Minutes of 2003 Annual Membership Meeting

MINUTES OF THE GENERAL MEMBERSHIP MEETING
HORIZON CREST COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION
FEBRUARY 6, 2003, NEWPORT WAY LIBRARY, 7:00-9:00 P.M.

Officers in attendance: Kimball Williams, Pres.; Merrily Hornell, Vice-Pres; Kurt Lutterman, Treas.
Area Reps Eric Dawes (5) and Jane Titland.(2)
General membership: 27

In the absence of our former secretary, Mike Mraz, who had to resign due to other obligations, the minutes of the Feb. 2002 were read by Pres., Kimball Williams.

Reports by each officer:
Kimball
Successful clean-up day with the two dumpsters, periodic light replacement on our entrance sign, newsletters, plantings at the island, signage maintenance
Merrily (enhancement)
Replaced entrance street sign, had speed limit sign replaced at the ravine,
Planted bulbs at entrance in the fall, tagged and noted growth overhanging sidewalks-good response from homeowners to trim back. Hope to look at a mailbox enhancement project starting this summer. More research will be done on this, esp. with our neighbors in Whispering Heights. Someone asked if we'd had trouble with mailbox security. Not that we know of. Brent Peterman has some info to provide for the newsletter. 
Kurt (treasury)
This year's lagging membership participation has caused a drop in our budget. The high cost of insurance is taking half of what we have.

Note: We have appreciated Kurt's organization of the database for all the homes in HCCA, his research on insurance rates, dues tracking, improvement of the assoc. map, and many other helps he has provided.

Committee Reports:
Picnic: Hornells and Steve Kessler. This year we did not charge for the picnic. This simplified the whole event. Kimball did a lot of work purchasing the supplies. Steve and other neighbors provided the tables, etc. Bill H. ordered the street closure signs and asked Jim Russell to organize the pinata event. Roy Rabanal provided the karaoke machine and was unfortunately not feeling well enough to sing for us. (Note: be sure to check Roy's schedule before selecting the picnic date in 2003).
Do we want to continue? Yes. It brings people together and is the one chance other than the annual meeting to meet new people. Suggestion to hold at Lattawood Park next year. No decision made at this time.

Architectural: Kimball-no report as such. Sometimes owners call with questions about building covenants, etc.

Enhancement: Hornell's-already reported above
Membership-Kurt-had info for us to update; other report given earlier, dues are now $25 per year

Old Business:
Per the minutes read, Merrily brought up a couple of non-action issues.
1. Emergency Preparedness Plan: Proposed by Mike Mraz last year. No action has been taken. It was decided this is a huge project which we really aren't ready to take on at this time. Someone suggested we get the Red Cross info on this topic and publish it in the newletter and on the website.
2. Locking mailboxes: Proposed by Steve Kessler-he did some research and decided it's too costly. Decided to drop for now.

New Business:
1. Election of officers: current officers and area reps agreed to serve another term(see above) Vacancy for secretary was filled by Jan Falls. We still need area reps for zone 3 and 4. We'll ask for these in follow-up newsletter.
2. Job of area reps: disseminate information to constituents in your area. Discussion on sub-dividing the zones into clusters of 10 or so homes. By breaking into smaller groups we can contact people about membership, events, concerns, and become more united. There are 11 islands and this could be one way to group. We will act on this soon so we can get more involvement. Need reps for 3 and 4. Also, once we are sub-divided, the smaller group reps. can welcome new residents. (In lieu of the former welcoming comm. For the entire neighborhood which was too hard to track.)
3. Membership: Concern and ideas for how to increase participation. The area breakdown will help with face to face contact. Talk to your neighbors! Question was raised about making the dues mandatory. Why are new buyers automatically required to pay the assoc. dues, but after that it's voluntary? We discussed the by-laws and the subsequent need to update them. Perhaps we can make the dues mandatory at that time. Owners need to be aware of the expenses of the dumpsters, insurance, plants, etc. Steve Kessler pointed out that generally zones 2 and 5 are the most active and pay their dues. We need to get equal participation from 3 and 4. Do a door to door approach, provide map and roster, point out what the membership dues are for.
4. Insurance: What is it? Why do we have it? This is mainly to protect the assoc. officers from being sued for their personal assets in case of whatever may occur in the neighborhood. It's very costly and ranges from $823-1256 annually. Discussion on whether we really need it. We need a little more legal advice on this and comparison with our neighboring associations. Perhaps we could get a combination deal with other groups. Shannon Hauser brought up possibility of forming LLC. Again, more info needed.
5. Report from Jane Titland, Vasa Creek Watershed Steward. Jane gave an update on the trail project which is now scheduled to start in May or June. She is working on removing plants for temporary protection until the path is formed and plants can be restored. (This is a Bel. Neighborhood Enhancement project). Trees will be planted at 45th and 48th. This raised a concern regarding potential further problems with view blockage. We need to have representation on this Bel. Comm. when selection of trees is made so low growing varieties are selected.
6. Tree/view issues...This is on-going and becoming more of a problem as time moves on and the trees grow into views.Shannon Hauser provided some history with the City of Bellevue and pointed out we need a united force to talk to the city. A petition to lower our prop. tax if our view isn't helped by topping, thinning, or removing trees in the ravine (city prop) seems to be a way that would have some clout. Conrad Lee is the city council member representing our area. Steve Kessler agreed to work on this with Shannon as well as Eric Dawes who has already taken some steps. Jane pointed out that any committee talking about greenbelt trees/actions should also be represented by those who like the trees.
7. Tree issues with your neighbors: Kimball presented the plan that he and Bill Hornell used to seek joint funding for removing some trees in home in Wh. Heights that blocked views of over 13 homeowners in HC. It was very successful and everyone won. Since owners often call Kimball for "how to's" on dealing with trees in view, he wanted to present some methodology. Some of this will be accessible on the website.
8. Website: www.horizoncrest.org. Eric Dawes has created this website for us. It includes vendor suggestions, babysitters, homeowners who provide services, city issues, directories, minutes of meetings, and just about anything else we'd like to have! We need to promote this so people get in a habit of using it and it then becomes a useful tool for us.
9. Covenant/by-law revisions: Everyone present seemed to agree that we need to rewrite and improve the exiting documents. We need to get a comm. Together to get this going.We'll prioritize this for this year. Some preliminary action has been started relating to legal expertise needed. The usual money concern relates to this. It was suggested that we could perhaps do a special assessment to fund this if needed. If we could get a "rough draft" prepared to present to an attorney, it would save a lot of time and money. By-laws are quite easy to revise.
10. Eastgate Park has been obtained by City of Bellevue from King County. They have many grand plans for including a community center, improving the ballfields, etc. Expected completion is 2006.

Meeting adjourned at 8:45 followed by lively socializing and getting booted out for library closure at 9:00!

Submitted by Merrily Hornell