By Ron Duncan
April 20, 2016

Summary

The Board meeting began about 6:10 PM and concluded at 9:30 PM. It was absolutely an open meeting with lots of discussion by the Board on almost every topic. Highlights included ratification of road work for this coming season, approval of safety enhancements, a ‘limited extension’ of the fuels management work, a Board ‘team’ to work with the Non-residential owner to resolve various interfaces between the ACHOA and current owner, ratification of two new committees (Social and Landscaping), and maintaining as ‘Optional’ the Community Covenant Inspections of property in Escrow. Although the meeting was long, the open discussion by the Board members was very much appreciated and allowed new insight for the owners.

‘The’ Meeting

The meeting was called to order by Alan Liebman, ACHOA President. Without much fanfare, Pledge of Allegiance, the meeting began with a statement by Alan as to the conduct of the meeting. Kibitzing was not going to be permitted as home owner comments were provided at both the beginning and ending of the meeting. Mr. Duncan then spoke to two of the items on the agenda, 1.) the Fuels Management Committee (where he objected to the ‘property inspections’ and mandatory compliance with any inspection findings) and presented the Washoe County Fire Commission meeting minutes of 19 April. The minutes Board of Fire Commissioners April 2016 Meeting Highlights, under item 7 spoke to an approval for a new ‘Fire Map’ for Washoe County that would impact our fuels management program. Further there was a statement by the County Fire Chief stating that “ArrowCreek had requested an assessment.” The Board had no knowledge of any request to the county. Mr. Duncan then commented on the proposed changed wording for the Community Covenant Inspections (CCI).

The comments were followed by the Reserve Committee update presented by Rich Kenny. The major topic was selection and approval of the Road rework plan for 2016 beginning in May. The areas approved for Rapid Set Slurry Seal include Painted Vista (Desatoya II), Desatoya I and The Reserves. All of these areas will likely lose the use of their streets for a half day, in phases. A Fog Seal will be used on Painted Vista (Nambe Estates), Silver Vista, Bella Terra and Grey Hawk. So, if you live or have a home in these areas be aware of road closure notices. The total job was awarded to Sierra Nevada Construction (SNC) for $267.6K.

Next up was the Treasurers report. Mr. Kirtley was absent so the information was presented by Vice President Dave Steele. There were three items of note from the detailed Treasurers report. They were 1.) Our HOA accounts are being optimized to get better returns; 2.) The annual audit was completed without any findings; 3.) The equivalent Lot calculation, this directly effects the amount of funds owed to the HOA by the Non-residential area owner (called out in the CC&Rs in Article VII, Section 2), is complete and indicates the owner should be paying the equivalent of 2 Lots ($436/Month). The ACHOA has agreed to reimburse the owner for the dues overage from January 2016 thru April. There wasn’t any discussion but an alternative would have been to not collect dues from the owner until the overage had been absorbed by the HOA (less cash ‘out of pocket.’)

Operations, Jeff Anderson, reported everything was turning to spring with water being turned on to irrigate our 3400 acres ( I believe this was a misstatement as we only own 504 acres as the HOA). There had been two broken pipes and flanges that have been repaired. The pool inspection will be happening soon with the objective to get it open by Mid-May.

Security, Rick Reyome, reported that one of the car burglars has been arrested and the Sheriffs office continues its investigation. Other than that everything is normal. He did not report the accident on High Vista between a downhill vehicle and a person entering from a side street or the additional stop sign that was taken down requiring a welder (which we do not have on staff).

Safety Committee as reported by Mary Steele. After much Board discussion, the committee was given permission to install two new sleeves for the radar detectors on feeder streets versus just keeping them on ArrowCreek Parkway. The committee also highlighted the need to request parents to park on only one side of the street during school bus drop-off and pick-up and to remain 25 feet away from the intersection. These are actually state requirements and they need to be incorporated into the CC&Rs.

There was nothing of significance from the Architecture Design Review Committee (ADRC) as most issues involve landscaping modifications, including new swimming pools, and new homes being completed. The Administrative Committee had a similar report as they are focused on generating some employee evaluation forms to retain our best personnel. That was followed by the Communications Committee presentation, which fell upon Susan Duncan. The major thrust here is the generation of a new ACHOA web site, its content and ease of use. The Board was presented with the details that the committee had worked through for the Boards review and comments.

Governing Documents and the liaison to the owner of the Non-residential area was covered by Joyce Seelen. Governing Documents is working through the language of the revised CC&Rs with the view of deleting any reference to the Declarant, who no longer exists either as an individual or corporation. It’s slow going as every word matters and with the document needing to cover the entire subdivision, both the ACHOA and the Non-residential area, it’s very challenging work. She indicated that the committee could use at least one additional person to work through these critical documents. She then launched into a discussion of the Liaison tasks. The major issues here revolve around the Non-reside3ntial owner wanting to codify current interfaces between the two corporations. After hearing and seeing, Joyce had visuals, the specific areas of concern, the Board created a new subcommittee, Joyce, Alan Liebman and Bob Kirtley, to work with the owner to get and agreement documented.

Fuels Management was then presented by Mike Moll. Mike took issue with Mr. Duncan’s comments at the beginning of the meeting and stated that a fire map would not be updated based on the ACHOA consultants judgment (the minutes from the County Fire commission definitely say there will be an update). Mike further stated that he was unaware of any request to the county for a map update and was puzzled by the reference from the fire chief. Mike then went on to propose the ACHOA move up its five year plan for fuels mitigation as a grant might be available to supplement the work. After a lengthy discussion, the Board made the decision to proceed with the one year plan and not a five year commitment. It was not a unanimous decision but it was the Boards decision.

Committee charters and presentation of Trademark guidelines were tabled until the June meeting at the behest of the majority of the Board. Two new committees, Social and Landscaping, were approved with new charters and members were appointed to the Social Committee.

Lastly, the Board, again after serious discussion, decided to stay with the Community Covenant Inspections as ‘Optional’ versus ‘Mandatory.’ There were some final comments by Susan Duncan regarding the Fuels Management issues, Ron Duncan concerning an observation about homeowner comments being integrated into the meeting, similar to the County approach, versus having them at the beginning and Ending, and Kate Whittley who brought up a presentation to the Board in June concerning Pickle Ball courts. The Board indicated they were interested in hearing the presentation but that it might involve needing to establish additional courts.

So, the most open ACHOA meeting in a long time came to a close.
Ron Duncan