Management minutes, Tuesday July 2, 2024, 7:00 pm

Topics: attorney questions, unit 19 foundation tests, gutters, lawns & grant for replacing, air conditioner for unit 8, guest room usage & payment, accounting, fire risk

Decision:  Approved Lila & Joe Sweeney's request to install an air conditioner on the north side of their unit #8.

Present: Ben, Joe, Kerry, Kay (notes), Mary, Cheryl, Lila, Vinnie, Jorge (7:30)

Note:  It's firework season and hot and dry.  Please clear any dry vegetation, dead grass, dry branches etc. especially near units.

Action Items

Ask Roof Doctor their opinion on gutters releasing onto lower roofs.

Jorge will follow up leads on possible accountants.

Ben will work on a request form for installing equipment etc. that requires modification to exterior parts of a unit.

Attorney Questions

Ben reported.  Lawyer Quinn Sperry is not responding.  By next Management meeting if Ben hasn't heard from him we will start looking for someone new.

Unit 19

Ben reporting. Anchor bolt testing recommended by Level Engineering.  Ben can only find one local option for $600.  Utah Testing & Engineering.  Hilty only tests Hilty anchors but recommended Utah Testing. Utah Testing sent a proposal. Ben sent them some questions & they haven't responded.

Ben talked to the realtor & fiduciary and they don't want to move ahead with tests until the unit is sold and as part of the disclosures the new owner decides how they want to deal with it. Choice is we test before they buy or after, not whether we test.  Because it's the foundation it's the association's responsibility.

Gutters

Vinnie reporting. LG Rain Gutters with 12yr warranty.  Most contractors are recommending that downspouts from the upper story release onto the lower roof rather than having a downspout that goes to the ground. That was the way the initial construction was; it damaged the shingles which is why we added more downspouts. Release onto a roof only works if the gutters remain clean. Ask Roof Doctor their opinion.

Other Follow-Ups

Stucco.  Vinnie reporting.  Still waiting for quotes to come in.

Dryer.  Waiting for parts.

Lawns & Grant for Replacing

State of Utah is offering $3 per sq ft if you convert lawn to something else and an extra dollar if you convert to drip instead of spray, and $50 per tree. There's a class you have to take as part of the program, and they have landscaping companies partnered with them.   

Water has gone up this year and will keep going up.  At the annual meetings people complain about water bills and say we should change to drip but then not enough people show up for the many necessary drip repair work parties.  Drip saves water but adds labor.

Changing from lawn is a change in usage which needs to be a community decision. 

Air Conditioner #8

Joe & Lila are requesting to install an air conditioner.  The air conditioner they are considering is a Lennox. Rated "as low as 73 decibels" which is comparatively noisy for modern units.

They have talked to their neighbors. The only concern expressed was the decibel rating, the noise of an a/c vs. a swamp cooler. 

They would like to install it on the north side of the building. It's a short run into the utility room for electricity and ducting, and it's in the shade, with evergreen shrubs making it less visible & damping the noise. US DoE says sun on a cooling unit for even a couple of hours a day can increase cooling costs more than 10%. 

Ben measured the noise of Laraine's heat pump, and it was about 60 decibels. Some people are very aware of swamp cooler noises and some don't notice it so much.

Can we measure the noise level of a swamp cooler so we have a comparison?  Ben has an app on his phone. 

Noise up high spreads further than noise that's low, & the shrubbery is thicker at ground level than at the height of the swamp cooler.

Decision:  Approved.  If it ends up being louder than we expect, Management will work with Joe & Lila on mitigating the noise by e.g., planting more shrubs or a fence panel on one side of it.

To simplify requests, for both Management & residents, and & standardize them, ensuring each is decided on objective criteria, Management should come up with a form that people can fill out. Manufacturer & model, decibel rating, proposed location, where will holes through the wall be needed, where will lines be run, will lines be covered with line-set, which neighbors have you talked to & what were their concerns, where will it be visible from.

Common House Usage & Payment

Kerry & Vicky have paid for their guest room nights over the seven free ones per unit.  Some residents are paying their fees on Venmo, which is confusing to straighten out.  Some people don't have checks. If someone is doing their monthly fees by ACH, the community could bill them by ACH.

Accounting

Jorge has found the QuickBooks help service is not as helpful as he hoped.  He and Linda are getting behind, and the accounts are not reconciled through June. May be time to try an outside company.  Clark Simson Miller (in Ohio?) requires 1 year contract & 90 notice to cancel, $350/month. URL csmhoa dot com. Specialize in small HOAs. They don't use QuickBooks & they don't come to meetings.  Local company Utah Management does a month-to-month contract , $450/month after a start-up fee $350. They have a free online payment portal.  Jorge's son is dating a CPA in Colorado, she's looking for clients, she uses QuickBooks, he doesn't know if she has worked with HOAs. Also Jorge's accountant has a daughter who might be a possibility.  Ask on cohousing-L.

Operating account >$40K, UFirst $89,500, CDs $102,740.  When the 10 CDs renew in July they won't be renewed; we'll be buying CDs that we can add to and that mature at different times.

Fire Risk

A fire on the opposite side of Utah Street apparently started near the canal road, burning through the dry grass and a couple of trees, slowed by the greener grass of the swale at the south end of the houses, & put out by the Fire Dept.  Their HOA had mowed recently.

It's firework season, hot dry weather, and we have a lot of long dead grass or unraked cut dead grass.  Please pick up dead branches and get dead grass away from units.

Emailed 7/3/2024.