SHHA ASSOCIATION

2008 ANNUAL MEETING MINUTES

Saturday, June 7 2008

Albuquerque - Church of the Good Shepherd

 

 

1.      CALL TO ORDER:  The 2008 Annual Meeting of the Sandia Heights Homeowners Association was called to order by President Sy Caudill at 10:07 a.m. at the Church of the Good Shepherd. A majority of the Board members was present.

 

2.  WELCOME:  The President welcomed everyone, stating that it was a 2-part meeting, with the annual business portion first, and then a town hall meeting following that.

 

3.      INTRODUCTION OF BOARD/COMMITTEE CHAIRS/OFFICE STAFF: The President introduced the board members in attendance and stated the committee each served on (Ed Tull, Ed Whitten, Marsha Thole, Kerney Bolton, Pete Heinstein, Burt O’Neil, Frances Desonier, Dick Cline and Jim Irving) Also serving: Andy Anderson, Alyson Clark, Don Keller, Phyllis Moore, Suzanne Lowell Popejoy, Mona Lee Schilling, Steve Walsh and Mike Winokur. (Absent/excused): Steve Walsh.     

Also noted were the chairs of Special Committees: George Connor and Bob Francis; and office staff, Sheraz Saint-Lôt and Betsy Rodriguez (present).

 

4.  APPOINTMENT OF THE MINUTES APPROVAL COMMITTEE: The President appointed the SHHA BOD to serve as a committee to approve the minutes of this annual meeting.

 

5.  QUORUM: The President announced that the quorum for this meeting was 40 members. There are over 40 SHHA members present. We have a quorum. The voting body of this annual meeting is hereby established.

 

6.  REPORT OF THE 2007 MINUTES REVIEW COMMITTEE: The minutes of the 2007 Annual Meeting which were reviewed by the Board of Directors at its July 2007 meeting and found to be correct. Those minutes are on file in the official record book in the office.

 

7.  REPORTS OF OFFICERS: These are the summary reports covering July 2007-June 2008. Complete reports are on file in the Official Record Book for SHHA 2007-2008.

 

  1. PRESIDENT (Sy Caudill):

The next order of business is the report of the officers. We can answer short questions about the reports after they are given. However, if your questions require more than a simple yes or no response, we ask that you bring it up during the Town Hall meeting. You must be recognized by the chair prior to commenting, please raise your hand to be recognized. We shall begin with my report. 

 

Article II Section 2 of the bylaws charges your Board with presenting reports to the membership. Board members and others appointed to special groups do this by reporting on and submitting meeting reports for the official record, which are available in the office. In addition, we keep the membership informed via the publication of the information in the GRIT, our association newsletter and on the website.

 

I would like to highlight our accomplishments from June of last year through last month, run down some of our future plans, and give you some concerns where we need to involve the members of the community.

 

As you have read in my GRIT articles we continue to have a lack of volunteers to support the work of the SHHA. I would ask each of you to consider volunteering to assist the association as either a board member or a volunteer on one of our committees. The committee chairs would be glad to discuss the work during our breaks. It takes all of us to keep this association running. Now let me move on to some specifics from the past year.

 

Area projects -

The ACC continues to work many projects within Sandia Heights. Kerney will cover these. We’ve had representatives at several County Planning meetings for major projects. If you have questions regarding these projects please bring these up during the Town Hall Meeting:

·         Maestas Property – at the corner of San Rafael and Tramway Blvd. The County Planning Commission approved 8 homes in this area. This effort is still pending.

·         T-Mobile cell tower at Futures for Children – disapproved/withdrawn with the county.

·         900 Tramway Lane – at the corner of Paseo del Norte and Tramway Blvd. We have a special committee headed by George Connor that has been and is still working with the county to get them to buy this area as open space. Currently the land is for sale and we continue to monitor any zoning requests.

·         We were again successful in working with our state Representatives Bill Rehm and Kathy McCoy to request and receive Capital Outlay money for road improvements in Sandia Heights. I’m sure many of you have seen some of the paving that occurred this year, this is a result of SHHA's efforts working with our representatives from last year’s state budget.  We expect more in the coming year.

·         We successfully led the effort to bring a new business to the lot next to our offices, this is owned by a SHHA homeowner and is currently under construction.

We have instituted a number of ways to enhance the value of membership in the association.  One of these is the very popular Tram Passes, which Kerney will cover later.

 

We have been very busy in both the ACC and the CSC working covenant issues and maintaining the character of Sandia Heights.  We consider this one of our prime duties and will continue to work to preserve the neighborhood.

 

b.   VICE PRESIDENT (Ed Tull):

Thank you, Mr. President.  Since last June, as Vice President, I have performed the duties of the President at his request during times of his absence. 

 

In the next year, I look forward to performing the duties of the Treasurer and serving as the Chairman of the Finance Committee. Thank you for your support.

 

c.   SECRETARY (Marsha Thole):         

Marsha Thole was elected secretary in April 2008 to replace Larry Desonier, whose term on the Board had expired. She has overseen the production of the April and May minutes, certified the presence of a quorum for the conduct of business, maintained committee reports, published notification of the annual meeting and proposed bylaw amendments to the membership, maintained the annual reports from officers and committee chairs, and prepared and filed the Association's report to the State. She maintains the Official Record Book, and serves as the Association's parliamentarian.  

           

d.   TREASURER (Ed Whitten):

Thank you, Mr. President. The independent annual review for 2007 was performed by Mr. Bob Francis, chairman, Mrs. Cheryl Iverson, and Mr. Andy Anderson. All three are very qualified individuals and I would like to thank them for their time and effort in doing this important task. The audit review was conducted in accordance with our Bylaws and in compliance with the State Statues. The report gave us a clean bill of health but did produce several procedural recommendations that are helping our every day operation.

I have included copies of the 2007 cash flow report, and the 2008 cash flow report through May 31st. The 2007 independent annual review will be included in the July issue of the GRIT.

Are there any questions?"

 

8.   STANDING COMMITTEE REPORTS

 

a.       ARCHITECTURAL CONTROL COMMITTEE (Kerney Bolton):

The residents of Sandia Heights have continued to remodel their homes and build new ones at a fast pace. The ACC acted on nearly 400 applications and managed between 150 & 250 projects during the past year. The ACC continues to focus its efforts on fair and evenhanded covenant enforcement and increased transparency in its decision-making processes.

 

In 2005, the Committee began publishing a Project Log on the SHHA website. In 2006, the Committee began publishing an Activity Log in the GRIT each month. As a result, we have found that homeowners are now more aware of what the ACC does and the basis for its decisions.

 

This year the committee revised its Design Guideline for Landscaping. The Committee is no longer approving the planting of trees which can be expected to exceed 26 feet at maturity or that are located in set-back areas. In order to reduce its application response times, the Committee is continuing to meet twice a month on the first and third Wednesdays.

 

Taken all together, the past year has offered many challenges and opportunities for the Architectural Control Committee and the Committee believes that it has grown more open and fair in the process. We hope that you agree.

 

b.   COVENANT SUPPORT COMMITTEE (Pete Heinstein):

The Covenant Support Committee addresses covenant complaints filed by the home owners and members of SHHA. The committee follows up these complaints by talking to the complainants and the alleged violators and we try to determine if there is a violation and how it can best be resolved. We do this by following the written covenants of the different units of SHHA.

We have received 48 complaints since the last annual meeting, 40 of these have been resolved or the complaints have been corrected, 3 had to be referred to the County Zoning Department or the County Sheriff for resolution since County ordinances were affected and one of these complaints have not yet been resolved. 1 case has been referred to the SHHA attorney and is still pending.

The work of this committee would not be possible without the dedication, commitment and hours of work by the committee members, Jim Irving, Don Keller, Steve Walsh and Bob Williams.

 

 

c.   FINANCE COMMITTEE (Ed Whitten):

The Finance Committee met monthly this year with several objectives to accomplish. Some of these objectives were intended to continue streamlining the internal procedures of the office operations and several were to reduce or minimize cost. The internal Finance Procedures were modified to improve office workload and eliminate potential errors in financial reporting. The committee prepared the 2008 line item budget for board approval with some refinement of previous budgets. The committee, along with board approval, renegotiated our office lease for another 5 years. Unfortunately, our rent went up significantly as commercial property costs have gone up. All our goals were accomplished and the association met its budget objectives for 2007. If you are interested in any of the financial reports or activity of the finance committee please contact the office.  

 

d.   COMMUNITY SERVICES & MEMBERSHIP COMMITTEE (Kerney Bolton – Acting Chair):

The Community Services and Membership Committee was inactive for several months prior to the start of the current year. The Committee was reestablished in August of 2007 with three new volunteer members. The Committee adopted a new set of Administrative Procedures, and Secured Approval of a Charter from the Board of Directors.

 

The Committee established policies as follows:

1.   To provide new community services for SHHA Members to enjoy and that will also encourage non-members to join the Association.

2.   To adopt measures to make voluntary work for the SHHA more attractive and rewarding.

 

The following services were introduced or continued during the year:

1.   The Coffeehouse Concert Series was made free of charge for SHHA members.

2.   Tram passes were made free of charge for SHHA members.

3.   Quarterly, Meet ‘N Greet - SHHA Office Open House events were started.

4.   The policy of no charge for ACC applications for SHHA members was continued and non-member fees were increased to more completely cover the cost of processing those applications.

These new services were well received by our members and used extensively.

 

The following steps were taken to improve the working climate for SHHA volunteers:

1.   A semi-annual Volunteer’s Luncheon was established.

2.   A process was put in place to recognize individuals who render outstanding services.

3.   An engraved wall plaque was procured and will be placed in the SHHA office to display the names of volunteers recognized for their service to the SHHA.

 

Total membership in the SHHA continued to increase this year. Eighty-eight new members signed up in the last twelve months.

 

The Association continues to need additional volunteers on the Board of Directors and on the various committees.

 

The Committee appreciates the support of the Board of Directives this year for its initiatives and will continue to expand its efforts to serve the Community and encourage voluntarism next year.

 

e.   COMMUNICATIONS & PUBLICATIONS COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN (Burt O’Neil)

This committee has three main areas of responsibility: publication of the GRIT, our newsletter, publication of the Resident Directory, and managing the website. The GRIT is now published on a monthly basis. The URL address is sandiahomeowners.org.

 

The Resident Directory has been updated and has a wealth of general information on utilities, emergency services, government services, and pertinent miscellaneous member information.

 

The SHHA website also contains a wealth of information specific to residents, such as the covenants for each SHHA unit and a detailed summary of the Architectural committee policy and procedures. The site is constantly updated to include current useful information, such as updates on special issues – an example is the cell phone tower issue. The website also posts resident security and safety alerts. This year one of our staff members successfully completed a course in web site building using the Microsoft frontpage editor. We currently have a photo gallery with photographs submitted for the directory cover.

 

We plan to post the GRIT on the website. This will allow us to include color photos/graphics, audio and video. We are in the process of including affiliated links to our GRIT advertisers (and charging the standard fee.) This usage will save on tremendously on postage, paper, and printing costs, since posting on the internet is free.

 

Finally, we are always looking for articles of general interest for SHHA residents also the committee is in need of people to help. If you have an interest in this area please contact the office.

 

f.    TRAFFIC & SAFETY COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN (Frances Desonier):

Combined two Committees into One - The Traffic & Safety Committee and the Parks & New Development Committees were combined into a single Parks & Safety Committee. A new charter was also written to reflect the combined responsibilities of the new committee.

 

Leadership Changes – During the past year leadership of the committee passed from Larry Desonier to Frances Desonier.

Coordination with County – The committee has worked with the county to arrange regularly scheduled trimming (about 2 feet) along roads in Sandia Heights, in addition to doing trimming on an as-needed basis. The county also agreed to a traffic study along San Rafael and Tramway Lane.

Fire Hydrant Trimming – The committee has been in contact with and is monitoring the county fire department’s trimming around fire hydrants. The county has also replaced the blue reflectors in the streets in front of the fire hydrants with brown reflector poles.

Capital Improvement Projects – The committee is monitoring the progress of a capitol improvement project that will allow for resurfacing of some streets in Sandia Heights.

Also in the Works – The committee is working on ideas to encourage the use of and to possibly provide or sell reflective gear to SHHA members who walk along our roads during early morning or late evening hours.

 

g.   BYLAW COMMITTEE (Jim Irving):

The Bylaws Committee is continuing it’s role to serve as the main resource in providing the Board with bylaws and related documents may need to be amended. The Bylaws Committee is writing a revision to the SHHA bylaws, a couple of which will be voted on today.

 

h.   900 TRAMWAY LANE GROUP

George Connor: My group of four, have met with the Count and with state senator and working with them since last fall. Progress is slow trying to get the county to buy that open partial land at Paseo and Tramway. Thank you all for your support.

 

9.  ELECTIONS   

a.   The Sandia Heights Homeowners Association elects the officers in April, and new board members are elected by the homeowners in June. Any positions on the board that become vacant during the year are filled by a vote of the board members at regular BOD meetings.

 

The report for the election of officers is filed with the minutes. This year the positions of president, vice-president, secretary, and treasurer needed to be filled. As I call your name, would the elected officers please stand and remain standing as I announce the election results.  Please hold your congratulations until all have been announced.

Sy Caudill elected president.

Andy Anderson elected vice-president

Marsha Thole elected secretary.

Ed Tull elected treasurer.

Sandia Heights Homeowners Association members – These are your officers for 2008-2009.

 

Dick Cline was chairman of the nominating committee. Thank you Dick for all of your efforts to recruit new BOD members.

 

  1. NOMINATING COMMITTEE CHAIR (Dick Cline):

I have the pleasure to announce the candidates for the vacant director positions. Their bios were published in the Grit for your information. It is not required but, as I introduce each of you feel free to take one minute to say a few words about yourself. After the introductions we will hold the election. As I call the candidate’s name, please stand:

(1) Nominees for a second term – Jim Irving

(2) Nominees for first term –

Phyllis Moore

Steve Walsh - absent

Phil Abshere

Bruce Childs

 

I would like to thank each of the candidates for volunteering for the board.

 

MOTION (Dick Cline): At this time, we do not have more candidates than we do vacant positions. Thus, I move that we accept, by acclamation, these candidates to fill the vacant positions currently existing on the board.

Seconded.

Motion passed – by show of hands.                                       2007-06-02-1 GEN-ANN. MTG

 

10.  NEW BUSINESS: None       

 

11.  GENERAL ORDER         

 

  1. Ratification vote on bylaw amendments

PRESIDENT: We are now ready to have the members vote on ratification of the bylaws amendments. In accordance with the present bylaws, the Board voted on and approved the amendments at its April meeting. The next step was to provide notice to the membership. That was done via the association newsletter and the SHHA website. 

 

The President entertained a motion to ratify the SHHA Bylaws, article sections 2.3, 3.6, 3.14, 4.1, 5.1, 5.9, 5.10, 5.11, and 5.12, which were approved by the Board at its April 2008 meeting, and published to the membership in May 2008.

MOTION: that the members ratify the SHHA Bylaws, article sections 2.3, 3.6, 3.14, 4.1, 5.1, 5.9, 5.10, 5.11, and 5.12, which were approved by the Board at its April 2008 meeting, and published to the membership in May 2008.

Motion Failed                                                                            2007-06-02-2 GEN-ANN. MTG

 
 

 

 

 

 


 

Point of order from the floor motion: to vote on amendments individually.

Motion passed                                                                             2007-06-02-3 GEN-ANN. MTG

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

The President stated that we would take each amendment individually and informed those in attendance to please raise their hand so that he could recognize them if they would like to speak.

 

PRESIDENT: Is there a motion for section 2.3?

Motion to adopt the amendment for section 2.3

Vote by rising. Motion failed                                                     2007-06-02-4 GEN-ANN. MTG

 
 

 

 

 

 


 PRESIDENT: Is there a motion to pass section 3.6?

Motion to adopt the amendment for section 3.6.

Vote by rising. Motion passed                                                     2007-06-02-5 GEN-ANN. MTG

 

 
 

 

 

 

 


PRESIDENT: Is there a motion to pass section 3.14?

Motion to adopt the amendment for section 3.14

  Vote by rising. Motion failed.                                                    2007-06-02-6 GEN-ANN. MTG

 

 
 


PRESIDENT: Is there a motion to pass section 4.1?

Motion to adopt the amendment for section 4.1

  Vote by rising. Motion passed.                                                2007-06-02-7 GEN-ANN. MTG

 

 
 

 

 

 

 


PRESIDENT: Is there a motion to pass section 5.1?

Motion to adopt the amendment for section 5.1

  Point of order: chairman will become chair – spelling change

  Vote by rising. Motion passed.                                                  2007-06-02-8 GEN-ANN. MTG

 

 
 

 

 


PRESIDENT: Is there a motion to pass section 5.9?

 

Motion to adopt the amendment for section 5.9

Verbal vote called. Motion passed.                                               2007-06-02-9 GEN-ANN. MTG

 

 
 

 

 


PRESIDENT: Is there a motion to pass section 5.10?

Motion to adopt the amendment for section 5.10

Verbal vote called. Motion passed.                                              2007-06-02-10 GEN-ANN. MTG

 

 
 

 

 

 

 


PRESIDENT: Is there a motion to pass section 5.11?

Motion to adopt the amendment for section 5.11

Verbal vote called. Motion passed.                                               2007-06-02-11 GEN-ANN. MTG

 

 
 

 

 

 

 


PRESIDENT: Is there a motion to pass section 5.12?

Motion to adopt the amendment for section 5.12

 Verbal vote called. Motion passed.                                             2007-06-02-12 GEN-ANN. MTG

 

 
 

 

 

 

 


The following amendments were not voted on: 2.1 2.2 3.12 4.12

 

12.  NEW BUSINESS:              

The next order of business is new business. New business will be conducted in the form of a motion, a second, discussion followed by a vote. Is there any new business?

 

  1. A member wanted to make a motion allowing white roofs in light of the energy crisis. He was informed by the president that this motion could not be heard because the covenants of each unit would have to be changed. Therefore each unit would have to make that change to their covenants.
  2. A member stated that a past budget was based on a certain percentage of dues to be saved to be able to purchase land along with County

 

13.  ANNOUNCEMENTS:

a.       Recognition of past directors                 

I would like to thank Debbie Liebner, Dick Cline and Ed Whitten for their years of service, dedication and hard work on the board.

b.   The President announced that, following the formal business meeting, there would be a 15-minute break, and then, as we have done in the past, we would hold a Town Hall Meeting. Anyone wishing to speak during this meeting was asked to sign up at the sign-in table with their name, unit number, and the topic. This was done to determine the topics, and to ascertain the amount of time each person would be allowed to speak based on that.

 

14.  ADJOURNMENT: The annual meeting adjourned at 11:05 a.m.

 

Submitted by:

 

 

________________________________________                ___________________________

Sy Caudill, President, 2007-2008                                           Date

 

 

 

________________________________________                _______ ____________________

Andy Anderson, Vice President, 2007-2008                         Date