Our Village

At September’s Board meeting Director Kelmis received some resistance to his motion of saving our Village thousands of dollars annually by closing bathhouses one and three. In short Kelmis didn’t see the need to waste $25,000 budgeted  to remodel bath house one or spend the money for housekeeping, maintenance, and twenty-four hour air conditioning. He said the Park would initially save $41,000 with the closings and $16, 000 each year thereafter.
Director Guerra said it would be unfair to these owners who own RV’s and that the construction and maintenance people would have to all go to just one location.
President Chapa said these bath houses were the reason why people were buying property here and when that didn't work cited of all things Article VII of the Bylaws as a reason why the Board COULD NOT close these bath houses. He said it would require three fourths affirmative vote from the membership at the annual meeting.
.Unbelievable, we finally have a director who notice Article VII of our Bylaws.
.Two years ago we had a $21,000 major improvement the size of a bath house being added to the side of our maintenance building that was clearly a new substantial addition and where was Article VII then? There has been at least eight other instances similar to this and it’s a shame that the first time our owner ratification law has ever been brought up was used for a suitability purpose.
In President Chapa’s case Article VII does not come close to applying. Does closing an amenity result in a substantial addition or a material alteration? I think not.
Article VII of the Bylaws and Article X of the Declaration of Covenants both express the owner’s right to ratify all and I repeat all the “material alterations and substantial additions” to our common grounds. President Chapa stated Article VII when being applied acquires an affirmative vote of 75% of the total membership where I read Article VII as calling for an affirmative vote of 75% of the membership that is present at a called meeting.
Read carefully Article VII of the Bylaws and Article X of the Declaration to see how you interpret them. 
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The meeting started with Pat Burke telling owners that Mary Steffensen had a successful bypass surgery. Our prayers are with you Mary.
The Board let a John Toby speak. He and a Rey Puente are running for the water district. One thing interesting mentioned was that LIV was by far the biggest water district’s customer spending $413,000 annually while the distant second highest customer was spending only $197,000.
Lot 145 touched on the issues he previously expressed this year.
The GM talked on the recent burglaries, the beginning of the work to correct the pool’s water flow problem and list of condo fees in arrears.
The Minutes were approved but once again no mention of which month.
D-E Committee said there will be a Halloween Party for October.
Pool Committee mentioned the revenues from wristbands ($10,172) and ice sales ($3,390).
Finance Committee said LIV’s budget will definitely be done before the December’s meeting.
Bridge Board Report discussed the needs for purchasing a used generator that’s priced right.
Website Update talked on the complexities of the rental ads and the use of PayPal. Next month the Board will see an example of what the website can do.
The Board approved Director Montalvo’s resignation. It was also mention that his position will probably not be filled until the Annual Meeting.
Bath House Consolidation had a motion from Director Kelmis to close Bath houses one and three. Directors Gunderson, Kelmis, and Sandberg voted yes to close and Gagan, White, and Guerra voted no. President Chapa voted no as a tie breaker. Director White then made a motion with Guerra second that this consolidation will continue to be reviewed. This motion passed.
Use for yellow cards by realtors in the Activity Building display case was voted down.
Motion passed to receive bids for a card entry system to our amenities.
There was a rehash over the absentee director rules for using phones instead of attending meetings. I believe rule is that directors can use the phones to participate but won’t be able to vote or be counted as being present.
There was also a rehash of the quiet time in our park. Quiet times are from Labor Day to Memorial Day 11pm to 7am and from Memorial Day to Labor Day Midnight to 7am.
Director Kelmis said he will do more research on the liability exposure when a rental does not have the proper insurance required.
There was a suggestion by Director Sandberg to provide owners with a grill calendar showing chicken nights and any other special events along with regular open and close times.
Jose Torres with Securitas went through the new changes he’s doing in Security.
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Two months have passed and no need to list who said what at this Coffee. The topic was entirely security or the supposed lack of it. This focused on renters and burglaries and before the audience had a chance to voice their concerns the board introduced Jose Torres, a new seasoned regional supervisor from Securitas who said there will be new training towards our park’s unique security needs. The board also allowed a candidate running for constable chief to speak who promised permanent patrols and swift police action if elected.
There was an open forum security meeting the next day to collect ideas on how to remedy these problems happening to our village. Nothing to report on the workshop except it was short and done without a microphone.
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There was very little accomplished in either meeting. June-July unfinished business “LIV Website” and “Wireless provider” remained unfinished.
There is a concerted effort to correct the outdoor pool’s circulation problem when they search for the outdoor hot tub leak in September.
A yellow line will be laid at the curve by Bath house 3.
Motion passed to spend $5,196 for a large pool area shade.
Motion passed to continue LIV’s magazine’s ad. I did not hear a dollar amount.
Rick, the GM was criticized for not informing all the Directors he was taking his vacation. There was a director comment of his alleged procrastination of starting the months ago board approved new window project for the activity center’s east side.
The new rules for using the Activity Center’s bulletin board appear to have been misunderstood and will be corrected.
An owner asked why renters are allowed to bring in as many guests as they like, tremendously exceeding their overnight maximum number. No clear answer was given but the Board will look into it.
The Board said there will be an approved budget by January 1st 2013.
The profit loss statement was interesting enough to make the Tidbit article.
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Something stood out when reading our June’s Profit Loss summary. Total revenues increased less than 1% ($11,903) and each revenue center except Laundry (plus $74) was losing more money than this time last year, yet our net profit for the first six months this year was a quarter of a million ($258,244) better. These savings were made in the expense column.
Interesting to note that these savings matched the amount of the annual assessment fee increase that just started. Will this unexpected quarter of a million along with any future improvement that betters 2011 be used to reduce any assessments being charged to owners like dredging or road repair?
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My apologies for offending anyone who feels blame has been laid upon Priest, DeMalade, and Burke. Casting blame was never the intent nor do I believe that was reflected in the two articles.
Giving opinions on Village issues are important including from these three, they are owners too, well maybe two, but I get it, everyone has the right to speak up and express themselves, but my pointing out the debasing manner in which this group of people systematically took it to a board member over an issue needed to be noted along with relevant history about the group leading up to such an event. In my mind any debasing manner, even if the Board member is guilty as hell, should not be tolerated in a Village of good hearted people.
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The Rental Office has been an issue as far back as May of 2000 when the Board debated on its existence.They ultimately decided to keep it operational as long as it didn’t cost the owners.
Six years later our Rental Office had a two year record of losing big money. A Rental Committee is formed. They concluded these losses were due to an ever increasing number of landlords violating the “exclusive rights” clause found in Article VII of the Declaration of Covenants. In trying to find a way to correct this, our Directors were surprised to find they could neither close the Rental Office because that would more than double the losses nor could they enforce the “exclusive rights” provision because of previous years of non-enforcement. So the 2006 Board threw up their hands and said “Oh well”.
Since 2004 owners have poured around $25K a year into this money pit and how many times during those eight years did owners hear from these people who showed up at the Wednesday McBride bash expressing such a concerned about the Rental Office finances? ZIP, ZERO, NADA!!! Why was that?
I agree on virtually every point Larry Schroeder delivered during the Coffee blitz. For example his opinion that no one should be vilified over a conflict of interest nor should McBride be made to step down. Add to this was his wish that the Board enforce the Declaration of Covenants and figure out a way to keep all conflicts of interest from happening which by the way a week later the Board did the latter with eliminating any possible circumstance that could cause a conflict of interest for McBride.

Since McBride’s ethics were brought up numerous times at and after that Wednesday slugfest, I have to ask where were these people having these sharpened ethic concerns during 2008, the year a director sued six other directors. Where was this moral outrage in December of 2010 when yet another director thought to sue our Village over dredging? Finally, what grade did these ethic crusaders give the director who helped support the obstruction of our 2011 Annual meeting?
It was clear to many that the COOL gang was not at the last Coffee because of ethics, rule violators, nor were they concerned about Rental Office’s financial failures. They were there for McBride and no matter how you slice it; the COOL’s axiomatic grandiloquence supports that conclusion.
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