Finance & Legal minutes: 2016-01-26

Minutes:

Minutes of GO Finance & Legal Committee Meeting

1-26-16



Committee Members Present: Debbi, Keith, Amy

Guest: Nicholas



Two committee members were absent so we decided to do a quick run through
the agenda, and then go home to work on F&L tasks.



1. Proposal for Requirements to be an Authorized GO Truck Driver

A draft proposal was brought forward at the 1/18/16 Community meeting. We
agreed that the main issue is to figure out how to tread the line between
due diligence and setting the bar too high.



We don’t think that the State of Michigan service that will send an alert
if someone has a serious infraction or has their license revoked will cover
out-of-state drivers licenses. However, so far we haven’t had any
authorized driver requests from people who have out of state licenses.
There must be similar services in other states. We could do the research
if this comes up.



Keith will give Amy a list of people who have used the truck in the past
year based on the billing information he manages so she can see if there’s
anyone who uses the truck who hasn’t requested authorized driver status.
[Subsequent to the meeting, Keith sent this information. Out of about 20
people who used the truck last year, only 7 have requested authorized
driver status.]


A high priority task is to make and post signs in the truck about how to
become an authorized truck driver. Amy will circulate a draft. Nicholas
offered to laminate them.


Amy is working with Gayle Turner from the Grounds Committee to draft
updates the 2004 Truck Usage Proposal for Grounds to consider, and then to
bring to the community.





2. Insurance


Insurance coverage for GO workers seems to hinge on whether the work is
voluntary or mandatory. We discussed this issue briefly without reaching
any conclusions other than that we think we should consult our attorney as
well as our insurance agents on this matter.


Tracking: Family Farms, Guest Room, CH Offices



3. Arrears


The family we met with last week has been in touch with Debbi. She is
reviewing information they provided and so far it looks promising.


CH Office renter Matthew Cooke said he would pay his arrears by 1/31/16.


No news about the tax issue we have been tracking.




4. CH Office Lease


Amy will ask Rick if a different level of insurance is needed if the office
holder does not see clients. Also will ask his opinion about Barb’s
recommendation for a higher level of coverage.



5. Bookkeeping


We reviewed F&L’s 2015 budget-to-actuals. Amy will ask Becky G. about the
two line items that appear to be set up to record transfers, but haven’t
been transferred yet (Interest/Dividend Contribution to Reserve and
Workshop Construction Loan Interest). [Subsequent to the meeting, Becky
explained that even though the lines for the transfers are recorded on the
budget to actual report because we *budget* for them, the actual transfers
do not show up. But they have been made.]


Community education items:

- Outline of bookkeeping responsibilities. – Tabled

- What each report is and can and can't be used for, and why no one report
will give you all the information in one place. – Tabled

- Merging the old Reserve spreadsheet with the new one. No news.



6. Master Deed



Debbi started working on this last week. She is gathering all the old
correspondence and meeting minutes that dealt with the MD to identify what
the issues are and what decisions we have acutally made.

She is developing an FAQ for the community – what is a master deed? why
should we care?

We may need to devote portions of several community meetings to walk people
through an intro to our governance docs, and go from there.

Debbi recommends that we move forward with recording each piece of our work
in the MD rather than wait to do it all at once. Rick’s fees are much
cheaper than Keast’s, and some changes can be made without having to invite
all the mortgage holders to vote.

We want to ask Rick to advise on whether to overhaul the entire MD document
(much of the language pertains to when we were still in development), or
whether we should just keep amending it. (We have previously made two
amendments – one for TS to put in drainage through our land, the other had
to do with unit numbers, Debbi thought.)

Debbi is developing a list of questions for Rick.



7. Other items we are tracking or that are arising



Are we ok with the plan that Buildings buys batteries, distributes,
offers help,
checks that installed? Waiting to find out if workers can be covered inside
people’s homes.


Trespassing - Do we want to post No Trespassing signs per the recent email
discussion? We felt that this was not something we want to pursue right
now. It came up because of a domestic issue at Sunward and is not an
active issue at GO.


Attractive Nuisance question about the Tree House – Tabled.


CH Assessment lien documentation – sent request to attorney 11/30/15. Amy
will follow up after CH lease is done. We don't feel that we are at great
risk on this as all 8 households are paying on time.



8. Next meeting: Weds. Feb. 10 @ 7 pm



******

F&L Agenda Cooler List (Amy updated the Priority Tasks section 12/29/15;
the rest needs updating!)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_dmnNJmHmrwwFIfnscnRbPK-_8_kmahfFsOTn_fEvTY/edit
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