Meeting Minutes #9 4/20/2010 at Don and Ritas house.
In Attendance:
Don and Rita
Joe and Carrie
Joe Redzensky
Johnny M
Anita and Jo H
Greg W
Bob M
Joann Fyanes
Joe Zambrana
Next Meeting:
Don : Minutes approved and seconded. Entered into record.
We’ll save the interesting topic for last, which is the pier. Everyone probably knows about it anyhow.
Covenants and Bylaws…onto John VP.
John L – I owe an apology to everyone, because I’ve been gone a lot. One of the things I promised was to start up a draft to get out on the table for a discussion of the bylaws and covenants. The things that the HOA would govern.
A lot of this stuff is in legal ease. I did a lot of research and found a Md and NC home owners association documents which were done by a couple of law firms and used them as models. What it all boils down to is basically the main rights of the homeowners in a HOA. You can Google “Md Homeowners Association”. The first point I found was the way the former Land Owner drafted up the old Bylaws and Covenantss was not legal, was not worth its weight. The proper thing to do is to Amend and Restate the declaration of the covenants, conditions and restrictions… Eases, Charges and Links.
The covenants are stipulated in articles, 1-11. What most are concerned about is what are the rules. If you read every single word in here, There’s not a single rule in here that binds any of the homeowners on their private lots. They are all restricted to the common areas. The sign, the road, the pier and community property. We will need an easement to get electric, water, or whatever to the pier that we may need in the future.
If you skip to page 9, rules of the HOA artical 10, common area restrictions, I wanted to be CRYSTAL CLEAR that these rules are stipulated ONLY for the COMMON AREAS. Again, if someone wants to change them to call for “how high your grass is” or whatever…but I didn’t put any of that in there.
Things such as nuisance, guests, smoking/non-smoking, signs, number of guests etc. Just in this meeting, if there are other areas that I have missed, through these amended and restated covenants. They are for governing only the common areas. NOTHING is in here for how people need to govern their own property.
Don – The nice thing is that you have a good start here. We can all take these home and look at these. And then we can make any changes and get the little nitty-gritty things.
John L – If you guys want to email me I can keep working on these.
I thought it was important that we followed a legal framework for these things rather than what the previous landowner did. I also wanted to let anyone know that I bought a monster snow blower that anyone can use next season. I also have a monster truck if anyone needs a tow or anything.
Don- Take these home, go over them. Let us know what you think. We’ll get back to them in Q&A month or so.
Don – Thank you John. A very good start. We had the hill-billy draft, now we have the Annapolis draft. It will make us look better.
Carrie – Treasurer Report – No changes from last month, no checks written, no expenses. Our balance is 2374.51 to date. We did file all the tax forms, State and Fed and Maryland personal property, personal property return. And we did not owe any taxes.
Don – Okay, lets Discuss the yard sale a bit
.
Rita – Mary sent Greg an email and said that she would handle the publicity. She’d just like to be reimbursed expenses.
Joann Fyanes- Let’s do it when the church does theirs. If they are going to have another one, lets do that. I can call to find out when.
Don – There’s a dumpster in front of the marina this friday and Saturday you can throw stuff in there. They don’t take hazardous materials. No tree trunks, no tires, no air conditioners, etc. It’ll be there the 23rd and 24th of April.
Rita – I think that if the church is not having another we have to do our own. How many people want to participate?
Don – We could and should put some signs up. The cost of the Advertising should be divided by the homes that participate. It won’t be much money. But not from the HOA funds.
Joanne – Lets push for the 22 of May in conjunction with Selby Bay’s community yard sale. It will bring more people out.
John L – Do you guys know of anyone who needs children toys between the ages of 1-5. My girl friend has a mountain from the floor to the ceiling,.
Don- We’re going to shoot for the 22 then….that gives us plenty of time. Without getting into the pier stuff yet. Is there anything else we need to talk about. Anymore Q’s?
Joann – We’ve got a fox in the neighborhood.
John L- Yeah they live under my deck.
Don- If there are no more issues……onto the pier. We have good news and bad news….unfortunately most of it is bad. We went up to the county to their Zoning guy and Ms. Jenkins…the permit lady…”we walked in and they said we downloaded some stuff”….and they bring out the platt for the pier….and handwriiten on the right….it said that the pier is “only a swimming, fishing and crabbing only…no boats of any kind.” We talked about it…and they said that we could try to get that off of there….but, then they said “we will recommend that you shouldn’t have it.” So they’ll recommend to reject our proposal. The platt was dated 1981….I don’t know exactly.
Greg- Rays’ said…..that that makes sense because all the county owned piers stipulate that they are only for fishing, swimming and crabbing to limit the county’s liability. That was put on their when the pier was put into trust with the county.
Don – They claimed that there were no slips there……..but Greg found that on the deed of 1982….there is mention of boats and slips etc. ….used by the community,. and they claimed that from ariel photos…..they said there were no pilings down there. The deed is typed in two pages. And the stuff is on there. My thoughts are to call Ms Jenkins and ask….What can we do? I think one reason is why she didn’t say much, is because Zoning was there. Then they said that if we can put boats down there, we would be limited to only one slip. It sounds like they are not going to let us do it. How much are we going to get? My first thought is to go down there and ask “What can we do?”. We should be able to go down there and rebuild it exactly like it is. The only other thing that we can try to do, is to get a zoning lawyer….but that will probably cost us 5,000.
Bob- You know what you should do is check with that Bay Engineering company.
Don- We can go down there and talk with the head zoning guy. The note was put on there to limit the County’s liability.
Joe- Earl Young mentioned that maybe we could get more luck with slips if we asked for mooring buoys.
Don- How far do we want to go with the pier?
Greg – I wanted to vocalize…Mike Scrigg’s opinion that if we just go down to the County again, unprepared, that they may have limited patience for us. When we go down there we should be prepared. Maybe we should have already gotten a lawyer.
Anita – When you go to the county and ask them questions….then you are saying…..”What can we do to please you?” They like that.
Don- When we went up there…..they had an excuse to just say “no.” How much are we going to get. They tried to tell us that the slips weren’t event there.
Joe Z – If there’s not a permit fore the pilings, then they can make us pull them out.
John L – Bob said go to Bay Engineering. Those guys have a lot of experience and they know how to deal with problems like this. Also, when you have a first meeting with a lawyer, they usually don’t charge for the first meeting. So we may as well meet with someone.
Joe H – We have 2 things that we are dealing with. One is…. Is it feasible to get a variance to get what we want?
Don – They said we can get the Variance, until they pulled the plat. The other comment that they guys said was, Hell that’s 10 slips. then he said, not everyone said that everyone in the community gets a slip.
Don- Let’s go talk to a couple of General Contractors and talk to a couple of Lawyers.
Bob – You definitely want a Zoning Lawyer.
John – Yes definitely.
Don- A zoning lawyer is going to know who to do.
Bob – I’ll call Bay Engineering. Every time I go up to the county they are there. They are like a lobbyist. If you don’t have a lobbyist, you’re not going to get anywhere.
John – I’ll put my name on the list to get a lawyer. To Talk to a lawyer.
Joe R – What’s the good news?
Don – There is one good thing. Joe had an idea. We can put another sister pole along the power pole that’s there, then hedge it up. So we can shore up the pole without getting a permit or paying a lot to do the work.
Joann Fyanes- You know they’re coming to my house to disconnect my power because my mast got broken in the snow.
Carrie – Can’t we just call BGE and say that we want to move it.
Joe R – I’d say let’s wait until we get the pier taken care of.
Don- How much does a pole cost.
Bob – 16 grand.
Don – John’s going to call an attorney. Bob you want to give me a name and number at Bay Engineers.
Bob – Julie Albrecht. They do engineering and surveying ect.
Don – Next Month…….We can work on the bylaws. When and Where can we meet next?
Anita – Tuesday May 25 at Joe and Anita’s at 7pm.
Agenda same for the next meeting…continued.
Meeting adjourned 8:02 pm.
Meeting Minutes: recorded by Greg Whitesell-acting secretary
(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. Thanks, Greg.)