Virginia City Highlands Property Owners’ Association

Minutes – Documents Committee Meeting

November 16, 2006 – Fire Station Community Building

The purpose of this meeting was to gather information from property owners as to their preferences for proposed changes to the CC&R’s and the annual dues structure.  The meeting notice had been posted on the bulletin board at the mail boxes and on the web site message board.

Keith Judson called the meeting to order at 7:05 pm.  He gave a brief overview of the history of the association governing documents and of previous attempts to change them.  He noted that although the previous attempt at revisions to the CC&R’s had been approved by about 2/3 of those voting, the number of votes was not close to the 585 required votes necessary. 

There are two major issues with the CC&R’s that the committee would like to address.  The annual association dues of $50 have not changed since the subdivision was created in 1972 and does not afford enough money to properly maintain the roads and pay other expenses.  The second is that a simple majority of all lot owners must approve any change to the CC&R’s and there has never been enough votes in any election or ballot issue of the association to effect change.

An owner asked if it would be legal to count a non-response as a positive vote if the ballot clearly said it would be counted that way.  It was noted that the ballots would have to be sent by certified mail in order to ensure that the ballots had been received by all owners who did not respond.

It was suggested that the voting period would be long enough to allow for additional contact with owners who did not respond within a certain period of time.

A handout was distributed to those present outlining a number of options for handling the two issues mentioned above.  It is anticipated that a similar document would go out to all property owners with the dues notices as an advisory ballot for the committee.  Actual voting on changes to the CC&R’s will be in the spring.  Following are some of the comments and discussion points considered by the owners and committee:

• The ballot questions really need a good “sales pitch” explaining the need and rationale for proposed changes.
• The committee’s recommendation and rationale should be included with the options on the advisory ballot.
• It should be stressed that the association has not been able to provide services that the owners expect due to the low dues structure and lack of funds.
• It should be pointed out that if the dues structure does not change there will continue to be special assessments to pay for road work.  These can be levied by the board without approval of the general membership.  The owners need to take part in order to keep control of the costs of the association. 
• People would really like to know and be able to plan for the future costs of running the association and not continue to hit with special assessments.
• Another option would be to remove the dues amount from the CC&R’s completely and have the dues amount determined by a vote of the members annually, based on the proposed budget for the next fiscal year.
• Regular postings on the web site of the road work being done, including pictures, would let people know that their money is being used for the intended purposes.

The committee will take all these comments into consideration and prepare an advisory ballot to go to all owners with the dues notices.

There being no further business the meeting was adjourned at 8:40 pm.

Respectfully submitted,

Rita Lumos, member