Minutes of the Meeting held On February 1, 2006
Attending Members: Gerald Schiefer (VC and Acting Chairman); Mary Esther Putnam; Dall Winn
Absent Members: Ron Snow (Chairman); Ryon Gardner; George Cropper (Treasurer)
Also Present: Steve Robinson (Fire Chief), and Beverly Udell (Secretary)
1. General Business: a/b. Welcome - Chairman Ron Snow was out of town tonight, so Vice Chairman Gerald Schiefer will be conducting the meeting. The meeting was called to order at 6:13 PM by Gerald and the Pledge of Allegiance was said. The meeting didn't exactly follow the order of the posted agenda due to lack of quorum.
c. Review/Approval of the 'Minutes of the Meeting' from January 4, 2006 - due to two of our Board members being absent, we are lacking a quorum tonight, so the review and approval of the minutes will be rescheduled to next month.
d. Pine Valley Building Permits Reviewed: A Mr. Lewis wants to build a house above the pond, west of the new road above the Nay hill. It will be a big house. His plans were passed around the Board members during the month and were approved by them.
e. Board Member Reports: * Gerald: Gerald took the information from last months meeting with the County Commissioners and sent that info to the County Sheriff as a matter of protocol. * Mahogany Rd. is blocked, plus an area on Lloyd Canyon Rd., by construction trailers. * Bad news for water levels - there is currently only 18 inches of snow on Gardner Peak. Normal for this time of the year is about 11 feet. Last year at this time it measured 6 feet plus. For the year we have had 6.6 inches of rain, with 4.2 inches of that water in snow content. These figures are pretty scary. This also makes the potential for lots of fires during fire season. The stream flow is still good, but that is probably just a carryover from last year. * The Feds plan to burn again. They might ask the Pine Valley Fire Department to help them because for every one person that we put in, they can burn 10 more piles. Fred Pendleton and Gerald spent about ½ day with them during one previous burn and they really learned a lot by that experience. * The funds for the refurbishment of the campgrounds have now been postponed until 2007. The Forestry Department still plans to do some thinning and harvesting this spring. * We sent 3 fire fighters to Wildland training this month. This was first time training for Fred Pendleton and Johnny Nichols, plus Gerald Schiefer went to recertify. * Dall - None
f. Treasurer Report: N/A due to George's absence.
g. Fire Chief's Report: There were no call-outs last month. * Engine #141 received new batteries. The cost was $270. * New engine status - the chassis will be delivered to Manitoba Canada on the 15th of March. We will be invoiced for it the last week of February. We have been slipped back about a month on the truck timeline. Once we get the invoice, Steve will then invoice FEMA for $90,000. Steve will probably make the trip to Canada to check on the truck to make sure that things are coming along as we want them to. We are looking at possibly the end of May for delivery. Delivery will now be to Omaha, NE.
Note: Mary Esther arrived at 6:30. We now have a quorum.
h. Mary Esther - The letter arrived from the lady regarding the princess contest. Mary Esther plans to speak to Jamie Udell (and her mother) about possibly being a princess. * Mary Esther gave out copies she received from the County regarding impact fees. At first glance, Mary Esther thought it would be fairly simple to just plug in our figures to the example they gave from Veyo's impact fee implementation. She asked if George might be able to help plug in those figures. Steve said he would call him with that question. If we do institute an impact fee, the money generated would go to the County first and at the end of the year they would send us a check of the fees that they collected. Mary Esther suggested that we still continue our plans to raise the annual fees, which we should implement soon to start monies coming in. Beverly brought up for consideration the problems that she (and Julie before her) had with the annual fee being based on extra structures having bathrooms. Beverly spent quite a bit of time detailing some of the issues she experienced with home owners trying to get out of paying for the extra structure based on bathrooms (i.e.: Beverly having to play detective, not knowing of new construction, people saying that the bathroom isn't actually built yet, or they aren't using the new structure for anyone to live in so they shouldn't have to pay, trying to connect the extra structure to the house by a breezeway so it seems like one big house so they don't have to pay, etc., etc.) After going around and around with possibilities to rectify the problem (examples: not charging for extra structures which would then be a money loss for us, or charging them less for the 2nd so they might not complain so much, or just charging for all 2nd structures and not worrying whether there is a bathroom attached, etc.) - it was decided to leave things as they currently are and having the complaint calls referred to Mary Esther. Since Mary Esther is one of the residents who pay the money for an extra structure, she would better be able to manage callers who complained. * Beverly also stated that when PVSSD Board members sign off on a new construction, she very seldom hears of it or even where it is located, so it is too hard for her to keep track of those new people to bill for the annual fee. It was also discussed as to when to start billing them. When construction starts? When the water spigot goes in? When the family actually moves into the house? And how would Beverly know when any of that has happened? It was decided that once the water goes in that the billing should start, so at that time maybe it should be Ryon who informs Beverly. Once the water goes in, then Beverly would also have an address in which to do the billing (something that is not always available at the time of the permit signing), which Ryon should also be able to provide. Mary Esther will speak to Ryon about this solution. * Mary Esther also offered to call Deon at the County to try to obtain the last two years of construction permits so that Beverly has a better handle on who now has a home built in Pine Valley in comparison to last year's billings. * The amount of the fee increase will be voted on during next months meeting when we have all of our Board members present.
i. Report from Julie Cropper - N/A due to Julie's absence.
2 - Election of Officers - Gerald called for the election of officers for the 2006 year. Since it is the secretary's job to conduct the vote, Beverly passed out papers to each member that had all of the member's names on it. This would allow for a private vote. The first vote was for Chairman. After the pages were collected back again, Beverly counted and it was discovered that there was a tie vote, so the pages were redistributed for re-voting. Once tallied, it was discovered that Mary Esther had the most votes. She was then asked if she would accept the position as Chairman of the PVSSD for the 2006 and Mary Esther did accept. Next new papers were sent out again for the voting of Vice Chairman. Once the members had a chance to vote and return those papers, Beverly did the counting and it was discovered that Gerald had the most votes for being Vice Chairman (the position he held in 2005). Gerald was asked if he accepted the position to remain as Vice Chairman for 2006 and he did accept. * George should be asked if checking account signatures need to be changed to recognize the change in officers.
3 - Public Comments - None
At 7:25 PM, Dall moved for the meeting to adjourn. Mary Esther seconded.
The next Board meeting will be held on Wednesday, March 1, 2006.