Our Village

Dredging is waiting on a site to dump the material. Original site was turned down and two new sites are pending.










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Owners Speaking
Lot #145 gave some cost saving tips and reminded everyone that this year’s budget has close to $200,000 in revenue center losses.
SC 101 gave her reasons why with keeping things as they are instead of moving finances in-house will serve our Village the best.
Manager Report (Horner) recorded 78 work orders, currently replacing the Rec. Hall A/C, a $211 condo fee delinquency difference,  number five water retaining wall almost completed, and the indoor pool is now operating under a saline disinfecting system.
Minutes (month?) were approved.
March Revenue Centers
Golf (loser) $4474 Grill (loser) $23,364, Rental Office (loser) $7432, Laundry $1167 winner, Newsletter $1303 winner.
Committee Reports
Golf (Sandberg) said maintenance is finishing the retaining walls on holes 3, 4, and 5.
Pool (Gunderson) mentioned the Village needs an evening pool monitor but can’t afford it.
Finance Committee (Sandberg) was told by Director Guerra to bring all info to the table in order to let the owners information found by the committee.
Building Committee (Kelmis) asked for volunteers and talked about possible future phasing out of Park Models.
Bridge Board Report (Chapa) had no progress in current lawsuit and discussed buying or renting a generator.
Unfinished Business
(Kelmis) motion approved starting watering ban June 1st that authorizes only Tues. and Sat for car and property washings.
(Chapa) Motion passed to reschedule the auction on foreclosed lots 7, 125, and hopefully 706 to May 19th at 10am.
(Horner) said from now on there will be a manager working in the Village seven days a week.
Break in the Meeting
New Business
(McBride) said a new safety bulletin board will soon be installed.
(McBride) clarified poolside’s grill hours will be 12-8 Sat-Sun. (holidays) will add a Monday.
Liquor Law Questions (Sandberg) after being quizzical as to why Aramark holds the liquor license she received negative responses from directors including our President. Sandberg questioned past excuses that Aramark insurance coverage is necessary then questioned current Aramark liquor revenue reimbursements. (Guerra) wanted to table this until Sandberg could bring in our attorney, our auditor, and a representative from TABC  to validate her claims in front of the owners. (Chapa) said this is making a mountain out of a molehill and maintained keeping with the status quo. (Sandberg) stood her ground and implied that LIV’s pecking order seems to have changed because instead of an elected Board dictating to Aramark what course of action to take, Aramark seems to be telling the Board. After some debate, (Chapa) gave his opinion as to why the liquor license should stay in Aramark’s name and felt this should be put to rest. (Sandberg) said she was voted into office to look after LIV’s finances and will agree to bring in the people you requested to validate my assertions, but just because you want to put this to bed doesn’t mean it will go to bed. It seemed odd that those who approved a responding motion leaving the liquor license in Aramark’s name turned right around and said it needed further investigation.
Rental Gross Revenue Losses (Chapa) said our Village in 2010 collected ($72,435) less gross rental revenues and ($8315) less in 2011.(Chapa) blamed these reductions as reasons why condo fees had to be increased. One should point out there was an Insurance check (Hurricane Dolly) in the amount of $38,712 added to the 2009 rental revenues and the 2010 Board budgeted a $31,836 rental loss that ended up being a little over $35,000. (Chapa) also said the rental contract language is losing rental business and wanted the Board to consider a revised contract that a sixth grader can understand. Board Credit Card/Cell Phone Usage (Sandberg) questioned company credit card purchases from an employee on disability leave. (Chapa) explained his thoughts of no wrong doing and Guerra wanted this person in question to be present in order to defend himself.
Outsourcing of Lawn Service (Sandberg) for the purpose of seeing what savings if any there may be to present to the Board for discussion she was in the process of getting a few lawn care bids. (Guerra) immediately asked if she had acquired Board approval to obtain these bids and pointed out procedural transparency. (Sandberg) explained of her effort to notify members about this by email and agreed to the need for transparency which brings her to ask why she was denied Aramark financial information by Chapa and Polo. She received no answer but (Gagan) said he was for getting these lawn care bids while (Guerra) insisted the Board approve getting these bids. Moving Finances In-house (Sandberg) went nowhere.
Other (Sandberg) the Board needs to decide what updates are needed for LIV’s website.
Which irrelevant Board question wins this month’s award? Director Guerra asking where three guys in a golf cart were going with a cooler or if a pile of dirt could be made to look better.
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After the Pledge of Allegiance, Lot 145 owner said that TABC is incorrectly being described as the reason why our Board prohibits owners from bringing in their own alcohol during events.

We were told most of the recently laid sod was paid for by the Golf Committee. Management has started an inventory list on items valued at over $25.

There has been a location finally agreed upon on where to put dredging spoils and are waiting for a letter of confirmation from Mr. Freeland.

The Profit Centers showed in the first two months of this year the restaurant ($13,345 loser), golf course ($15 big winner), rentals ($3995 loser), laundry ($1,291 winner), and the newsletter ($712 winner).

The Minutes were approved but it was not stated as to which month.

VP White said D.E. will purchase additional card and round tables for the Rec. Hall along with new curtains for the restaurant. Treasurer Sandberg said the Golf Committee will have the rest of the water area retaining walls completed soon.

Bridge Board Annual meeting will be held April 7^th. The Board unanimously elected owner Steve Fowler to the Bridge Board.

With Berry Pools contract being up April fool’s day, the Board passed a motion to change all pools and spas to a saline system.

The Board cut short debating on paying for outside sources to monthly update LIV’s website rental info when it was learned the rental office had only five units currently rented.

The 2012 Budget was approved along with implementing measures to assure the 2013 budget will be ready by January 2013.

The condo fee increase of $20 a month will begin on July 1^st.

Motion passed to have LIV auditors do quarterly assessments.

Motion passed to purchase the bank note for foreclosed Lot 706.

Motion passed to prioritize the dredging of Canal “A” five feet six inches deep and to award the plaintiff that sued our Village over dredging, up to ten grand in attorney fees.

Motion was passed to provide the same schedule as provided last year for additional security between Memorial Day to Labor Day.

Motion passed to approve the 2012 schedule and have no meetings in August. 

Treasurer Sandberg wants to change the use management’s use of company credit cards, revise cell phone use, and get rid of non-essential computer usage. She also feels the GM should provide the Board management goals.

VP White told the Board the renewal of the music contract fee needs to be reviewed.

The water restrictions introduced by Director Kelmis were tabled.

One final note, at 10:30 the Board had a two hour long executive meeting with LIV’s attorney over numerous subjects.

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As the poll to the left indicates, 87% interprets the verbiage found in the Declaration of Covenants on ratification as being the voting percentage of those owners PRESENT at a called meeting. To be clear, RATIFICATION is only subject within our Declaration and Bylaws that hail the words “owners present”.
I need to remind the absentees who are concerned about substantial additions or material alterations of the Park; this is a called (every owner notified) meeting for ratification and proxy eligible, so your presence and vote can be arranged no matter what time of the year. As I see it there are only two reasons why our ratification regulation is not being enforced, directors aren’t knowledgeable or feel it’s too much work. Let’s start enforcing this regulations then work on the rest. 
To review these regulations, look to the left and click on March 2005 Restated Declaration of Covenants (Art. X section B) or March 2005 Restated Bylaws (Art. VII) Comment?
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After the Annual Meeting there seemed confusion as to who exactly voted on exclusively using Chapter 82 of the Uniform Condominium Act, so there’s a good chance we will see a redoof the voting. For those still confused about the issue, this may help.
Currently the 1963 Chapter 81 Condominium Act covers our Village along with thirteen RETROACTIVE sections of the 1994 Chapter 82 Uniform Condominium Act. Our Village attorney wants owners to vote to amend our Declaration to exclusively use the updated Chapter 82 UCA because she believes opposing attorneys will use Chapter 81’s vague and outdated language to costly extend any litigated process.
An overview comparison shows Chapter 82 is shorter by omitting 20 sections found in Chapter 81 deemed non-essential but retains C-81’s overall format and section titles.
It renames the "public offering statement" found in Chapter 81 to a friendlier "condominium information statement" and replaces the priority Lien with a statutory lien for assessments which favors the association.
It has easier rules for developers, stronger assessment collection language, and permits non-judicial foreclosure of an assessment lien while permitting a 90 day buy back if the Association purchases the foreclosed property.
It requires owners to furnish the Association mortgage information and when necessary gives a Board the ability to communicate with those lienholders about their debt. 
It gives the board the ability to terminate certain utilities, suspend voting rights, and stop common element privileges for nonpayment of assessments.
It rids the old need of Chapter 81’s indexing specifications of recorded instruments by our county clerks and adds several affirmative duties to unit owners and his tenants which include compliance with association documents.
I hope this helps and here is a site for more details. http://www.settlepou.com/uploads/TUCA-1994.pdf

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Year after year it becomes apparent that our Board of Directors ignored certain things. Allowing owners to use "Village ratification rights" for material alterations and substantial additions has never been granted. Babble is all a person gets when addressing this issue like substantial is defined many ways or you’ll never get 75% of the owners in the Park to even vote much less ratify something. My favorite was a board member saying we’re elected to make these kinds of decisions for owners and if they started ratifying everything they wouldn't need us.
We find the Village ratification rights in the Declaration and in the Bylaws. These rights were not put in there just to fill up space but to ensure the power of change was not given to an elected majority of nine, but left in the hands of concerned owners.
Previous Boards have argued we need 75% of the total owners to ratify (768 owners out of 1024). I'm not alone in thinking (SEE POLL ABOVE LEFT) Declaration's Article X and Bylaw's Article VII say 75% of however many owners show up at an announced ratification meeting only need to vote and the majority of those votes rules. It’s as simple as that so I ask, why aren’t we doing it?
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Three times over the past decade the Board has made decisions not to close the Rental Office. The first time they made one condition for staying open, it cannot cost the Association money. Well we all know that didn’t happen since Association members now are subsidizing around $30,000 annually so those few who rent through the Rental Office can make a lot of money.
We’ve been told twice we now can’t afford to close the Rental Office because office figures show the losses would more than double each year.
So being a simple man help me out here, surely I'm missing something. Could it be the answer was given at our February board meeting?
After President Montalvo expressed his frustration with Aramark on acquiring flow charts, Director Sandberg added similar ones and believes that in keeping two set of books, one for LIV and one for Aramark, it becomes a total nightmare to get an answer on even the simplest of things like how much did we spend on Verizon last year.
She couldn’t believe the paper trail that Aramark requires an Association bill to travel. For instance, Verizon sends their bill to the Welcome Center. The office manager opens it up and gives it to the GM for approval. The GM sends it back to the office manager so she can enter it into Aramark’s system and you would think that should be it, right, cut the check and mail it, right? Not so fast, after it's been entered into Aramark’s system the bill now travels to the Aramark people in Pennsylvania where they purge it for processing in order to make a check out to pay the Verizon bill in our behalf. So now we’re done, right? Wrong, a month later the Pennsylvania people will have to send our office a statement requesting a reimbursement for their efforts and our office now has to go back through their set of records to reconcile Aramark’s numbers. When this is all said and done, the office will show in Aramark’s system that the reconciliation has taken place and our office can now make a check to pay Aramark.
In short what normally takes any other office five minutes to pay a simple phone bill, our office takes an hour and the Association has to pay that employee for that time. To do all the items that flow through the office this cumbersome way it would not surprise me that Aramark has required the need of more office employees. Take as many guesses as you want as to who would pay for that and while you're guessing, who has to pay for the services of the people in Pennsylvania? Even President Montalvo said after reviewing his cash flow reports that he feels our Village is paying Aramark $110,000 a year for the most part to pay our bills, little else.
So one might find it interesting if this may have everything to do with losing $70,000 per year if the Rental Office were to close. Is it time for our Association to wake up to Aramark.
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