Rancho Heights Road and Management Committee
Quarterly Meeting Minutes
Date: January 24, 2011
Time: 6:30 p.m.
Location: Temecula Community Center / Pujol Street / Old Town Temecula
Meeting facilitated by Secretary; J. Geller in the absence of Chairman; D. Eaton
Committee Members in Attendance; J. Geller, M. Williams, C. Hill, J. Szepkouski
Property-Owners in Attendance: J. Driscoll, R. & C. Steffey, J. Rising, G. Tellier, P. Burke, P. Bulfinch, E. Dunnick, R. and V. Barbanell, Mr. And Mrs. Haskell
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Call to Order: Secretary Geller
Agenda Items submitted by property-owners:
G.Tellier: Recovery of Legal Costs / Taufer lawsuit
Maintenance of Unpaved Road / Rancho Heights Road
J. Rising: Road Assessments / Funding
Legal Costs / Property-owner input
R. Barbanell: Numerous suggestions detailed below...
Key points made in discussion:
G. Tellier
Q: How can we prevent all our funds being used for legal fees? And what is the status of recovering legal expenses in the Taufer lawsuit? What is the status of maintaining the end of Rancho Heights Road where Mr. Bulfinch has filed suit claiming negligence against the Committee?
A: Points emphasized by the Committee members:
We have limited ability to control being sued for the decisions we have to make regarding maintenance. Assessment funds are generally directed to those points in our road system where use is heaviest and where the most property owners can benefit from the funds spent. At the end of Rancho Heights Road, where the legal dispute is focused, there are no legal residences established and it is an area where road assessments continue to be unpaid for many years. The status of recovering legal fees in the Taufer lawsuit is that a Court hearing devoted to this topic is scheduled for April. The judge will hopefully make his ruling at this hearing.
J. Rising:
...We need community participation, collective brain power. We need folks to be available for dialogue. The burden of managing this community shouldn’t be solely upon the 5 Committee members….The Committee should mitigate risks by informing community of key decisions…I just ask that you inform me.
Many of us acknowledge that our community is under-funded and assessments need to be increased but prior to this happening people want know they have input and control of how funds are spent. We don't want additional assessments all to go towards legal fees. We want the additional funding to go directly to the roads.
R. Barbanell:The following subjects of interest are proposed for consideration.
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The Annual RH Road Report ought to be specific with regard to the status of all the roads in RH, including those added to Exhibit A of the RH Agreement. The report should contain recommendations necessary to maintain the entire road system including, but not limited to, alternative strategies, details and costs of same, for the community to reasonably vote upon and approve.
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A number of us agree that it might be desirable to increase road repair fees...but we also feel that if this increase were approved, community involvement and accountability should be closely linked to how additional funds are to be spent.
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Re: Use the Rancho Heights website to facilitate inter-community communication between individual landowners. We would like to explore ways in which the community could communicate with each other in an effective, efficient and timely manner...We understand certain community members have expressed that other members may not want this contact information disseminated. Means to protect privacy can be established and still facilitate total inter-community communication....those wanting privacy would retain such by opting out of community access to certain information of their choice. After property-owners decided whether or not to publish their contact information, the mailing list would be made available to other property-owners.
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Regarding meeting minutes, Doug Eaton proposed at the October Annual Meeting that Robert's Rules of Order be the basis or how our community should conduct its meetings and general organizational responsibilities. We agree with his recommendations. a.) For example, there needs to be a process whereby those who disagree with published meeting minutes have the opportunity to dissent and offer such alternative renditions of facts or opinions they feel may be incorrect.
Mr. Barbanell further emphasized his belief that in order to foster community participation, we need to do a better job of distributing information regarding our meetings and proposed a physical mailing be conducted to improve attendance and involvement at our next meeting.
Phil Burke:
Property owner Phil Burke volunteered to lead an exercise to identify a topic which those in attendance considered to be a priority for the community. It was agreed that the subject voted upon would serve as the focal point of the next meeting scheduled on Friday, April 22nd. This process is intended to provide an achievable goal and a tangible outcome for the next meeting.
The topics brain-stormed by those in attendance were as follows;
1. Create a Road Report, containing specifics and a criteria regarding how collected monies are to be spent.
2. Form a budget for expenditures.
3. Create a meeting environment in which people want to participate.
4. Hold group discussions on merit of alternative minutes from Annual Meeting Minutes.
5. Create an Opt-In community-wide communication program
6. How can we change our ability to vote on things?
7. Create a process to find a way for Community to vote on legal issues
Result: A vote was taken on which (1) topic we would focus on in the next meeting and #6 above won. The action item was for everyone to come prepared with ideas on how the Road Agreement could be amended to improve our ability to complete votes on matters of interest to the community.
Open Discussion:
Everett Dunnick:
-discussed his feeling and frustration that there needs to be a better and more fair treatment of all who pay fees. He expressed that he wants to see more accountability across the board.
John Driscoll:
...I still don’t know what the problem is. I've attended quite a few meetings and each meeting seems to get smaller. I think we do need to have advisory committees and tap into what more people in the community have to offer. We need to work on something together, two from one side, two from the other and
accomplish things in a meaningful way.
Discussion resulted in those in attendance agreeing that in order to assure that all property owners know of the next meeting, there should be a direct mail notice sent to all property-owners in addition to providing notice by email and website.
P. Burke and R. Barbanell kindly offered to pay for the mailing rather than have the community burdened with this addition expense. While that offer was appreciated, the Committee decided it is more appropriate for the mailing to be paid for with general community funds.
There was wide-spread discussion regarding how frustrating it is to have to try and get an issue voted on, be it in a timely manner or at all. Some expressed that having open-ended time frames for voting is not the best way to manage the process.
Action Items:
Publicize meeting to be held on April 22nd at Temecula Community Center at 6:30 p.m.
Provide owners with direct mail notification in addition to customary email and website
notification. Meeting will be focused on specific topic with discussion facilitated by Phil Burke.
Adjournment: 8:30 p.m.