Wednesday, December 13th, 2018

The December meeting was held at the Firehouse. In attendance were Trustees Harvey Paparo, Tim Vogel, Peter Voorhees, and Jeff Edelson. Trustee John Ott was unable to attend. Owners present were Dan Harris, Bari Stahl, Tim Lindholm and Rene Tornare. Also present was Manager Keith Edquist and bookkeeper Kim Clinco of Rocky Mountain Accounting Services.

Meeting topics

Public comments re: Lindholm construction, review of financials with new bookkeeper, water metering discussion, updates on Pitco assumption of roadways, covenant changes status.

Approval of Minutes

the Board approved the minutes of the November 8th meeting without changes. These will be posted to the website.

Public Comment

Bari Stahl attended to call attention to continuing construction at the Lindholm residence on Alexander Avenue and to ask the Board to enforce completion per the covenants of the work there and the construction time frame. Tim Lindholm attended on his own behalf. Emails establishing communications between the two owners had been forwarded to the Trustees prior to the meeting. Stahl maintains continuing work impacts possible sale of his property; Lindholm states work this winter will be indoors and that a porta-potty on site will be leaving shortly. He says also there is more exterior work to be completed in the coming spring on his driveway which fronts the Alexander cul de sac, and on and exterior deck areas. Net result of the discussion was direction to management to forward to the Board relevant information regarding the construction at Lindholm’s and ACA review of and communications regarding same. Mr. Stahl left the meeting after this discussion, Mr. Lindholm stayed for the remainder of the Trustee’s meeting.

Rene Tornare came to distribute some Christmas gifts of baked goods to the Board and management, and to thank all for their work for the association. Mr. Tornare remained for the meeting through the discussion regarding water meters, and participated in same.

Financials

Kim Clinco of Rocky Mountain Accounting Services attended and provided financial reports through November and an aging statement dated 12/12/17. In addition to the balance sheet and profit and loss statement, also included was an accounting of expenses by vendor from July through November and a second format for the P and L statement.

Kim answered and advanced a number of questions in regard to the format of financial information the Board would like provided. She said she would be able to provide monthly financial information the Fridays before the monthly meetings, and this was agreeable. Also discussed were the budget process and whether or not an audit might be advisable in the near future. Manager Edquist read the content of an email regarding audits from owner and CPA Michael Vernon. End result will be for the Board to hold a budget work session in February and invite Mr. Vernon to attend regarding accounting practices and financial reports.

Updates

Trustee Edelson prepared and sent out to the Board and management three documents for review of the covenant changes proposed, and asking the Board for comments and if these were ready to send to owners. One was a ‘companion document’ which is a pdf of the changes proposed showing edits, another a pdf ‘clean’ document with changes incorporated, and the third an introductory pdf to be sent to owners indicating the types of changes proposed and how to have input into the process. Prior to this Trustee Edelson had sent out an edited Word document with changes tracked. Manager Edquist had reviewed the ‘clean’ pdf and made comments regarding it on the largely identical Word document. If the Trustees had reviewed these documents prior to this meeting was not discussed.

As Trustee Edelson was unable to attend the meeting, President Vogel asked Mr. Edquist if the changes and the document were ready to send out to the owners. Edquist said he had made comments on the Word document and had reservations in regard to including the specifics of the ACA process in the covenants. End result of this update was to ask management to forward to the Board and Covenant committee the Word document with his comments. No further decisions regarding the timeline or next steps were discussed, though the email from Edelson proposed a retrieval of comments from owners by the end of January.

President Vogel reported on progress with Pitkin County in regard to acceptance of the roadways. He said he had not been able to find the time to advance this process since the November meeting.

Water Metering

Owner Dan Harris attended to update the Board on the water system leak status and to discuss water metering in LEC. He said water use was down to about 25,000 gallons per day now, after replacement of an auto-fill boiler in a neighborhood home. It may be that the auto fill feature was feeding potable water to the system, and leaking under the house foundation and thus not discoverable. Regardless, last year at this time the association was using more like 12-14,000 gallons per day, so Dan believes there are still leaks; perhaps only one, but more likely two or three smaller leaks-which of course are harder to detect. He said he would be meeting with Environmental Process Control’s Alan Leslie with equipment that might be able to locate these leaks. He said also owner Tom Gering had used another method of leak detection and had identified two or three potential homes with leaks. Both these methods will be followed through on in the near future.

There followed a general discussion of the eventual need to monitor water use in LEC, both for consumption and leak detection purposes. Internet connected meters are available but their typical location on water lines entering a home will not indicate leaks between that meter and the main line along the water line from curbstops to home.  There was question as to whether such meters would have to be read from each home, or if they could be read by cell phone. Trustee Voorhees had some experience with such metering in the Starwood subdivision, and offered to get the name of their water operator so that information might be exchanged regarding that type of installation. Dan said the new system in the pump house is pretty remarkable in the type and amounts of data it can provide.

It is not known if the State might eventually require private water systems to meter usage, but it is surely a possibility, and would not do to come as an unanticipated expense. Pit meters at the curbstop locations are seen as too expensive, so internet connected meters on individual water lines seem, at this time, to be the most viable option despite their drawbacks. Mr. Harris believes it possible for LEC to use more water than is allowed by its decree, and this could eventually bring about a metering mandate. It is believed LEC will eventually have to institute metering of some nature, but attention has been focused on this matter due to this fall’s serious leaks and the now month’s long difficulty of finding them.

In a related matter, the Trustees gave an ok to the purchase of a spare transducer for monitoring the water tank levels at an anticipated cost of $600-$900.00. This will allow replacement of a faulty transducer without significant downtime on the system. Dan also discussed future needs for some additional water valves on the main lines, to facilitate isolation and leak testing. These modifications are for the future.

New Business

Manager Edquist said he would not be able to attend the February Board meeting. Earlier discussion regarding the budget process and financials included Kim Clinco’s ability to attend Board meetings as needed, and she will be useful in formulating the new budget and any clarifying line items the Board may wish to add or rename at the February meeting.

Unfinished Business

One or another of the Trustees (Paparo/Voorhees/Edelson) will need to get to the bank with John Ott or Tim Vogel in order to become signers on the accounts.  Two signatures are required on checks, and these could not be completed tonight with John Ott’s absence. Clinco of RMAS took these and will get with John Ott for his signature and subsequent mailing.

Next meeting

The next meeting date is January 10th, 2018-7 pm at the Firehouse.

There being no further business to come before the Board, the meeting was adjourned at 9:20 pm.