Candlelight Oaks Civic Club, Inc
Minutes of Board of Directors Meeting
February 14, 2019
2019 BOARD MEMBERS:
Sandy Ericksen President
Lori Bulla Vice-President & Pool Committee Chair
Charlie Bowman Acting Treasurer
Marilyn Harper Secretary & Acorn Editor
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, Lori Bulla, Marilyn Harper, Charlie Bowman, Cassie Ramsay, Michael Kuhnen, A.D. Koen. Absent: Darin Lee, Johanna Wolfe. Residents: Elva Medina, Celia Montalvo. Guest: SEAL Sgt Bonsey.
The meeting began at 7:35 with Sgt Bonsey’s SEAL report. The 2 residents at the meeting had come because one of their cars had been ransacked during the crime spree of pre-dawn Feb 12. Two juveniles, as seen on numerous surveillance cameras, had walked the neighborhoods in both CO and COV, trying car doors to find those not locked. It was appalling how many cars were not only unlocked, but contained items that their owners were later sorry to find had been stolen. If you can’t park your vehicle in a locked garage, it is essential to not leave valuables in it, and lock the doors.
The meeting continued with another complaint from one of the residents, namely of people parking in front of their mailbox. This is a common problem throughout Candlelight Oaks, due to so much street parking. Many people have found that the current carrier will not get out of the mail truck for a mailbox that is blocked. The resident believes her curb gets blocked by teenagers visiting her neighbors’ teens. She agreed to speak to the adult neighbors about the problem. Board members agreed that the Deed Restriction drive-throughs would not cite any home that tried a No Parking sign in front of their mailbox.
Treasury: Charlie gave the Treasurer’s report that our cash balance the night of the meeting was $215,830.55, with a deposit in transit of $360 from a dues payment. To date, about 65% of the homeowners have paid their 2019 dues in full. Some payment plans have been set up, and the remaining homes have not yet taken any action. Charlie said the current policy is to not let any past due account exceed $1,000, as beyond that point it is much harder to recover the unpaid balance. Sandy wants to post a reminder of the 2019 invoice on our social media, for anyone who may have just forgotten to pay it. Since Jan 31, a $5 penalty is added every month. To top off the financial report, Sandy applauded Charlie’s efforts to keep our records in good shape. Some payments to vendors were late or missed recently, but all is in order now.
Pool: Lori reported that the long-planned tile repair needs to be done before the next CoH pool inspection in May. There is also a pool pump needing repair, and a broken gate on the pump enclosure — due to the vandalism incident in December. It is expected that pool maintenance contractor Ray Cowart will be able to fix both. Lori said that the cost of pool chemicals has gone up quite a bit recently, so she may need to increase the cost to Our Savior Lutheran for their summer swim lesson program to use the COCC pool. She is going to research the past years’ history of charges to OSL and have that info for the March Board meeting, as a guide to a reasonable price increase for OSL. Sandy said the white brick wall on Tidwell needs a good cleaning, and Mike has a power washer, so we will probably try to schedule a work day this Spring. The homeowners on both sides of the Bolivia entrance will be asked if the workers can connect to their outside water to get the cleanup done.
Social: Cassie went over the list of social events she had been given last month. She requested a copy of the budget for each social event. Charlie gave her that information, which was originally worked up by Richard Solis, the previous Social Chair. The budget is a max amount to spend from the COCC account for each event. Cassie’s first event will be Easter, with her Egg Hunt to be held at the pool/playground on Saturday April 20. The eggs — plastic eggs with various goodies inside — will be brought by families who attend with their children, and then hidden by Board members. COCC will furnish beverages and sweet treats for both youths and grownups, and Cassie has a plan to have children create some crafts during the event.
Deed Restrictions: Mike set March 24 as the next Drive-through. He, Marilyn, and Cassie will go. Cassie was curious whether there was any way to use info from previous drives to assess improvement in real-time. Marilyn said that she has a spread sheet containing the condensed info from all her drives (found to be a total of 8, dating back to January 2018). But there simply isn’t enough time to refer to the chart during the drive. Cassie asked whether the DR letters — which currently contain photos of the problems — could be printed and used as reference during the drive. Marilyn said that would be even harder, considering there were 42 letters created for this January’s drive. It takes at least 2 hours to do the drive, and shuffling though charts and letters will not speed it up.
Charlie said he would like to ask new Board member Johanna Wolfe if she would like to do a Government Relations program to promote policies and methods that could benefit Candlelight Oaks. An example he gave was to find out if there is any way to get noise-abatement fencing along Tidwell, which would also address the long-sought advantage of more uniform fencing along the back yards on that corridor.
Sandy adjourned the meeting at 9:18.