Annual Meeting minutes, Wednesday, January 8, 2025

Topics: Budget, management elections

Decisions:  Approve 2025 annual budget. Elect Cheryl Keil, Jorge San Pedro, and Michael Abrahamson to Management Committee.

Time & venue: 7:00 p.m., common house sitting room and online. Ben Trueman, facilitation. Kay Argyle, notes.

Present:

unit		unit		unit		unit
1	Laura deBacker	8	Joseph Sweeney	15	Kerry Terrazas	22
2		9	Hannah Kum, Stephen Smart	16	Lynda Angelastro	23	Cyd Golden 8:30
3	Amy May, by proxy (Vicky)	10	Kerry Jo Finney*	17	Vincent Mazzione*, Eliza Perkins	24	Scott Price
4		11	Kay Argyle	18	Cheryl Keil	25	Emily Buckner, Michael Abrahamson
5	Steven Chodoriwsky	12	Linda Reed	19	Chelsea Erhart	26	Michael Wason, Vicky Wason
6		13	Ben Trueman	20	Alex Parvaz		one additional proxy?
7	Jorge San Pedro, Robin San Pedro	14	Laraine Miner	21	Tobi Werkhausen

*Online. Doesn't count towards quorum; doesn't vote.

Budget

Tree Planting.   Is there no budget for planting trees?  It's included in the Landscaping budget. Landscaping plans drought-tolerant water-thrifty shrubs and trees with drip irrigation, but locations are not firm yet.  Instead of $5K for tree work, can't we break it into $4K for tree work and $1K for planting? Want a separate line item for tree planting.  If you want input please go to Landscaping. There is $500 list in the descriptions of budget requests. It's too late to go to Landscaping. The community consensed 9/13/2023 that Landscaping/the Tree Committee would make tree-specific decisions, in order to empower the committee to make progress instead of using community meetings for all decision-making.  Landscape advertised meetings and asked for community input on their budget and none of this is set in stone.  Landscape does not have any trees scheduled to be cut down. Given the historical record on this, don't have faith that the community will plant trees. The budget line under committees has zero under tree planting.  That was a discretionary-spending committee, which doesn't currently exist as a separate committee. (Once created, budget lines never go away.) The money got moved up to non-discretionary landscaping. 

Bank Fees.  Why are bank fees so high? QuickBooks charges a 1% fee for ACH deposits. It's been the case for years but hasn't always been posted under an accurate budget category.  The line under "bookkeeping software and support" is just the QuickBooks subscription.

Receivables.  What's the amount under "receivables" on the actuals sheet?  Jorge will research what it is and figure out if it needs to be written off. 

Capital Maintenance.  We had a lot of maintenance work in 2024, $4800 fixing gutters and decks, more than 2023. We anticipate $41,500 for a furnace, crack-filling asphalt, and repairing stucco. This is just things we already know need doing, and doesn't include contingencies (surprises).  By better management of the reserve we earned $7K this year. (Go, Jorge!) 

Are large expenses like repairing the stucco decided just by Management or does it go to the community for decisions? Responsibility is currently split between Management and Maintenance. By law, Management is responsible for maintenance, but delegates some work to the Maintenance committee, i.e., research on what needs to be done, options for materials & methods, research on suppliers and contractors, supervision, etc. For people unsure about being on Management, don't get too scared about Management being responsible; we have insurance specifically for things Management might do wrong.

Decisionmaking procedures. Have we had any formal proposals this year?  Not that anybody can think of.

Legally we need 67% approval, but because of who we are we try initially to get consensus.  For a quorum, we need 18 units represented, including the proxies.  We have twenty units.

The budget passes.  Two stand-asides.  Chelsea doesn't feel she understands everything well enough yet and would like to see the bank fees reduced.  Mike W is concerned that we are moving away from being a consensus-based community

Election

Ben and Cheryl are continuing on Management for another year.  Kerry, Jorge, and Kay are ending their two-year terms.

First round, nominations. Can nominate yourself. No term limit. Please don't decline until the third round.  Second round, attributes.  Third round, acceptance or decline or nomination. 

Management members must be owners (their name has to be on the deed).  Nominees must be present to be nominated (must be able to agree or decline).

Nominees: Jorge, Cheryl, Michael, Kay. Elected: Jorge, Cheryl, & Michael. 

Announcements & Events

Movie night is Friday 6:00 p.m., The Wild Robot.  Board games will be being played upstairs.

Film, Zootopia, on the 24th.

Probably Friday Jan 30, PG13 or above, film on a social justice issue (taking suggestions)

Friday 10:00 a.m. January 10th, monthly cohousing webinars.  The last part includes question/answer and announcements of openings.  The 20th, Seniors in Cohousing, issues special to seniors living in cohousing.

Every first Saturday at 3:00, soup exchange.

There will be four to five work parties to work on the sitting room.  We want to get it done before the national cohousing committee comes in March.  It will be a warm white. Kerry will be sending out a schedule. If you can't do Sunday work parties, Robin can do weekday work parties.

Monthly Cleaning Teams

Rearranging the cleaning teams. Passing around a form: Choose which months are best for you. Requirement to be on team is per unit; households can decide who.  Common House committee will schedule a deep clean twice a year.

Emailed 1/19/2025.