Finance & Legal minutes: 2019-08-28

Minutes:

Minutes of 8-28-19 Finance & Legal Committee Meeting


Present: Sharon, Debbi, Becky G., Becky H., Amy
Guest: Bennie




1. Prepare for the presentation of the Basement Egress proposal at the
September 4 community meeting


Becky G. explained that it had made sense to her to break the proposal into
3 pieces. The Part 1 is F&L’s concern, while Parts 2 & 3 are in the
Grounds Committee’s domain. Part 1 is the part that has to do with
protecting the community from the risk of suit if someone is injured,
specifying that walkout door egress is allowable only if specified
conditions exist. Parts 2 (pertaining to the North Stairs and side paths
leading just to the adjacent buildings) & 3 (pertaining to the paths behind
each building) are Grounds issues, and Grounds can carry forward. (Becky
noted that she is also on Grounds.)


Q: Could a cheapskate household/building propose a cheaper material?
A: Yes, as long as the community approves it, does the work, and the whole
run of the building is the same.


We talked through numerous edits to the draft proposals.


We discussed Proposal 2 and its goals.


a) to get stairs to wetlands built (and there seems to be a lot of support
for them);
b) a critical component for proposal 3 to happen


We will introduce all 3 proposals at the comty mtg, but will focus on
getting agreement on #1.


Becky G. has estimates from Hollowell which are shared in proposal #2, with
different scenarios for the cost per month per household, depending on how
long we take to pay it off. In addition, Becky G. will be meeting with
Reid from Hollowell prior to the comty meeting to try to get the price
down.


We talked at length about the pros and cons of including the “flange” paths
from the stairs to the buildings in proposal 2 or 3. We ended up leaving
it in proposal 2, but acknowledged that it could be brought back to the
community if proposal 3 is not supported.


We talked about the notion that the households in the buildings need to
work out their own agreements around sharing the costs and any
constraints. We recognized that it doesn’t make sense for GO to negotiate
for a small group, but that it’s also not easy for a small group to reach
an agreement.


How the households agree to come up with the money is not GO’s
responsibility; it’s theirs. We’re agreeing to the mechanism for getting
the work done and charging the expense back to the units.


We acknowledged the difficulty that some households may have in disclosing
a difficult financial situation.


1. Jobs update
1. Pre-assignments have been entered for the upcoming work survey:
1. Internal Bookkeeper - Becky G.
2. F&L Convener - Amy H.
3. Check Depositor - Kathy B.
4. Truck Admin Asst - Gayle T.
5. Counted Members of F&L - Debbi, Becky H., Sharon
1. Amy created the Rental Lease Admin Asst job for 2 hours a month to
start. Will reduce to 1 hour after the work is organized.
1. Draft job description for Rental Lease Admin Asst.
2. Shall we recruit someone for this job? Bennie is willing.


1. Rental Lease Template
1. Discuss changes to Sarah’s lease. Sarah sent what she wants to use
as her lease. She color-coded it to our template. Her lease is quite a
bit shorter. Most of what she took out has to do with how she wants to
rent her property.
2. She took out the links to the agreements we think are most important
(pets, membership, etc.). These are admittedly redundant, but they do make
it easier for the renter to look them up. It puts the landlord, the
community, and the tenant at a disadvantage, if they can’t look up what
they’re supposed to do. It creates a power differential, where the tenant
doesn’t have ease of access to this information.
3. Eviction language. Sarah took out the language about what recourse
the landlord has if the renter is in violation of community agreements. We
think this puts GO at risk and we can ask the attorney to advise about this
if she wants to pay for it
4. Binding effect. We think it should be left in, but can consult with
the attorney.
5. Suggestions for our process: Becky H. will ask Sarah to send her
ideas for discussion, but will let her know it may take a while to get back
to her because of time-sensitive F&L tasks.


1. F&L Budget request for 2020 - tabled until meeting on 9-11-19.


1. Skills & Thrills 2019
1. Master Deed focus. Discuss preparations. - Tabled until next meeting.
2. Debbi will let Process know that she heard from Rick: any Sunday or
any non-football Saturday.


6. Bookkeeping updates
a. Arrears
There have not been any payments from the two households we are concerned
about. The end of the month is coming, and they may make payments by
then. We don’t meet again until Sept. 11, so Becky H. wanted to flag this
for us.

7. Progress on Priority items
a. Master Deed & Bylaws - see #5
b. Reserve Study - Agreement signed, Mary and Paul trying to find a
time to meet
c. Basement egress issue – see #1
d. Truck Proposal – on hold while Grounds decides whether we should
continue to have a truck
e. Calendar of routine tasks – underway
f. Landlord leases – Done, but now need to fine-tune process with
Lease Admin Asst.
g. Unit modifications/Documenting build-outs (Master Deed, insurance,
Buildings/ARC process) – the
MD part has already been discussed in a plenary conversation.

8. Ongoing items
a. Srienergy letter - lawyer letter prompted a response - Elph is
involved...


9. Matters arising


10. Next meeting: September 11

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