlined the plans for 2008 social activities and suggested that LHCC in effect have a second set of books to get around the troubles created by accrual accounting. Directors seemed comfortable they could find a way to shift expenses from one time period to another to make everything work.

Dave Buermeyer
Dave Buermeyer led a discussion of changing LHCC’s water conservation rules, but most of that discussion focused on eliminating the single word “services” from a motion actually made by Jo-anne Barnard. Barnard was concerned about expressing positive comments about Aqua Virginia’s services when there have been so many complaints from Lake Holiday homeowners that Aqua Virginia’s service is “not at an acceptable level.” Buermeyer lost control of his own topic, and in the end, voted against the resolution he presented. John Martel seemed to have no idea what he just voted on, since he voted against Buermeyer’s resolution but said that he wanted the resolution to pass. Maybe that one word “services” was the glue that held everything together. Maybe some would pout and block their own ideas if they couldn’t have it their own way.

The Middleton story that we previously covered has recorded a new chapter, after he put “No Trespassing” signs on his property. Wayne Poyer vowed to “do it much more crisply than we did the last one.”

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Water Conservation
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Non-native Fish
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Garage Doors
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We’ve also added a link on our sidebar to SchoolMatters, a Standard & Poors website with test scores, demographics, district finances, parent reviews, and other information on schools nationwide. It’s easy to compare schools. Our link is for Frederick County, VA schools. Check it out.

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Filed Under: Board Conduct, Board Meeting Tagged With: Buermeyer, Juan-Cardenas, Martel, Masters, Middleton, Mike-Sweeney, Pat-Shields, Poyer, Ray-Sohl, Rees-Broome, Rick-Bleck, Robin-Pedlar, Zeb-Brevard

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