Finance & Legal minutes: 2015-06-16

Agenda:

Legal issue arising: basketball court
Accounts receivable
CH Assessment
Reserve Study
Fall F & L jobs (tabled)
Audit (tabled)

Minutes:

Present: Becky H., Becky G., Keith, Amy, Debbi, Tevah, Mary, Katie

1. Legal issue arising: basketball court

Earlier today, F&L became aware of a document (later identified as a letter
written by George Harmon) that laid out a significant number of legal and
financial concerns regarding activity on the basketball court. After
considerable discussion, and because F&L is not an empowered committee, F&L
prepared the following recommendation to the Steering Committee, which is
empowered. We invited the Steering Convener, Tevah, to attend the meeting
to be part of our discussion.


TO: STEERING COMMITTEE

FROM: FINANCE & LEGAL COMMITTEE

F&L has become aware of information that we believe constitutes an emergency
situation putting Great Oak into a legally liable situation. We need to
respond immediately because we have a fiduciary responsibility to protect
the community. We are asking the Steering Committee for a decision to be
made and action to be taken immediately to remove the basketball hoop to
reduce the community's exposure to risk. This recommendation is made based
on the following legal and financial concerns raised in a document that we
became aware of today:

-Risk of a lawsuit

-Risk of personal injury to nonresidents

-Personal injury of residents

-Destruction of personal property

-Theft

-Harassment

-Trespassing

-Intimidation, including the reporting of a rabbit "killed, dismembered
and gruesomely displayed" outside a Great Oak member's window

The point has also been made that the activity on the basketball court
leads to financial harm to the adjacent households because their property
values are diminished, as per a real estate appraiser who was present when
a game was underway.

F&L's role is to monitor the community's financial and legal health. But
because we are a cohousing community, we as neighbors are also concerned
that the human side of this issue be addressed, and we hope that the
appropriate committees will help our community move forward from here.

By taking the basketball hoop down, we would create time and space to
explore this issue in a measured way.

*****

The group felt that the following steps should be taken:

1. Remove the BB hoop immediately. Keith was willing to take down the
hoop following our meeting. (Although we were able to obtain several
positive responses from Steering Committee members during the meeting [4
are required by our community agreement], we agreed not to take this step
until an emergency meeting of the Steering Committee could be called, with
an opportunity for community members to take part in the discussion.)


2. Talk to the affected families. Mary went out immediately and talked
to the following people who live by the court:

a. George and Judith
b. Yi-Miau
c. Susan & Sharon

Keith will reach out tomorrow to the other neighbors who were not home.


3. Tevah will send a message to the community calling a special meeting
of the Steering Committee.


4. Steering and/or Process should think about whether and how to let
Sunward and Touchstone know that Great Oak has closed its basketball court


5. F&L also recommends that the community find a way to examine how
this situation unfolded and what we can do to prevent anything like this
from happening again.




2. Accounts receivable

We have been discussing the filing of two liens for many months, pending
resolution of the CH Assessment situation. Now that this is done, we can
move forward with placing the liens.



3. CH Assessment

a) Clarification on the CH Assessment



One household misunderstood the recent community agreement about the CH
Assessment. Only one long-term assessment for the Common House has been
issued, in 2005, applicable equally to all 37 units, as confirmed by our
attorney David Keast. The recent community agreement applies only to the
units who have NOT yet paid off the original assessment. This is not a new
assessment. It simply extends the timeframe during which those units may
pay off their original assessment.



b) Special Assessment liens by 6/30/15 if possible

As soon as the regular liens are placed, we'll turn our attention to
preparing and recording the Special Assessment liens.


c) Two units that need to get credited


Becky has done half of the bookkeeping and will turn to the remaining steps
shortly.


4. Reserve Study (debrief following 6/15 Community meeting; next
steps) - tabled


5. Fall F&L jobs - tabled


6. Audit - tabled

o Len Pytlak's recommendations

o Sunward's audit firm: Myler & Szczypka P.C. *(734) 930-5500


7. Next Meeting: Wednesday, June 24 @ 7 pm in the CH Sitting Room