Our Village

January 26, 2011 Board Meeting

Pledge of Allegiance

Roll Call
All present

Owners Speaking.
Liz Deitrick reminded everyone of the cut off date on accepting Director Applications.

President’s Remarks-Halbach.
Pres. Halbach clarified that renters may attend but not participate in LIV meetings. He also said the Red Head Express show was one of the best.

Manager’s Report-Horner/Zamora
GM Horner said there were 73 work orders 9 pending, 7 building permits, condo fee total arrears were $62,215. Marquee lights are working and the homeowners insurance rating has been lowered to its previous level.

Director’s Comments
None

Approval of December’s Minutes
Motion approved

Treasurer’s Report-Steffensen
The P&L had the Village Grill, golf course, rental office, laundry revenue areas were in the red and the newsletter had an increase due to the "Lots for sale" advertisements.
Finance Committee scaled down the Major Improvement Budget from $369,000 to $135,000. Operating budget is next.

Committee Reports
D&E-White
There will be the Sock hop this Saturday, Bernie and Red will perform next Tuesday, Sheldon Tucker next Saturday, Leslie on February 7th, and Valentines party on February 12th.
Breakaway Tours did a sales pitch.
Golf –Pelletier
Cart paths are finished and the raffled off golf cart was won by Barb Darby.
Pool-Steffensen.
Nothing to report

Unfinished Business
Road Repairs-Pelletier
Dir. Pelletier said the roads are in good shape. $9320 will finish off the rest of the road patchwork and does not include Sun Dial Circle which followed with considerable discussion.
Welcome Center needs half the Parking lot overlaid. The Rec. Hall parking lot needs a complete do over. Dir. Pelletier received four bids from $18,500 to $236,403f for the Rec. Hall roof. An idea to have a rain recycle tank was brought up. Dir. Guerra showed concerned about an phone cable installation company cutting through the street without permission.
Rule Book-Pelletier
Revisions to be approved were Unit’s front parking area, measurement spot for measuring the roof height, minimum and maximum floor heights, total masonry construction to homes, dock extension wording, boat lift requirements, and the 3’ from the road rule to which he was criticized by Dir. Montalvo for singling out a builder to whom he had a confrontation with.
Dredging Survey Bids-Gagan
Dir. Gagan received four lower bids than the CRA survey. Dir. Montalvo said he believes if we do any survey it will open up a can of worms that will be used against our Village. He said we know we have a few trouble spots, why not use the survey money and focus on them. The response was the survey is information for the owners. When Dir. Gagan said they were going to survey the intercoastal but not canal H, it drew the attention of owner SC 48 who asked why not both? A good answer fell short but during the discussion the Board showed that they did not know the answer to dredging canal H owned by Mr. Cowan who who is currently suing our Village. Dir. Gagan asked ex-President Pat Burke and she said she had nothing to do with it, but still gave a lengthy opinion. This ended with having next Friday as the date the Board will vote for a survey and have the survey done and dredging bids soon enough to send with the Owner’s Packets.
The owner from SC 121 claimed that at one time the Village owned canal H because she would have not bought her place otherwise.

New Business
ICW Petition-Halbach
Motion was  passed to have in the Owner’s packets a letter to petition the newly elected Congressman to react to our intercoastal problems.
Port Isabel Shrimp Boil-Halbach
Motion was approved to have the Shrimp Boil event from 3-5pm on Feb. 21.
Winter Texan TV-Halbach
Motion was approve to have this program on channel 19.
Allied Waste Bid-Horner
Motion was approved to replace Red River with Allied Waste at an estimated savings of $23,382 annually.
Other
A motion was approved to join the Rio Grande Valley Chapter of Texas Recreational Vehicles Association for $250 annually.
Motion passed to send a proposal letter to the city of Port Isabel/SPI to request the WAVE to route stopping at our swing bridge. She wanted the Board to approve a motion for a way to avoid the fees charged by the banks for cashing Canadian checks used to pay condo fees. Motioned passed but I’m not sure for what way exactly.
Dir. Montalvo wanted to remind the Board that a yes or no vote will be in the Owner’s Packets for revisions on Director Absenteeism and term limits. It will be reviewed these revions at the Special Friday meeting.

Adjournment to an Executive Meeting over pending litigation
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January 19, 2011 Coffee W/Directors


Pledge of Allegiance


VP Pelletier announced that today was Dir. White’s birthday.

From The Suggestion Box
Lot 249 asked if the Board has looked into LIV’s homeowner’s insurance ratingwhich is at the worst level available. It appears the reason for this level is over having no agreement for fire services between Port Isabel and LIV. The GM is trying to change that.

Lot 573 had a problem with people using the Park’s laundry to clean their pet’s blankets, which leaves hair.

Lot 668 asked to fix the Wi-Fi.

Lot 345 questioned procedures of special events taking the place of weekly events. VP Pelletier said policy states special events supersede weekly events.

Lot 301 said the street light are out again on Sea Shell and also asked when the Marquee lights are going to be functioning. GM said probably by next week on the marquee lights.

Lot 601 suggested to our Board to contact the people in Port Isabel who will be dredging the fingers this year to see if we could possibly coordinate our efforts with theirs.

Lot? Expressed a problem with a man he called Mr. Olive Oil.

Directors Speaking
Pres. Halbach said the Board has contacted Mr. Olive Oil’s landlord and if someone in the future has a problem with this renter, please contact the Board.

Dir. Gagan said he currently has four dredging survey bids with two more companies to contact.

Dir. White announced they will have Keith Allen and Diane Lynn tonight, Chicken Night 4-6, and that the Board needs to review procedures for those who may not be able to afford future assessments.

GM Rick Horner said starting tonight there will no longer be Chicken Night tickets sold at the door.

Dir. Pelletier said he had three bids for the Rec. Hall roof/wall repair.

From the Audience
Lot? Praised the current management but has a problem with how people stack the garbage to high in the trash bin. He also had a problem with the garbage trucks leaking garbage liquids on the streets. He praised the Board for obeying the wishes of the owners not to dredge.

Lot 288 announced Election Committee information.

Lot D and 558 spoke at length their problems with the Olive Oil man.

Lot 806 wanted to correct the chain of events expressed at the Special Meeting last week when the Board said the meeting was caused by emails they received, when in it was Tom Bergsma who called the meeting due to a CRA three week time frame. She asked what this time frame was then said the chain of events was as follows, Tom Bergsma called the meeting, it was posted on the Marquee, the Village Voice came out, and then the emails. The Board said it was the emails received due to the Village Voice. She went on to say we can’t be bad mouthing people just because we don’t agree or change the chain of events. She pointed out the Board has to be held to a higher standard. She said she got upset when Bud Sherry said “up yours” to a Board member and such a thing should never be tolerated. Upon her exit Bud Sherry stormed up to the stage and said well done Pat but you didn’t say a word about the Director who treated me like a kindergartener when she put a finger up to their lips to indicate, don’t say anything Bud.

VP Pelletier said he would take some responsibility for calling last week’s Special Meeting. He said in December’s meeting he called for a Special Meeting in early January if the Board was going to do the survey. This was to give enough time to receive the survey results that CRA said takes three weeks. He said this survey was approved in April and priced to the Board at $15,000. VP Pelletier continue saying as we began to figure out things here in the fall, we learned that price was not an accurate amount because there were a lot of add-ons, therefore it was not a good proposal.
He then began to rambled about three weeks it takes CRA to put together this survey was the reason why he called the meeting, all in order to provide figures to the owners. He said we had no intentions from day one of taking the responsibility of this vote away from you. It will be available at the Annual Meeting however we do not have a survey.
He said he actually never considered we needed three survey bids because he thought the survey was already voted on. VP Pelletier said he was open one way or another on dredging. The Special meeting was called to get you the pricing and not to take the responsibility of the vote away from you. OK

Lot 288 speaking to the Board said if you will recall from the April meeting that the motion said up to $15,000 for the pre survey, $10,000 follow up survey, without assigning it to anyone, and Bill Gagan and Mary Steffensen was to be part of a committee with Tom Bergsma. She said the survey was to take place after the hurricane season, so we had from April until now and we are just now getting some bids, I don’t understand unless the process failed somewhere.

VP Pelletier read the minutes and his motion states that LIV to proceed with the survey to better inform owners of the need to dredge. He said the motion was made for the $15,000 and to start in September. He said there was nothing about the $25,000. Owner from 288 said there was a dredging committee discussed at that meeting. Director Gagan said all he knew about a committee was from a month ago when VP Pelletier asked me to check for more survey bids.

Lot 744 wanted to assure all those who may wish to run for the Board, now is the time because this Board has been very cooperative to owners and is not as bad as past ones.

Workshop
Dir. White said the expertise forms will be available next Wednesday for future candidates and committee people to fill out. She expressed some future social events and their costs.

Pres. Halbach asked the Board f it wants to approve a Winter Texan cable channel at no cost. They said yes and it will be on channel 19. He then wanted to know if the Board wants to hold a Port Isabel shrimp boil event for about 300 people. Since most who will attend will be LIV people and a flexible date, the board said yes. He talked about a petition being put in the owner’s packet to sign for addressing Congress on our intercoastal needs.

The GM said he is looking at two new proposals for trash pickup. He is not happy with the current Red Ryder service.

VP Pelletier said the Building Committee began to revise the Building Rules Book in December and started to explain the changes until the Directors told him they needed the whole revised copy in hand instead of just its changes. VP Pelletier continued saying there are major changes in this like all masonry homes and larger mandatory parking spaces. The Directors told him to bring this up when he’s better prepared.

VP Pelletier brought up the lot 217 light posts issue and passed out photos to Directors. He said the posts are 12 inches from the road; foundation with rebar, concrete block, and a poured cap that’s permanent. He said the Building Committee said this could be a hazard and gave examples. Dir. Guerra said last week he was told these could be pushed over and were not two feet deep with rebar. VP Pelletier revised his earlier insinuation with saying now that he did not know for sure the depth but they are permanent structures. Dir. Guerra stated if that’s the case they should not be allowed. Dir. White said then we need to go around the Park and say that to all having things similar. VP Pelletier stayed adamant with saying that Park Models will incur major problems when moved because of this. There was disagreement among the ranks.

VP Pelletier changed the subject and said the roads are in good shape but the parking lot needs a total redo. He found a new expensive material that he used 25 years ago (go figure) for the roads. He said Sun Dial needs to be totally overlaid from end to end due to the previous contractor’s patchwork; patchwork he said was never paid for. He also said that street is an embarrassment but the good news is that all other remaining patch work will only cost the Park $9320.

End
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Special Meeting

President Halbach started with acknowledging the Board had received many e-mails about the survey and thought the Village Voice was responsible. He said there were many misconceptionsout there. He explained in order to vote intelligently, Villagers need figures and that is why the Board approved a $15,000 survey. Since the cost of the survey is now substantially more, we will not have CRA do the survey. He was of the opinion without the figures dredging should not be on the Annual Meeting ballot.
Dir. Gagan said two survey companies he had talked to indicated $15,000 was more than enough and two other companies have yet ro respond. He also will contact a man that lives in Los Fresnos who does this type of work .
Dir. White and Treas. Steffensen thanked Dir. Gagan for his hard work.
VP Pelletier gave the history of the survey issue and dredging questionnaire. He said people are wrong who say owners do not want dredging. He said CRA's scope of work became more expensive after the Board approved doing the survey. He rambled a bit before saying he didn’t want the dredging issue on the ballot.
Dir. Guerra said he had always thought there were other companies out there and won’t approve a higher amount for a survey. He indicated unless the membership wants it in March, he's not for full dredging.
Dir. Martin said the same as others.
Dir. Bergsma said he initially got three survey bids. He added that CRA has done a great amount of work looking at our facility and spent a lot of time on the proposal. He went through CRA's qualifications and closed by saying I have nine years of practical experience in dredging and am trying my best to help you, but it's not going to get done.
Dir. Gagan said to Dir. Bergsma he would welcome a list of specifications and any pertinent questions to ask these other survey companies and Bergsma said “no thanks”.
Dir. White asked Dir. Bergsma if any of these survey companies Dir. Gagan mentioned were the ones he originally disqualified and Dir. Bergsma couldn’t tell her.
With that Dir. Bergsma picked up his stuff, got up, and left the meeting.
Pres. Halbach changed the subject and said there is an issue on if the light posts Marlin Construction installed should be removed. Marlin Construction said these were not a permanent structure and asked why he is constantly being singled out from all the others. He and VP Pelletier went back and forth on that until an owner asked if that is why the Board called this meeting for.
Martha Nell Dodson gave an extrapolation of CRA's proposal costs and after five minutes the total which didn’t include dredging was $308,660.
Rowdy Voss asked if renters were allowed in our meetings.
An owner asked the Board if they were looking for a one lump sum price for dredging. Pres. Halbach said yes.
Someone said the Board should prioritize while another owner said they never give out bid specs.
Richard Deitrick said this survey equipment could be bought for around $5000. He also said that things change and there is a need for new ideas. He asked why Dir. Gagan and Treas. Steffensen, who were on the dredging committee, didn’t know about the additional CRA costs and suggested that committees have more than just one person knowing what is going on.
Jim Peterson suggested that our Village could benefit with having the owner’s expertise in the phone directory.

End
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Survey Valuable To Who?

It appears that Village owners may soon pay well over the promised fifteen thousand dollars for CRA's pre-dredging survey. This study is suppose to provide where and how much sediment there is in our canals, along with approximate removal costs. This first of many expenditures will be just the tip of the  iceberg in the CRA proposal whose singular goal is to accomplish full dredging.

When this survey was first postponed in order to gather owner input, Director Bergsma became upset and ignored that this input showed that only three out of one thousand twenty four owners were having canal navigational problems. All three piloted deep draft boats and one of them was said to be looking to sue our Village if dredging maintenance isn’t done.

Last month Director Bergsma was said to have begun his own legal action against our Village, but recanted prior to December's Regular Meeting, a meeting in which the Board had clearly displayed they had succumbed to his wishes.

It seems clear nothing short of a full dredging decision will be acceptable to Director Bergsma and Chris Ransome the owner of CRA who looks to profit big.

That being said, has anyone stopped to think just how valuable this pre-dredge survey is to one seeking a canal maintenance lawsuit? It would drastically improve the validity of their legal position and we, the owners are picking up the tab.

Our membership does not need a pre-dredge survey or anything else until it first makes a decision on how much money if any it wants to spend towards dredging.

Our Board should not surrender to anyone who threatens our Village with legal action nor should our Board strengthen a legal opponent's position. If this pre-dredge survey begins it will mean our Board has done both.

When Director Bergsma, MO Berry, and CRA convinces everyone to do this survey, be prepared to either pay through the nose for full dredging or lose a lawsuit you had helped them to win and then pay through the nose.

Comments
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CHOICES

When over half the membership has yet to choose, twenty-one percent showing a thumbs down, and fifteen percent wanting to do it at a limited amount, one wonders why the mere ten percent wanting full dredging appears to be at the top of the list.

Full Dredging Overview
The first thing that CRA’s proposal expresses is their lone objective of returning the Village’s canal system to their original depth.

Our Board has indicated the tens of thousands will not be wasted when the pre-dredge survey is done on our Village canals, Cowen's canal, and other waters not owned by our Village .

The Board has given themselves the ability to make assessments impossible to say no to by packaging dredging costs in with other infrastructure and major improvement projects.

In a nutshell, one needs to realize that CRA’s pre-dredge survey is nothing more than a very influential vehicle which guides and motivates clients into using the next array of CRA services like offered in the Village proposal.

Rest assure that CRA will soft sell the results of their pre-dredge survey in receipt of a full dredging commitment and after witnessing the Board’s total surrender to Director Bergsma’s pro-dredging agenda and his recent unprincipled actions, it is difficult for one to believe that anything but a full dredging portfolio is on the table.

Your comment
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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?

Your comments

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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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