November Board Meeting - Upcoming Annual Meeting

 November HOA Board Meeting Report (Distributed week of January 1, 2024)

This information is what I observed, what I could get confirmation of, and what I think about it. It is entirely independent of the Orchard Farms HOA Board. My observations and comments are in italics.

Two complaints have been filed against the board with the South Carolina Department of Consumer Affair

Complaint 1 lists these six issues:

• Failure to give notice and hold meeting when increase in dues is voted on.
• Failure to amend By-Laws to allow more than 5 board members.
• Denying homeowners access to public documents.
• Directing Board members not to talk to contractors.
• Continuing to show movies even though they have knowledge it is in violation of copyright laws.
• Illegal limiting a board member term in office.

Complaint 2 addresses the installation of the electrical outlet for Octoberfest. The complaint requests that Carl Fisher, Gwen Miller, and Kim Anderssen-Lee reimburse the HOA for the $2500 cost and be responsible for any additional costs to remedy the issue since it was their actions and not the board’s that caused the safety concern. Greenville County posted a demand notice on the clubhouse door giving the Board until January 2 to get a permit for the electrical outlet.

I have no update as of this printing as to whether that was done. Any fine levied by the County and additional costs to meet code should be paid by the parties who made these decisions, out of their personal funds, not HOA dues. They did not inform the entire board they were moving forward.

November Meeting Homeowner Questions and Concerns (Approximately 30 homeowners attended the meeting at the clubhouse. No record of how many joined online.)

• The board told a homeowner at the October meeting that the trimming of shrubs along her property line and Batesville and whether the HOA would continue to do that work would be on the agenda this month. It was not.
• The state of disrepair of utility boxes in some front yards was brought up by a homeowner. Gwen Miller of Town and Country said that if the boxes are causing a safety issue, the utility company will not do anything until the property owners remove the tree and roots causing the problem. She said she will contact the property owners with recommendations for remediation if the utility company finds safety concerns.
• A homeowner expressed concern over the amount of time the swim team uses the pool. The president said two lanes are open to homeowners during swim practice.

My concern is the homeowner’s real issue was not fully explored. Perhaps the president could have explored his concern at more depth and offered to explore some options for the gentleman rather than just shutting him down by citing current rules, e.g., working with the pool committee to establish some “quiet hours” for those who would really enjoy that. Until you get to the real reason for someone’s complaint, you can’t solve it.

• A homeowner asked about the cost of the Batesville entrance being $21,000. The president said it was only $16,000. A board member corrected her statement and confirmed the cost as $21,000 including plantings, irrigation repair, and mulch.

Cheers to the board member who was willing to step forward with facts.

Board Actions

• The covenants committee activities around changing HOA documents is on hold waiting for direction from the board.

I have no idea what “direction from the board” means. This is a huge story with more details below.

 

• Chris Donahue was approved as landscape liaison to interact with Ben Harrison, the current landscape service provider. Ricky Wallace was designated to be the liaison between Chris Donahue and the landscape committee.

Know that I volunteered to participate on the landscape committee this past summer. I feel money is being wasted on landscaping and the quality of service is not adequate to ensure long-term biodiverse and beautiful landscapes in our community. We are facing some extreme environmental challenges in the near future and we should begin preparing now. I want to work toward educating our community and our HOA board on those pressing issues. Although I think a liaison to a liaison structure is an inefficient, complex working structure, I look forward to everyone’s contributions to ensure our common property landscapes are top notch. Plants and wildlife are plants and wildlife. They don’t give a hoot about who talks to whom. As of this writing, the information on the landscape committee on the HOA website is incorrect. I hope contact information will be updated soon so we can hear from all of you on your needs and ideas.

• A formal RFP (Request for Proposal) process written by Mark Balcer was approved by the board.

Woohoo!  I put this in bold because this is a huge step forward for this board. Mark has worked for about five months to get this process written and approved. Finally, acceptance of a formal, professional-level process on which to base decisions has been approved.

• The illegal fees that the board has been charging for clubhouse rental since the passage of the South Carolina Homeowners Association Act of 2018 was tabled again until January. David McPhearson deflected a question from a guest about it and said he is working on a change in the bylaws to address the issue next year.

Nothing was discussed about refunding the fees charged to residents in the last five years and certainly nothing was said about why no one on the board nor the property management company brought this forward sooner. The board and the property management company certainly knew about the law because the minutes reflected the requirement to file new documents. I was encouraged when David first brought this to the attention of the board with a statement of “do the right thing.” I am concerned that the issue will get delayed and delayed and perhaps new rules will be created but what to do about refunding fees illegally charged will get lost in the board ethernet.

• Carl Fisher presented a projection of funds in the capital reserve fund based on repairs that will be required for the pool. Carl said the dues increase in 2024 is to go directly toward pool maintenance and repair. However, only one company provided an estimate and options for these repairs. A guest at the meeting pointed out that only one estimate has been sought and that the projections for the capital fund solvency should be based on better data. The guest pointed out that the board should not talk about costs they don’t have numbers to back them up with. Mark Balcer stated that more research will be done before the expected costs for pool maintenance is finalized. A homeowner pointed out that the board should consider cutting operating costs instead of raising dues and that the projection for the capital reserve fund was not created in an “accounting way.” We certainly could reduce social event expenses like Octoberfest.

Indeed, projections should be done according to professional accounting principles and multiple estimates on how the pool should be kept in good repair, as well as, the cost of doing so should not be based on one vendor’s information. All our amenities contribute to the value of each of our homes; they are important. And it is the responsibility of the HOA to maintain them in good condition. However, perhaps we should operate with a bare bones budget for a few years, cutting back on some of the higher cost social events, getting more volunteers on landscape projects, postponing lawyer review of covenant changes, etc.

• There was a great deal of discussion about the board’s right to raise dues. David McPhearson stated that the homeowners do not have a right to vote on raising the dues based on his interpretation of the covenants.

It’s notice of the discussions of raising dues that the board failed to provide. Our covenants require notice of the board’s actions to raise HOA dues. And where in the heck did the term regime fees used in the letter from the property management company come from? The board does act like a “regime” sometimes. I looked in our documents and can’t find the word regime anywhere. However, Article III, Sections 3 and 4 deal with how raising annual fees and assessments should be handled. It’s Section 5 that is important here:

Section 5. Notice and quorum for any action authorized under Section 3 and 4. Written notice of any meeting called for the purpose of taking any action authorized under Section 3-or 4 shall be sent to all members not less than thirty (30) days nor more than sixty (60) days in advance of the meeting. At the first such meeting called, the presence of members or of proxies entitled to cast sixty (60%) percent of all the votes of each class of membership shall constitute a quorum. If the required. quorum is not present, another meeting may be called subject to the same notice requirement, and the required quorum at the subsequent meeting shall be one-half (1/2) of the required quorum at the preceding meeting. No such subsequent meeting shall be held no more than sixty (60) days following the preceding meeting.

It seems clear to me but somehow the board just “did it” with no concern about Section 5. When it was discussed in the October board meeting there was such a hullabaloo that I never heard a justification that made sense. But the motion to carry on with raising dues passed with, as well as I remember, three dissenting votes.

• The covenants committee asked for funds in the 2024 budget to pay for hiring an attorney to review the proposed changes. That amount is approximately $4,100.

So changing the covenants comes down to a certain percentage of yes votes by homeowners which a lawyer in the last go-round of covenant changes advised was impossible to get. Why not communicate exactly what the board wants to change in the covenants and let the homeowners vote as to whether the board should proceed to get legal advice on whether the changes should be made or not. The survey (please know I created the first draft) only told the board what proposed changes are most important to the homeowners who responded, and not all did respond. I know the board wants to impose fines for ACC violations. I agree with fines but there’s no way I will vote for that change unless I see a schedule of fines and violations and a clear, fair process for managing the assessing and collection of fines. Bottom line is, convince me of the value of the change, tell me the consequences of the change, and let me decide.

One of the changes the board wants to make is lowering the percentage of homeowners required to make a change. This will have a huge impact on this community. I am concerned that change would open the flood gates for some bad decision-making. And with all the items in the survey, there was no mention of that being the first step to enact those changes. See the attached article from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution about the effect of fines in one community. I have read many similar reports in the last 10 years since I first became involved with my HOA in Atlanta.

Yes, this community is showing its age and if property repairs and maintenance is not improved, it will definitely lower our property values sooner than later. However, the board has not convinced me they are willing to “build community” support before deciding community rules and regulations. A survey does not build support, it just identifies what we already know. I know they are volunteers. I know they have little time just like most of us. But the word community means all of us. Not just nine of us.

According to what I have heard from several board members, changing the Bylaws is easier than changing the covenants. And I believe that’s in their scope for the February annual meeting also. ARTICLE XI AMENDMENTS 11. 01 of our bylaws states that the bylaws “can be amended at a regular or special meeting by vote of a majority of a quorum [47 homeowner] of members present in person or by proxy” with some exceptions.

The board needs to be up front with exactly what changes they want to make to the bylaws, communicate them thoroughly well in advance before the annual meeting and ensure all homeowners receive that communication, not just those who have email accounts and are tech savvy.

• In June, the president appointed an existing board member to fill the remaining term of a member who had resigned. In the November meeting, a big squabble arose when the board member was told he had to run again in 2024, the end of his original elected term. He was told his appointment by Kim, the president, to the unfilled position was “illegal.” Gwen, the property management company representative, said homeowners are concerned about how his term was extended. After the shouting was over, the board voted to allow the secretary to fill the open position, the very same way the president “appointed” the board member they just booted and told that he had to run again.

First, I find it hard to believe that any homeowners other than those in the “power clique” even know the board member’s name, much less how he was “appointed.” According to the HOA documents, a board member must resign in writing but this was not brought up in the June board meeting when the assignment to the vacant position was made by the president. So the board member served from June until November without a whimper. Why didn’t the president and other board members know about this detail in June? It seemed that a guest in the audience certainly knew about it and he was in the June meeting and every board meeting after that. Why didn’t he step up then?

Second, wasn’t appointing the secretary to fill the very same 18-month position doing the same thing that was done in June? I didn’t see a written resignation from her. She was appointed to a 6-month position when the four new board members were added. That said, I commend her for stepping up to be on the board in the first place. She does an excellent job and board meeting minutes from 2016 until she took over the position are seriously lacking. I know this because in the last week I completed a review of all posted board meeting minutes trying to find a trail of what board members were voted in by the homeowners, when, and for how long.

• The story continued on the electrical outlet that was installed for Octoberfest, an event that was in the planning stages beginning in August. Gwen said that she couldn’t find an electrician and the electrician she chose works in Orchard Farms a lot. It was also stated that the reason for the outlet was the bouncy-thing needed a direct line. Why didn’t the Octoberfest planners know about this in August? Gwen also said she doesn’t know about permits and expects vendors to “pull permits.” It was stated that the electrician said he did not need a permit nor a county inspection. Board member Mark Balcer confirmed that he indeed did. Eventually the board passed a motion to get a permit and a county inspection and to not use the outlet until those are complete.

So in summary, bouncy-things have been set up before in multiple locations around the club house without this requirement; moving the bouncy-thing to a previously used location was not considered; board members spent over the agreed-to limit on discretional spending; the money to pay the electrician was supposedly taken from the tennis court electrical account and that made that item over budget; they also decided the need for the outlet was an emergency because of their lack of proper planning which began in August; they did not confirm that the electrician had a commercial license, nor did they confirm the need for a permit and inspection; and they allowed use of the outlet without confirmation that it was safe, all for a bouncy-thing.

Johnnie McKenzie

johnniemckenzie@att.net

https://ofcommunityvoices.blogspot.com/