Our Village

TRUE COSTS






Owners were informed that Village Director Bergsma had renounced his intentions to sue our Village. This December Coffee update by President Halbach came on the heels of an upset owner saying that Director Bergsma used exclusive information from the dredging questionnaires for his personal agenda against our Village.

Due to this abuse of protocol, Vice President Pelletier reluctantly said this Board will ask for Director Bergsma’s resignation at the following Regular meeting.

A week later the Regular Meeting was empty of any censure to Director Bergsma. One had to be absolutely braindead not to think that something gave way during the past seven days. The Board turned mute to the abuse issue while being overly harmonious to Director Bergsma and his dredging agenda.

After giving a very convincing budget presentation, the Board expressed a new mindset of taking a dredging expenditure of three hundred thousand dollars and combining it with seven other infrastructure expenditures totaling six hundred eighty two thousand dollars. This is a similar concept our beloved Congress does when a piece of their legislation can’t pass on its own merits.

As if scripted, Vice President Pelletier solidified this new approach by getting the Board to approve a “package concept” and immediately cued Director Bergsma to make a motion. That motion was to begin the hydrographic survey and while the Board was vying for start times, an owner raised her hand to ask the Board a question. After Vice President Pelletier was given permission by Director Bergsma to let her speak, she asked if the Board was going to include all the related extra costs she remembered being in the original CRA survey proposal.

Wham, bam, thank you mam.
The stymied look on all the Board member faces made it quite clear that few if any knew of these extra costs. This means that back in April our Board with Pat Burke as the overseer, approved doing a $15,000 segment of this $25,000 two part survey without disclosing or knowing of these additional costs.

For over a year this Board has said the CRA survey costs $25,000, not $25,000 plus open end expenses. Only by accident have owners learned the cost may be more than twice what had orginally been quoted. Adding insult to injury, Director Bergsma told everyone at the meeting that spending fifty to sixty thousand buckaroos for this kind of survey was not that unreasonable.
Can you believe this?

It would be interesting to know just how many Directors received a copy of the CRA proposal.
If not, why?
If they did, why didn’t they read it?

In a nutshell, owner’s trust for our Board has been shaken by an attempted lawsuit, misuse of membership information, misleading dredging information, and Board members saying one thing while doing just the opposite? How can anyone determine true costs for one infrastructure item when it’s package with seven others?  What message does one receive when our Board ignores and apparently succumbs to a Director’s detrimental actions?

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December 15, 2010 Regular Meeting

Pledge of Allegiance

Roll Call
Absent were President Halbach and Director Montalvo

Owners Speaking
None

Presidents Remarks
None

Managers Report-Rick Horner
For the month he had 34 work orders, 13 uncompleted, 5 building permits, and a great improvement for condo fee arrears that only totaled $15,170. Dir. White inquired about any contact with the owner of the two year vacant lot 761. The GM said there was only one address to contact and have received nothing back.

Comments from the Board
Dir. White said from owner donations each employee receive $110 each for Christmas and thanked everyone. She awarded a special “get off the rope” Christmas gift to Armando.

Approval of Minutes
Treasurer’s Report & Financials-Treas. Steffensen
There was nothing out of the ordinary with the Financials. No P&L info.

Committee Reports
D&E- WhiteThere were 195+ people who attended the Leslie party and now have some new tables for the Rec. Hall activities. Join the New Year’s Eve Party for only $35.
Golf- PelletierThe raffle winner for the golf cart will be drawn on Jan. 10th. Golf cart paths are near completion.
Pool –Steffensen Maintenance is starting to put the pool statues in and the 16 chairs are here for the gazebo.


Unfinished Business
Major Improvement Fund Budget- Steffensen
Treas. Steffensen said the budget is broken down in pieces
“First Piece” after shaving off $173,000 from the original $369,000 Major Improvements amount, there’s still a $76,000 deficit the Board is working to fine money for.
“Second piece” is to have the Board pass a motion to establish a reserve fund out of the current condo fees for future infrastructure needs that would include roads, sewer, water, canals, and common buildings. Treas. Steffensen made that motion, passing unanimously.
“The third piece” is how to pay for the current $682,841 infrastructure needs for the Park that encompasses the Rec. Hall roof, Welcome Center /Rec. Hall parking lots, road patching, if approved by owners limited dredging, Activity Center windows, solar panels for the pool, and street lights.
The Board said the choices were a monthly addition to condo fees or a special onetime assessment. Discussions of getting firm bids for everything to present at the Annual Meeting started talk on doing the $15,000 topography survey.
Dir. Bergsma gave his dredging rendition and out of the blue mentioned he was President of a very large association in Iowa when they borrowed eight million dollars for their dredging project and then passed an automatic 5% condo fee increase each year so owners knew what they were going to pay each year. He expressed it be a good idea to do that here. Dir. Gagan said he thought a $10 increase in condo fees was the way to go in lieu of the onetime assessment. Loans for the Village were lightly discussed.
VP Pelletier suggested presenting the $25,000 dredging survey as part of the total package for the owners to approve. The Board then approved a motion to create just the concept to have a package with a onetime assessment.
After being coax by VP Pelletier, Dir. Bergsma made his motion to do his topography survey and Dir. Gagan said he would like to second that but only if it could begin somewhere in January.
While that was being discussed the owner from lot 288 was recognized and made a request to the Board that while making this motion with cost figures that they insert what she understood the additional per-diem extras and travel costs. She thought that these items were over and beyond the $25,000 total costs being currently expressed for this survey and felt they should be included.
The Board appeared somewhat perplexed to this small can of worms opening but VP Pelletier got everyone back on track with saying we know we need to dredge and began to once again push for the approval of the survey motion. The Day the Earth Stood Still happened when Dir. Guerra specifically asked Dir. Bergsma if the two part $15,000 and $10,000 survey costs totaling $25,000 was the bottom line and Dir. Bergsma replied that the total package I gave you was from $50,000 to $60,000 dollars. This perplexity expression returned on what seemed to be every Board member’s face as one after the other said they didn’t recalled such a figure.
The Board quickly tabled this motion for additional updated information on the survey costs, but Dir. Bergsma argued his motion for the survey had already been seconded by Dir. Gagan, who in turn asked where did this fifty- sixty thousand dollars come from? Dir. Bergsma claimed these figures were in the folders handed out to the Directors and then professed that only fifty thousand for this kind of work is not that unreasonable. Motion passed that Dir. Bergsma is to provide the Board with an updated proposal for this survey.

Responsibility of Directors-Bergsma
Dir. Bergsma had nothing to say.

New Business
TGLO Oil Spill Stickers-Gagan
Motion approved to display four stickers so owners have somewhere to report when seeing oil or anything similar spoiling the canals.

Election Committee-Gagan
Motion passed to have Election Committee Representatives Liz Deitrick, Linda Fasching, Sue Smith, Shirley Wilson, and Marianne Kobie.

Other
Building Committee members are Armando Zamora, VP Pelletier, Bob Davidson, Ken Waller, and Jim Thorpe.

Dir. Martin presented an American flag to our Village that once flew over the Capital. This flag had originally been given to honor Henry Hackman’s service during WWII.

Adjournment
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Is COOL gang’s motto “every two we sue”?

During last Wednesday’s Coffee, we were told that once again a Board member had talked about or started some sort of legal action against our Village. It seems like only yesterday when previous directors Leroy Mulch and Reta Priest sued six Village Directors to circumvent their majority. Our Village shelled out tens of thousands of dollars for that 2008 frivolous lawsuit and subsequent insurance hikes.

Elected in 2009, Tom Bergsma was deemed a COOL gang aspirant who’s first five months serving resulted with just two Board meeting appearances. His first accomplishment coincidently was changing the attendance protocol for meetings via teleconferencing and then he diligently went to work on trying to get a high ticket dredging item done.

For a year owners had to hear what would happen if we failed to maintain our canals. First it was people would not buy Village property and then it was property values would drop. When those fizzled, it was let’s spend $15,000 for a topography survey so we know what we are really talking about and April’s 2010 meeting saw the Board finally succumbed to this survey, a virtual stepping stone to a humongous $900,000 plus full dredging plan.

In Bergsma’s absence four months later the Board unanimously voted to delay the survey because they thought it best to get Village sentiment and mailed them an elaborate dredging questionnaire. Later Director Bergsma said sending out this questionnaire to the membership regarding the issue of should we dredge or not was totally chicken shit. He stated during October’s 2010 meeting that the Board has to make this decision to dredge or face potential legal litigation and alas we were informed at last Wednesday’s Coffee that Director Bergsma himself had recanted an initial legal action against the Village. VP Pelletier added that Director Bergsma may have also misused sensitive owner information from the recent questionnaire. This made the Board announce that they will ask Director Bergsma to step down at tomorrow’s Regular Meeting.

The Cool Gang graciously gave us Mr. Bergsma back in 2009, so who will they endorse next? My money is on some power hungry all items most go through me non-owner with an “if I can’t be President I’ll quit” attitude.
And you say?

P.S. Less than half the membership responded to the dredging questionnaire, but the information collected from it clearly draws this simple conclusion. A decision to full dredging will make 1,024 owners spend almost a million dollars so THREE owners with big boats having deep drafts can navigate our canals better.
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DECEMBER 8TH, 2010 COFFEE WITH THE DIRECTORS

Pledge of Allegiance

VP Pelletier praised the Christmas Parade, Chile Dump, and the $932 donation for the St. Stevens food pantry. He asked for owners to attend the Employees Christmas and White Elephant parties. He mentioned the Christmas light contest and the Party with Leslie. He continued with saying the repair to our roads has been delayed due to the asphalt plant being temporarily shut down and that there are $35 New Year’s Eve tickets available. Rick Horner said the people of the Village donated $3,884 to the Security employee who had lost his home due to a fire.

Later in this meeting he discussed the Port Isabel’s annexation of six acres by the old causeway.

Comments from the BOX
Lot 482 praised the Village Thanksgiving Dinner but said others told him they would have attended if the cost was lower.

Lot 614 said taking the TV out of the exercise room and closing the pool on the day after Thanksgiving was ludicrous.

Lot 288 told the Board that Tom Bergsma should be taken off the Board immediately. Owner expressed that besides suing the Village, he used the confidential emails from the Dredging questionnaires for his personal agenda. Owner gave examples of his misuse and quoted the Board policies about personal information they obtained. Owner asked for the Board to show they will not tolerate this behavior.

In giving a current update Pres. Halbach stated that the Village Attorney had told him she received an email from Mr. Bergsma recanting what he had started. It was said that he had dropped out of the lawsuit and now has no part of it although there may be other people pursuing it.

From the Directors
Treas. Steffensen mentioned there was an art show at the Port Isabel Community Center and Causeway run walk is right around the corner.

Dir. Gagan asked to be able to distribute information on who to call when owners see diesel fuel in the water.

From the Audience
Lot? Introduced a person selling tours and the Board allowed her to give her pitch

Lot 828 commented that she was concerned for the Security officer who was verbally abused by an owner. GM said he had talked to this owner and said owner will personally apologize to that officer.

Jessie Salazar, the manager for Securitas wanted to thank everyone for the donations to his employee Fidel and said they will make sure he will receive his paychecks on time missed due to current health issues.

Lot 834 said there’s rental property not being taken care of.

Lot 96 said she would like to be put on the list to pay someone to keep her property weed free.

Lot 574 asked what was going on behind the Village. Treas. Steffensen said TxDOT is putting 30 acres of wetlands to replace the 30 acres used for a highway.

Lot 25 had concerns about the wear and tear on our swing bridge due to this heavy equipment TxDOT brought in. He also said the chicken dinner sign was tacky and there are junky vehicles parked in our Village that have three flat tires.

Lot 638 questioned the water and sewage for new development outside our Village.

Lot 828 wanted the Board to fine those properties that violate the appearance rules.

Lot 106 said she was embarrassed to have people from out of town over with all these junk lots.

Lot 288 questioned the manner in which we can get something in our documents regarding the "ever present" FINE situation. Owner's question was in regards to how many members it takes to change the By-Laws (which depends on the number of BOD members who vote in favor of a change). DP advised that the fines are addressed in the Declarations document. 


Workshop
Our GM asked for help on his list of forty non owners coming in every Monday for a dance class that made it difficult security wise and caused problems at setting up the Rec. Hall for later events. After a very long discussion they decided that the sign in and maximum guest’s rules will be enforced along with an appropriate ending time to accommodate the later setups.

VP Pelletier wanted to have on the agenda a request by the Board for Tom Bergsma’s resignation. Pat Burke interrupted the proceedings saying only the membership can remove a director, not the Board.

Lot 828 asked to put the animal article back in the Newsletter.

Treas. Steffensen said the Board needs to address the budget breakdown. She said the Major Improvement section is $369,000 currently; infrastructure section (Rec. Hall roof, roads, and canals) is $575,000. All avenues for revenue will need to be explored including grants from the government. She said the swing bridge assessment will go up $24,000 next year to a total of $501,000 annually. Aramark will increase their cost by $4,950; Time Warner by $8,468, Red Ryder trash will probably go up $3,000 (5%), Security another $18,000, and who knows how much more for the Village insurance. There was talk about the swing bridge takeover TxDOT and an owner said she was confused with all this talk when the people in authority say they are not interested. It was explained that the county would take it with the knowledge it would then be given to TxDOT.

The Board intends to use $5 out of the condo fees for infrastructure repair along with discussing a future earmarked assessment to cover as many projects as possible that could cost owners in the range of $300-$500.

End
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NOVEMBER 17TH, 2010 BOARD MEETING
Pledge of Allegiance

Owners Speaking on Issues
None

President’s Remarks-Halbach
It was once again noted that maintenance received November’s “Yard of the Month” award.

Manager’s Report-Horner/Zamora
GM Horner said there were 61 work orders, 10 still open, 1 new violation letter sent out, seven new building permits given, and condo fee arrears were $44,046.
Manager Zamora said no smoking signs were put up in the Pool area, Bath House #1 yellow lines will be done this week, and four of the street lights were repaired.

Director’s Comments
Dir. Guerra gave a compliment to management.
Dir. Gagan asked about the plans with this new Congressman. Start over was the answer.

Approval of October’s Minutes
Done

Treas. Report- Steffensen
Nothing stood out. Dir. Montalvo asked for a running report format. No P&L report. There was talk about the changes in the bookwork due to the liquor license and the possibility of a loan or reserve fund for infrastructure repair will be discussed with Aramark.

Committee Report
D&E-White
Dir. White was absent but a fill-in said there will be a Dec. 5th concert, followed by a golf cart parade the day after, and an employee Christmas party on the 10th.

Golf-Pelletier
VP Pelletier made the audience know that there is a golf cart raffle and memorial garden fund raisers happening. It was said that the cart paths are near completion.

Pool-Steffensen
The dolphin statues will soon arrive along with some chairs, new lights, etc.

Hurricane-White
The final hurricane meeting was proponed.

Unfinished Business
Absentee Policy-Guerra
Dir. Guerra asked for an owner vote at the March Annual Meeting that a Director can’t miss more than three meetings total for a year. All agreed on the motion except Dir. Bergsma and VP Pelletier.

Bids
Bids were received from Rubio Brothers for asphalt repair of the roads. Pelletier said the Rubio Brothers were the only ones that show up to give a bid. Motion was approved to OK the lowest bid up to $14,000 to do a 4500 sq. ft. patchwork on the roads with asphalt breakout.

Request
VP Pelletier said 401 made a request for concrete curbing. The answer is forthcoming.

Rec. Hall Roof
Manager Zamora said the Casa engineering firm gave recommendations for the best way to fix the Rec. Hall roof/gutters and may cost around $80,000. Roofing bids are also forthcoming.

New Business
Proposed Loan for Maintaining the Common Grounds-MontalvoDir. Montalvo basically said a loan for dredging or other common ground maintenance projects does not look viable. Conversations seemed to strengthen the need for setting up a fund. This then started up the conversation on dredging for Tom Bergsma. This will resume in late December.

Other

Executive Session
To discuss Attorney status

Adjournment
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Treasurer Steffensen said S. Garcia is on Port Isabel’s beautification project. It was also asked if the Wave could be better accessed by the Village. The wind sphere energy study info will soon be available from the Port Isabel Library. Boys and Girls club will have a Zumba Dance.

Comments from the BOX
SC 77 asked why smoking is allowed in the swimming pool area. Answer, it is not.

Lot 248 asked to paint the yellow lines at Bath House #1.

Lot 301 said the street lights have been out for quite some time on Sea Shell Blvd and wonder when they will be fixed.

Lot 398 praised Security and maintenance for finding her bike and storing it over the summer.

Lots 37, 712, 638 praised the management over the appearance of the Park.

Lot 389, 571 said the curve/turn at the south end of the letter lots is a little hazardous to maneuver and should be looked at.

Lot 870 said he was not going to apologize for his past claims of a sewer smell. The new GM backed him up by saying that this was a serious problem the owner had been experiencing and it is now being fixed.

Lot 329 did a public service announcement about Veterans Day and a local event.

Lot? Owner wondered if meals from the restaurant could be catered to owners.

Lot 744 said there will be a final wrap up Hurricane meeting.

Lot 41 wanted an update on the dredging issue and was told that it was set for a vote by the owners at the upcoming annual meeting.

Lot 97 said there is a safety hazard with bushes obstructing your view as you leave the Park.

Lot? Owner complained about the commercial dumpster area looking dumpy.

Workshop
Dir. White wanted the dog poop baggies to be used more often.

Dir. Guerra wanted owners to obey the road rules and asked when the parking lot area where the Marquee was removed is going to be repaired.

VP Pelletier brought up the need of maintenance for the bath house fencing around the dumpsters.

Pres. Halbach declared that maintenance received the “Yard of the Month” award for November. He wants to form a new building committee and brought up some names. He also said the Jack Collins lawsuit will not be covered by our insurance and wants our directors to think about the need to having a different attorney to represent the Village in the future.

Treas. Steffensen asked the Board if several financial advisors could do future presentations to our owners.

Armando said he was getting as many bids for the Rec. Hall roof as possible.

Dir. Guerra had a novel idea of doing maintenance to one common ground building per year. Treas. Steffensen made it clear there is no current reserve fund for infrastructure repair but plans to pursue one.

GM Horner mentioned the food items to be served at the Thanksgiving buffet.

End
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