Board Meeting June 14, 2011

Meeting was called to order at 7PM by Nola Adler. 

Minutes from last meeting were approved unanimously.
 

Present

Nola Adler
Dewitt Vanarsdale
Clint Dalton
Linda Carter
Mike Gupton
Richard Wikle
Carolyn 
Annie Hensley
Sambo Lewis
Richard Wikle
Tim Tetreault
Kevin Hensley
Marian Corpus”Phil Beck
John Gilmor
Scott Jeffries
FJ Hale

Treasurer’s report

Annie Hensley reported there is about $112,000 is in the checking account.  The 4-month roll-over Cd has about $48,583 in it and the investment account has about $91,000.  All are with the Bank of America.  The audit was done.

Annie will send out more notices to delinquent members in August and December.  After the end of the year, in January, 2012, she will be filing liens across the board on all delinquent accounts for past dues for all delinquent property owners.  

There was some discussion on what kinds of CD’s we are using. Sambo Lewis will get with Annie to discuss where we should best invest our monies for the greatest and easiest return.  Annie wanted to know how much money to set aside, and how much to leave in the checking account.  It all depends on the roads money needed.  Mike Gupton (Roads Chairman) did not think that we will be doing much with roads — maybe just minimum patching this year.  Prices will probably be outrageous with the price of oil now.  By August, after we get bids, we should know how much we’ll be doing.

Old Business  

Comments from the President

There is a new Directory chair:  Carolyn Ferguson, and a new Beautification chair: Marian Corpus.  

On annual assessments: 

About $69,500 has been received in annual assessments and contributions.  Sixty eight people have given an extra $4,500, or so. There are 111 lots (68 people) in arrears for association dues.  Nola has the list if anyone would like to see it. We are not distributing a copy as we have voted in the past for restrictions on the financial data.  We have a breakdown by unit of the percentage paid. 6 of the 26 are at 100%.

On the audit: 

Annie had mentioned an audit.  It’s a requirements of our bylaws that we have one.  Debbie Smallwood and Gloria Bauer volunteered to do this job and found $5,000 to our credit when the Quickbooks was reconciled. 

On the By-Laws being recorded with the county: 

If they’re truly not recorded we need to do so.  The complaint was that they were not on file with the county. 

On Unit 8A concerns: MF1 used to be voluntary, but voluntarily agreed to pay $30/$50 for unimproved/improved lots. If so, that makes them mandatory and 8A has a valid concern about not paying more. This needs more investigation. Nola was told that MF1 residents are willing to be change their covenants and be charged mandatory $160 dues.  Would the Committee to Unite MALA be interested in bringing them in? (Richard Wikle said it was worth discussing.)

On Replatted lots: 

According to the database records, 12 units are in the database as replatts. two are in error; four were combined for septic by the developer; one was purchased that way by the current owner. That leaves five. The ‘history’ provided in April’s board meeting suggests these five properties constitute discrimination and a ‘free ride’. But the facts in that history show these re-platts were authorized by previous boards. Nola states that she is not going to revoke those decisions and get into lawsuits and cause hard feelings. “People complaining that it isn’t fair need to get over it,” she said. “Re-platts are a non-issue.  We will waste far more in legal fees challenging them than they are worth.”

Open Forum

People are being ticketed at the entrance to Merifield by state troopers for rolling stops.  There was discussion as to whether we can change it to a yield sign. 

Foote property

FJ Hale encountered Mr. Foote while he was retrieving a buoy. They spoke cordially.  He reported that Joe Noah has a friend who is a pilot, who’s made him an offer.  In response to a question of what we can do with the property now, Kevin Hensley reported that all we can do is board up the doors and windows.  

Committee Reports

Appearance and Beautification

Marian Corpus, the new Beautification chair, had nothing to report. Nola told her that Barb Tierney had been informed of the new chair and was waiting to hear from Marian to turn over the book and provide the list of members.

Architectural Commission

One new addition has been approved, to build an addition to a detached garage on Goat Island. 

Aviation Committee

FJ Hale reported that he spoke with a Mr. Brubaker from the Army Corps of Engineers about the Impact statement and lease issues. Sambo Lewis said he also spoke with Mr. Brubaker, and they’d discussed that it would be more straightforward to go with a regular lease through the Lewises, and leave MALA and the runway out of it. The point is to cut down some trees on Corp land (which abuts the Lewis’ property) that obstruct the runway.   FJ also reported that some people made some donuts on the airfield.  The police were called in.  No real harm was done.

Committee to Unite MALA

Richard Wikle discussed a community that started out as a camping community. It got so bad people were threatening each other.  It went to a juried court.  The judge voided all covenants and brought the development under the NC homeowner’s rule.  They were e given three years to develop their own bylaws.  Some members did civil suits against one another. One man had his house given to the community, he just had living rights.

Common Areas and Facilities

Clint Dalton talked about a homeowner, Leslie, who cleaned up Sandy Beach all by herself. She brought up seven car tires and a lot of garbage.

He’s looked into making the front entrance a little easier for parents dropping off their kids to the school bus. A drainage pipe with gravel above can be installed and covered with gravel for a total cost of about $350. (He was given the okay to proceed.)   

An overhanging limb was removed from Ridge Drive.  

Ralph Moore replaced some boards and cemented the stop sign post at the front entrance.  

Mike Hite replaced some shingles on the maintenance shed in Oak Park.  

Shentel is bringing high-speed internet to Merifield in July. A 3-tier package (cable, phone and internet) will start at $29.95/month and go to $143 after six month. If you don’t get all three services there will be installation fees.  Shentel can be reached at 877-743-8538.

Deer Control

Noel Corpus reported that the new season starts in August for antlerless deer.  

Political and Environmental

Richard Wikle reported that the list of towns who are opposed to mining of uranium grows.  Worries are high about containment of tailings.  The Roanoke River is on the list of America’s most endangered rivers.

Roads Committee

Mike Gupton reported that prices for asphalt may be so high this year we will likely just do what’s absolutely necessary.  We’ll see what we get for bids before deciding if it makes sense to move to a 3-year plan, as opposed the the current 2-year plan. He said he bought ten 50-pound bags of cold asphalt repair, as Mike Hite has used up that amount doing pothole and road edge repair.

Security Report

Tim Tetreault reported he’d received a message from Mary Fran Lewis that there were police cars on the runway. He assumes it’s the same incident FJ reported about donuts on the runway.

Welcoming Report

Carolyn Ferguson reported there were no new people. 

Communication Reports

Directory

Carolyn Ferguson said putting the directory online is the way to go, and if folks don’t have the internet they can write us and for a small fee we can print it off and mail it to them.  

Email

Nola asked John Gilmore if Joanne Gilmore had been keeping this up, to his knowledge. He said she hadn’t, and Linda Carter asked if she might take it over. She said if she has all the email addresses, when the board minutes are posted, for example, she could send them an email with a link, and get the website used more. John said he thought Joanne would be willing to give her all the data she had.

Newsletter

Nola said Bill Woodfin will mail out a newsletter, the last one.  After that they will be on the website.  

Website report

Linda Carter talked about ideas for expanding the website.  MALA directory will be online, within an SSL to keep it private, for members only. The cost for an SSL license is about $50 per year, far less than the cost to print and mail the directories. She’s currently doing another homeowner website professionally and getting lots of great ideas. There’s a free directory plug-in we might be able to adapt for our usage, although we need to ensure it’s private.

New Business

Nola Adler said we need to plan the next annual meeting at the August board meeting, and decide if we have a potluck or not.  We also need to get candidates for the election. Those whose terms expire need to decide if they will run again (Phil Beck, John Gilmore, FJ Hale, Sambo Lewis, Jeff Mabre, Tim Tetreault, Richard Wikle) and we need to solicit the community for anyone else who’s interested.

A motion to adjourn was made, seconded and unanimously carried, at 8:15.



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