Meeting Minutes – #3 8/4/2009 7pm
(NOTE: Documents provided at this meeting are posted on the “Important Info” section of the website:http://home.comcast.net/~rhodeharbor/info.htm
They include the current draft of the Covenants and Bylaws, and drawings by Don of the Existing Pier and the current Proposed Pier.)
In attendance:
Don Dunbar
Rita Dunbar
Johnny Messineo
Joe Zambrana
Carrie Zambrana
Greg Whitesell
Bob Mongold
Kathy Mongold
Ray Pearl
Joann Fyanes Fyanes
Joe Redzensky
VP Reports-John L not present
Tres Report,–CZ- We collected $200 from a non participating house….$2,501.10 is new balance, an increase by $200.
Sec Report– GW- Mary D. wanted to ask if there is any interest in 1) having a community yard sale and 2) whether we could possibly get a temporary community dumpster for those who may have bulk items that they want to get rid of.
DD- I think that they will be having the dumpster down by the marina in the next couple of weeks or so…..will let you know when it is down there.
Pres-
DD—-2 biggest things tonight will be committee reports….bylaws and pier committees.
Bylaws—
Rita D- This is a Rough Rough Rough Draft
DD-Bylaws and Covs committee..they are 2 sep things…..covs – rules homeowners live by BY Laws= organization by which exec board runs by. So they will be 2 separate sections when we get done
RD- Reads covenants—covenants as proposed will be posted on the website and/or emails to everyone for review. (Rita, please send me a digital copy)
Discussions about covenants:
DD on #12, is 2/3 in ref to all in attendance of the meeting, or is it 2/3 of all home in community? (discussed and agreed that 2/3 should mean of the households in community, not 2/3 of those attending the meeting)
KMongold- Was there something about the sign area?
DD- Who wants to be on the committee?
Kathy, Johnny M., Joe Redzensky will be on committee
DD- I understand that no one wants to be over regulated.
Carrie Z- The county doesn’t approve your bylaws. The Covenants are submitted to the county though. I’m not sure that they approve or deny anything. I think that they are just put into official record in the county. The reason is bc of shift in homeownership so that they are on record with the county.
DD- one of the things was about cleaning up after yourself down near the pier area. We discussed a garbage can and decided not to have it because it may end up being really nasty. (It was discussed and decided that all should take their own garbage away from community area—nothing to be left down there, no trash cans)
Ray- once things get up and running. Would anyone be opposed to having a streetlight on the pier.
Joanne & Others- We could go solar. Motion sensor maybe. With a timer maybe.
DD- Is there any more discussions on the bylaws. If so, please contact Rita, Kathy or Jackie and bring up any concerns. Actually, Jackie is the chair of the By laws and Covenants committee. They will be up for change each year around June with the election of officers etc. That should be included in the bys and covs.
Okay, on to the pier committee.
DD- About the pier…. 3 weeks ago, me Joe, Johnny Greg, Ray, and DD…we had Shawn down who looked at the pier as well as worked on Jan’s and Jo’s pier, an he talked to us about the pier. He was pretty good and said $20 per foot per pile which comes to about $400-$450 per piling, and he suggested that we talk to Shoreline Designs about design of the pier. He was willing to do whatever we wanted. To drive the pilings and walk away.
Last week, Todd at Chesapeake Pile Driving came down who John L recommended, and he came down and I was very impressed with him with much info in 20 minutes. He said $150 per foot of total pier built. The pilings would be $400-500 a piece. He said 12 feet slips center to center, finger piers he said pull used pilings and use them for finger piers, he said reverse the way our pilings are driven because that is the way they are supposed to be in, but they don’t come back up. They take 20 minute longer but it is right. He recommended to , no matter who does it, don’t get them to just do the pilings. Anyone can come drive 25 pilings, but they won’t be straight. If you hire the company to do both pilings and stringers…they will make sure they are straight and done right. If you tell them that they don’t have to put the stringers in, they aren’t going to do a good job. Also, when you put the decking on, put it on as tight as you can, because the wood will shrink a lot. You cannot get them tight enough, you will always have a good sized gap. He did say to go ahead and get a design approved before trying to get quotes. That is best. Todd says, you being an association, I don’t know why you won’t be able to get what you want. I have a few drawing.
Here’s the lift slip…..Just don’t draw it as a lift slip. Draw it as a decked area and not a slip, and say that the pier is as large as your pilings are wide. He said that you can use longer stringers, stronger rather than having to drive more pilings. This drawing is how the pier is now. Another thing….here are the old pilings. Keep them in the drawing and include those old pilings. Move them over 4-5 feet if you want. But make it a record with the county that they are there. I have a couple of these drawing if anyone wants these.
Now comes the fun part. My initial thoughts….only my idea was using the 83 foot 3 inches, The old piling is there at 27 feet, I came in 2 feet so that we can have a 10.5 foot wide slip. So we came down to 6 feet wide on the deck leading to the T, which is code. Another thing is that it looks like our pier comes out at a slight angle. If we can add another 10 feet or so, we can get 5 slips out across the end and we may be able to get another slip in. Right now the back side of the pier we have 43 feet. Here again if we can get an extra 8-10 feet, we can get another slip in there.
(There’s a lot of numbers and info I couldn’t get here. Don’s talking too fast. But he has shown a proposed drawing of the pier that he drew up) Bottom line is that it is what the county would let you get away with.
Ray—but we are going out further, right?
Don- NO this is where we are at now. We are going to have a real hard time going out any further and even thinking about getting any more size to it. If it is not 3 feet of depth, at medium tide, you can’t even put a slip there.
Joe z- I think the county will let us have whatever we want so long as we are within that 50 feet area.
Ray – What about Greg’s lift?
DD- Unless Greg’s is on an end slip with the motors facing outward, Greg’s lift slip will take up space because the motors are going to be on the opposite side of the piling into someone’s slip. We can also add a couple of pilings and then have another slip.
GW- I think that some other people may be interested in having lifts too.
DD – by the way, we had a meeting the other day and named a pier committee chair, and it is Joe Zambrana. We need to come up with a sign and get it made. We need to come up with the wording tonight. A white alumunium sign 18-24….or YELLOW then. No Trespassing, Rhode Harbor Residents only. Private Property, No Trespassing, Rhode Harbor Home Owners Association Members Only. Only thing is that we need to pay by the word. We need to put a 4×4 post at the end of the driveway. Who wants to design the sign?
Ray-Will it say something like Cars Will be towed? Cars? Boats?
DD-Another thing I want to bring up. We are going to need some operating money. We are going to buy a sign and get that soon. We need money for the sign, and for the 4×4. Anyhow…back to the dollar thing. I say we make a pier assessment to start the pier fund. Possibly $100 per house….people who want a dock. Another…..we take money out of the general fund….but we have to pay HA back. We don’t need 10,000, only a couple of hundred.
Ray- Should the sign have a threat?
(Rita wrote down words and Ray will be working on getting a sign made up from his friend who is in the business)
DD- How many people are going to come down here anyway? We are paying by the letter, so I don’t think we need a threat anyway. We can always add or amend later.
Another thing with the pier and money. The pilings that are out there now with the pier that are not going to move, need caps. Plastic Caps…ect
Bob M….I have galvanized that I can kick in for capping the pilings.
Rita D- We should use the existing fund to fund things so that we don’t need to start worrying about who paid what and paying people back. For incidentals.
Joe Z- Second the motion.
Vote- All I’s , all opposed, none opposed. (voted to use Gen Fund for now and pay back HA)
DD- Okay, sounds like we have some access to some money.
JOE- Asking q’s about how many plilings, how much decking etc.
DD- My estimation is that we need about 25 pilings. We need to replace the decking and the stringers because they are not up to code. We may as well replace the stringers when we replace the decking. We need to do it all at one time. We are going to deck over the cement place and make it a ramp. We have two pilings down there that make it secure.
We need to have someone call the county and have them dump a new load of gravel down there on the road. Who volunteers to call the county.
Bob Mongold—I volunteer. I like talking to the county. Every time they come I say, hey you wanna beer, a soda….you get a lot more work out of them that way.
DD- Does anyone else have any other Ideas or questions about the pier. Until we get a platt of the waterfront., I don’t think there is much more that we can do. The county may say that we have a lot more room than we think down there.
if we asked for moorings, they’d be more likely to give us the slips that we want. Any more questions on the pier. We went through piling caps, how we are going to fund……the sign. We really can’t do much more until we get a platt of the water line.
DD-Financing?……there’s a problem with financing, I think it has to be up to the individual. If you have to try to get a loan, then you are going to have something that they can repossess as collateral. No bank is going to want to write a loan on a pier because they can’t repossess a slip if it is not paid because there is no value to the bank to repossess a community pier. Someone will have to sign for the loan and no one will want to do that.
Carrie Z- As an assocation it will be really difficult to get the loan from a bank as being a new organization.
Ray- What would it cost per month if we took a 25k loan?
Joe Z- I think it should be financed. It is a community pier. Not everybody is going to be able to pay all at once. The community still owns it. Or are we welling the slips?
DD – no we are not selling slips. First we have to find out how many slips we need. Well, Maybe neighbors can sell slips to each other. But it can’t go outside of the HA members.
(Discussion about the dynamics of funding, whether people can afford it all at once, or make payments. Selling slips. It people decide they cannot keep slips or want out or want in after the fact. Too much talking too fast—sorry. But the gist was that there is still an issue about how to pay for the big prohect. Don proposes that dividing the cost of the pier between all interested in slips should be a one time cost (maybe 3-5k per family, and then only having a $100 annual pier fee…but we really need a solid estimate on the pier first and find out how many people will want slips and participate. Others are concerned that we should still explore making payments and getting a loan and they worry about annual shift in demand for slips and transferring slips and the costs on to others)
DD- Here is a drawing that shows how close we are. We can’t have too many details on the drawing. And about Clout—
DD- Carrs Wharf Civic Association. How many people got one of these letters. They may have more clout than we have. We may all want to be members of this. It may help us with our projects. They have their meeting at the Kiwanis Building. It doesn’t hurt to have as many friends in the area as you can.
DD- Anything else at the time?
CZ- on the agenda……insurance?
DD- Jackie said it would be $300 per year She has the insurance guy come down and look at the pier and everything…..they said they don’t want any boats down there now. They also want a sign up right now. But I wouldn’t push to get the boats off the pier now. But we definitely need the sign…. No trespassing sign. But talk to Jackie.
CZ- how much coverage?
DD- A Million dollars plus officers so they won’t get sued.
CZ- And they said they’d insure it the way it is now.
DD- They said yes—but you need to fix it up before the boats can come in.
Todd said something about permits……he said most of that stuff you can get downloaded online. So we need to do that. Whichever is easier.
DD—Meeting for next month? Where do we stand for covs and bys and with the filing for the county?
CZ- We have filed. It is now official and name Rhode Harbor Homeowners Associtaion INC…..since we incorporated. So we can now ask to get the pier back into our possession .
CZ- We need to find out who we need to talk to in the county. The only thing I don’t know is whether or not they are going to want to see our bylaws?
JZ- They said all that they need is that registered number.
DD- how much did that cost?
CZ- It cost $262,
DD- That should have been in Tres Report
CZ- the $262 I actually paid out of my own pocket because I had my checkbook and we don’t have a checking account for the HA yet…..and it has not yet been deducted from the HA account yet.
DD- We should add a limit on what the treasurer can spend without an second authorizing signature, say 250, that treasurer can write check for without second signature….Pres or VP.
CZ- Right now we have a saving account with Chevy Chase Bank. We need to know—how many signers to put onto the checking account. We should have 3 signers on the account and 2 required on the check.
CZ- I suggest 500 limit.
DD- that sounds okay ($500 okay)
(further discussion suggested that we actually have 4 signers on the account in case too many people are out of town or something. So it was suggested that we have the President, Vice President, Treasurer and the Secretary be authorized signers on the account and that anything over $500 would require 2 signatures on the check)….
RD- Who would want to host next meeting?
Kathy Mongold—I’ll have the meeting
(Meeting Set for Tuesday, Sep 8 ay 7pm at bob and Kathy Mongold’s House.
Agenda is a continuation of what we did this meeting and will be until we get things done. )
Meeting Adjourned 8:47 pm