5/25/10
In attendance:
Joe Redzensky
Anita & Joe Herring
Mike Scruggs
Beth & Greg Whitesell
Don & Rita Dunbar
Bob & Kathy Mongold
Ray (kind of)
Joe Zambrana
Don- Accept minutes: Minutes into Record.
Carrie not here for Tres Report. i will bring up something in a few minutes regarding that.
Last thing we will do is bys and covs.
yard Sale had 5 particpate:
Ken & Carolyn
Don and Rita
Beth and Greg Whitesell
Joe Redzensky
Joe Zambrana
70-90 dollars for advertising, Don will get final figure so we can reimburse Mary.
Yard sale went well – signs looked good
Don said: Nice thing besides money is we cleaned out some junk out of the house
everybody got out and talked to everyone! nice social event for the neighborhood
Good gathering – almost like having a block party
Most people said something about seeing the signs – Greg said one person heard about it through the adds in the Newspaper.
Don said he would like to do another yard sale in a month if anyone is interested.
Last year on 6/23/2009 was first meeting – this June 23 will be anniversary – need to elect new officers
We could continue with the same officers if not opposition or if nobody else wants to run Nominating committee – have a couple of people that are not normally on the committee
can be 2 people – 2 or 3
Committee can nominate anybody they want
Volunteer for nominating committee: (Mike Scruggs and one other)
Need to talk to current officer and anybody who wants to be an officer who is not can talk to the committee
Nominating committee will report next month – nominees from the floor next month.
Biggest things:
Pier: pier committee has acquired an attorney (Greg, Joe, Don) talked to someone a week ago – attorney is in Annapolis and highly recommended by guy who owns Rhode River Marina
concern about making a commitment without having a vote – feeling from other people is only way we would get anywhere is with an attorney
Charles Schaller and Benjamin Wechsler
Talked to them for a little over an hour – charges by the hour in 10 minute increments
Charles knew his stuff – had some concerns
Go to courthouse to get photos from 1971 on and try to get copies of deeds to find out why it was put on that there would be no boats put on the pier – county took pier and did not want liability – until Charlie finds out why that is on there – he will do best for us – but wants that to be found out before he can do anything. He will get us through zoning – we still need to go through permits/special
14, 669 square feet – less than half of the 30,000 needed for community pier.
Joe and Greg went to talk to the office of zoning at the county – her opinion was that it had the note because we did not have the 30K square feet that is needed
Strictly fishing because not enough land to support boats
Earl Young had same problem? Him giving everyone slips was bogus.
Greg: From trip to courthouse and zoning they did not find anything that will help us at all yet.
Has appointment on Tuesday to look at the aerial photographs that will hopefully show that the pier had piling slips as far back as 70s – did not find anything in covenants that is on file with the county
Did not find anything that would hurt us – except the county workers!
Few different vintage pilings out on the pier
Greg is hoping the slip pilings will predate the development of community and subdivision
Without attorney we will not get anything, but still not guarenteed to get anything
Charlie will go to county and zoning and knew all of the names of people to go to, will have meeting with them and see what they can do. Note – no boat slips on plaque
Court order in 1985 he was concerned about – unknowns is what he is afraid of – Greg and Joe said that they looked into that and it does not mean anything
Will be talking to the Rhode River Keeper to see if he would have any objections – an election year therefore you need to use political county – nobody will sponsor a project if anybody would say anything against.
Campaign for support can backfire – Mike S. – what burden of adversement would this draw if any
Will the river keeper have a way to find out we are doing this if nobody tells him – he probably has access to this information – we should definitely be proactive and contact him before he finds out and possibly has an objection
Need to tell him we want to improve pier and make bigger
Lawyers say talk to everyone and he wants us to get a letter from landowner behind Ray – we will never find her!
Lawyers said if we want to do this and someone is upset about it, we are in trouble.
Story about Darnestown – gun club – mcmansions not liking the noise – club won because it had been since 1936 – they just moved here. Used to use lead shot – river keeper went to EPA – 10 million to clean stream and closed down.
Joe will become friends with the river keeper. He will have him over for dinner.
Carrie has not mailed a check. Attorney wanted 2K up front – check has not been mailed. Problem with mailing check when nobody voted to approve it – has collected 3K already to go into the fund (Greg, Don, Mike)
Vote for attorney
Motion on floor to retain services LLP
Don got a letter the other day – looking for a check and contract – said at anytime we can drop him – pay original 2K – will probably take 3 months to get settled – 2K a month
Greg and Joe have been doing legwork – attorneys could do it but will cost a lot more money
Copies of their commitment letter
Don said about 5 to 10K total 5K if things go well – possibility not getting any slips – could end up exactly where we are right now.
Can bill us in 30 day increments Know what they are going to do before we sign off – we will be charged for everything – phone calls, investigation, email, etc.
Joe said pilings have been here since 1996 – nobody in our community put the pilings up
Put new pilings exactly where they are right now – no problem with doing that – we can make improvements without a permit but cannot change – cannot widen it or put in more slips
If county says they are illegal pilings – they can make us take out what is there right now.
Most support attorney – but can go on and on and still have nothing and spend a bunch of moula.
Right now there are 3 slips – has had as many as 4 boats there plus the Crabbin’ Cruiser
Todd – owner of Fisherman’s Dock – said if we wanted to repair the dock and did not do it all at once we can do repair in sections without permit
Cannot do full repair without a permit – anything over 100 need a permit. Don’t need a variance.
Will not stop us completely – just how far we can go.
Guy from zoning told Don we can’t have slip for every house – 11 slips – ask for the most to get any
AERIAL photographs are the first step before anything
Rhode River keeper is paid – looks for violations – want to make a do of it because that is what they get paid for (Don)
Don said pilings on square at end are at least 50 years old.
Rita – everyone is worried about throwing money out the window and getting ntohing back
Need a meeting and vote before we can do anything – tell attorney, and wait until we get aerial photos before we can do anything – will look at photos on Tuesday
Meeting on Thursday June 4th @ home of to put motion on for all in favor of money towards attorney
Do not want to drag on for two more months – know if there is a commitment
Don has copies of commitment letter – distributed and Greg will post on website
Option of this is the most we can spend a month since he is asking for 2K/month
DON: If we do not do anything, we will not get anything!
Money cutoff? Will not get anything more than 5K – we have some expectations about what we would like to get out of the 5K – hold attorney accountable for some milestone
Variants will not give us any slips
Original proposal was probably more than we would get – several options on calculating how many slips up to 15 homes – one slip for each
Look at the frontage that the community has – every 50 feet of frontage – one slip 87 footage only get 1 slip
Only parcel of the pier or looking at the entire community – he said there are piers there already – no laws against this though
Frontage is 300 feet – will get 6 slips
Variance on the 30K square feet
Are we willing to spend money to get a few slips, or just stay where we are today? Want to have an answer!
Everyone wants to know if we are just throwing money out of the door.
Will have motion to write a check after aerial photographs
Mike said he can dial in – or we can call him
Check was never cut – has nothing of ours yet
Carrie suggested if we do proceed with pier fund we should open another account for that
Sign – letters had bolts
Bylaws:
10 pages of bylaws sent by John Latuperissa – he could not attend meeting tonight – he drafted by looking online and to rewriting it to fit our community. At least 90% is generic and just “Rhode Harbor” was inserted.
Part of the bylaws of any community
Don’t try to do whole thing tonight – too much (Don)
Attorney said it should be gone through
The community went through bylaws line by line to make sure they were okay with everything
First page and a half is rights of HOA’s – Rita noted it is same rights for HO’s and condo’s – it says condo in one line instead of home
Went through first few pages:
No problems with first page except inserting condo owners with home owners
No problems with page 2
No problems with page 3
Rest will be reviewed by everyone at home and deadline will be made for comments to be considered
Comment period on this draft – comment meeting on June 10th and have official June meeting and have final draft, elect officers, and dues on Tuesday June 22 @
Not everyone has reviewed yet even though they were supposed to
Boat slips for residents of Rhode Harbor.
Money has gone through safe deposit box, stamps, signs – probably have not even spent 400 dollars this year (Don)
Greg read when land is transferred from county back to HOA Earl was being held responsible for any failure of the sewer tanks – he would be held personally responsible – not sure if this is correct
Mike said every year the county comes and fixes everything – county pumps everything out – septic systems are all managed by the county. Mike said every year they have a sink hole.
Mike asked if website has password – or if anyone can read – Greg said it has no search engines but Mike said it could still be pretty easy to find – things like that would not be a part of the bylaws – but Greg and Mike can work on it to make it password secure
Members of community admitted that they do not always read emails
Next HOA meeting will be on Tuesday June 22 – know more about pier and bylaws by then @ Beth & Greg’s home @ 7 PM.
Either go forward or live with what we have got!
In Oakwood, VA cannot cut down a tree to protect the Chesapeake Bay
Meeting adjourned @ 8:23 PM
Minutes recorder by Beth Whitesell.
(Note: These meeting minutes are an attempt to record as much as possible that took place during the meeting, but not nearly everything said was recorded. As they are not transcribed from a tape, nor are they all inclusive, they are not meant to be direct quotes from anyone or to be used as legal documentation. Rather this is an attempt to provide a degree of transparency of the proceedings and to serve as a casual record for both those in attendance and for those who were unable to attend. There is quite a bit that was said that could not be recorded, therefore, consider the minutes as a bit of short hand with some exclusions.