Candlelight Oaks Civic Club, Inc
Minutes of Board of Directors Meeting
January 10, 2019
2019 BOARD MEMBERS:
Sandy Ericksen President
Lori Bulla Vice-President & Pool Committee Chair
Marilyn Harper Secretary & Acorn Editor
Charlie Bowman Acting Treasurer
A.D. Koen Security Committee Chair
Michael Kuhnen Deed Restrictions Chair
Darin Lee Landscaping Chair
Cassie Ramsay Social Committee Chair
Johanna Wolfe Long Range Planning
Present: Sandy Ericksen, Michael Kuhnen, Marilyn Harper, A.D. Koen, Darin Lee, Cassie Ramsay, Johanna Wolfe, Charlie Bowman, Lori Bulla. Guest: SEAL Sgt Bonsey.
Meeting started at 7:30 pm with Sgt Bonsey’s SEAL report. He was happy to say that he has not seen dog poop near the playground since the PICK UP THE POOP sign was printed and put up near the corner of the pool fence, just before the path out into the parking lot and the walkway to the playground.
There was a discussion of a vandalism at the pool that occurred on Friday, December 21 during the afternoon. When SEAL officer arrived to check the pool, playground, and park around 5 pm, items of furniture and pool safety gear had been thrown into the water. There was some damage to the pump house gate and lock. It was reported that a nearby resident had observed 3 teenage males inside the pool enclosure around 2:30-3pm. The SEAL officer helped Pool Chair Lori Bulla to retrieve the items from the pool, and pool custodian Ray Cowart was able to repair the damages that had been inflicted.
Lori also reported there had been a problem in one of the bathrooms at the pool, about a week earlier in December. The ceramic lid of a toilet had been dropped and broken. Ray fixed the toilet and repaired a water leak that resulted in a visible puddle of water that ran down toward the pool gate.
There was a discussion of Landscaping issues, and Chair Darin Lee reported that the City is expected to do a mow on the Tidwell esplanades in January. The new landscaping company is scheduled to do regular maintenance and prune the crepe myrtles at our Bolivia entrance on January 11. Darin said he had called 3-1-1 about the backyard tree of a home on Bayou Vista that collapsed onto Tidwell on Dec 27. The eastbound lanes of Tidwell were completely blocked for several hours, until some CO men went out with a chainsaw and cut the fallen tree into pieces they could move out of the traffic lanes. The tree had recently been severely trimmed away from the power lines by Centerpoint. 3-1-1 told Darin that the tree debris could be picked up off the Tidwell esplanade by our January Heavy Trash Tree Waste run.
Charlie reported that bookkeeping needs to be updated, once all the records have been retrieved from the former Treasurer Jill Prado who has resigned. He said there are only a few homeowners who are delinquent at the end of 2018, and it may be necessary to have some demand letters sent.
New board member Cassie Ramsay said she has some ideas about improvements for CO, including additional patrol time by SEAL, although she realizes that will mean paying more to get the increased service. Marilyn asked Cassie to write up her thoughts as an article for the February Acorn.
There was then a discussion of whether COCC needs to start planning for a campaign to increase the annual dues. Charlie said that because all the services we are paying for — security, landscaping, utilities, Proledge assistance with bookkeeping, etc. — will eventually cost us more, we need to be sure we will have the funds to provide these services. Charlie noted it has been a long time since the increase from $240 to $360. (See #1 below.) CO has not been hurting for the past several years because Sandy and Charlie have been very successful at getting most homeowners who were badly delinquent to get on a payment plan and get their accounts caught up. But now that most owners are current, there will not be much more boosting of that type. Marilyn said that the main downside of a dues increase is the huge amount of time and effort needed to get the organized signatures of approval from a majority of the homeowners in all 4 sections, and then get all 4 Deed Restrictions updated and registered with the County Clerk.
The board then undertook to organize the 2019 Officers and Committees. There were currently 2 unoccupied seats. Marilyn Harper was inducted into one of those vacancies to finish out the term through December 2019. Another 1-year vacancy remains and several board members mentioned neighbors that might be interested in stepping in. TBD.
The following Officers and Committee Chairs were approved by show of hands:
President – Sandy Erichsen; Vice President – Lori Bulla; Secretary – Marilyn Harper.
Treasurer – Charlie Bowman will serve as Acting Treasurer, while Sandy and Lori have agreed to assist with various tasks as needed, such as visit the mailbox, process checks and take to bank, write checks, interact with Proledge company, etc — while hoping that a new recruit can be found to assume the office of Treasurer. Charlie will continue as the Assistant Treasurer even if a new board member can be found to take this position.
Pool Committee – Lori Bulla; Landscaping – Darin Lee; Deed Restrictions – Michael Kuhnen; Security Committee – A.D. Koen; Cassie Ramsay – Social Committee; Johanna Wolfe – Long Range Planning.
A.D. Koen had brought in some large glossy photographs taken by Don Kiger at the COCC Party with Santa held in the well-decorated front yard of his home. Board members were asked to look through the collection for neighbors they recognized, so the pictures could be given to the families.
Sandy adjourned the meeting at 9:13pm.
Footnote #1. During the meeting, no one could remember when the last dues increase had occurred. Charlie looked it up and emailed the Board the next day. The campaign to increase from $240 to $360 succeeded in 2002, and took effect on Jan 1, 2003. Thus it has been 16 years since that increase.