THE WEDGEFIELD EXAMINER HAS TRANSCRIBED THE GROUNDS CHAIR'S WORDS. WE HAVE THE ANSWERS TO THE QUESTIONS POSTED ON TUESDAY: IS THE BOARD COUNTING ON YOUR COMPLACENCY WITH ONLY THREE CANDIDATES TO RUN TO FILL THREE SLOTS? WE'LL SEE. ARE THEY ABOUT TO START BUILDING AGAIN? THE GROUNDS CHAIR WOULD LIKE TO HAVE A MAINTENANCE SHED BUILT ON LAND WE DON'T HAVE ROAD ACCESS TO. DID I REALLY HEAR HIM ASK ABOUT CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS AND USE THE WORD "POOL"

We enter this discussion when the WPA Grounds Chair has capital improvement questions under old business.  The board is advised that they each have a projected 2014 budget in their board packets.  They are to review it and if they have questions they are to take them to the Treasurer prior to the September board meeting.  The board will vote on the 2014 budget at the September meeting.

I have transcribed this section of the board meeting tape to the best of my ability.  Listen to the tape yourself at The Wedgefield Times.  The tape at that site is clear and posted quickly.  Thank you Wedgefield Times!  The transcription will be in quotes, underlined and printed in blue ink.  Comments will appear in red. 

Transcription:

McMillin:  "One comment.  I see there is no capital improvements for playground, pool, or anything like that.  If anything like that would ever come up how would it be handled?  Just through reserves?"  Garrison, "Reserves, or reserves as I understand it are primarily for repair. Capital improvement would not, as far as I'm concerned, I don't think it would be covered under reserves"  McMillin, "If we were to try and do something like that where would the money come from?  Assess that year.....?"  Garrison, "Not necessarily, it would depend ....I mean how much money are you talking about...submitting for budget.....wouldn't happen next year - 2014 budgeting is all ready, once approved it will be in place.  If  you got an idea for something you want to....capital for 2015 you then, next year...  This going to cost $25,000, or $40,000, or what? Then it would be up to the finance committee to look at it and say OK, is there money that's in here that we COULD MOVE TO SOMETHING ELSE to allocate that based on what we expect the revenues to be, or do we have to change the revenue strain to accommodate it. "  McMillin, "One other issue, I hate to drag this up.  We have no where here where we can do any sort of maintenance, or store anything for maintenance.  There was talk about the of disposal area out there.  I don't know if that ever went any where or not.  There is some property out there that we could possibly be used to erect some sort of a MAINTENANCE BUILDING that we could possibly use that we could keep like our Christmas decorations in, or if we were TO PURCHASE ANY OF OUR OWN PIECES OF EQUIPMENT....like that.  There is a scenario here that WE tossed that if we were to have a truck load of mulch come in we could buy it in quantity and save some money and that  sort of thing.  There is nothing for that in the budget as well, correct?" 

Yes, we are in red ink - comments.  Transcription will continue in blue and quotes after.   Why would there be figures in any budget for CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS that haven't been brought to the board by a committee for complete open discussion?  McMllin refers to WE in his discussion.  WHO IS WE?  It isn't a committee because he doesn't have one.  He is a committee of one.  When he first came to the board in 2009 he was asked and asked again to form a Grounds Committee.  He stated he didn't want a committee, he worked better this way.  Then who is WE?  It could be WE, as in many of this board who allow things to be interjected and then pretend that it was a plan. Listen to  previous meeting tapes.  This kind of thing happens again and again.   It could appear that it was a plan of the behind closed doors operations of this old boys network.  If you were at the meeting, NOT ONE BOARD MEMBER SAID, 'WHERE DID ANYONE EVER TALK ABOUT A MAINTENANCE BUILDING OR EQUIPMENT, POOL, OR SERIOUSLY ABOUT A PLAYGROUND, AT A MEETING IN THE PRESENCE OF RESIDENTS, SUPPORTED BY A COMMITTEE'S RESEARCH? Most of these board members just let things slide by, so they can place their next idea on the table without interference, or sound back up.  This alone has answered the question as to whether your complacency has led to only three people running for board to fill three vacancies.  It has.  Two of the people running, are running again, because you have sat by while they ran you around the merry go round and you didn't even go to the theme park - the meetings.

Since  questions didn't hit the board table, here are comments and questions.  First note that none of this ridiculous discussion will appear in the sanitized upcoming August minutes. Even if there was road access to this piece of land, why would our association need a maintenance building, maintenance equipment, or a place to store a great deal on mulch, or associated personnel to use such things?  We elect board members to oversee our assets, not start home grown operations.  Next we'll have to add bull work to board and committee job descriptions - on second thought this is a lot of bull. We should have board members who solicit bids to do our maintenance.  A word your board loves - it is precedent here.  The precedent here is to contract the work out.  Why would we build a building and buy equipment for board members to use?  Save a couple hundred dollars on mulch?  McMillin kept us two meetings on his current ground maintenance contract, and added mulch and the spoil site to the maintenance contract.    Why would we ever consider a pool?  McMillin has wanted one since 2009.  At that time a golf course family member sat on the board with us.  He offered the pool to the board stating it would be the association' s responsibility to pay insurance, maintenance, staffing, and we could collect the fees and keep them.  Board members asked for the records of cost for insurance, maintenance, staffing, history of repairs, etc., at least three times and they were never provided.  McMillin kept calling and asking me and others to vote for it, despite the fact we didn't have the information needed to make a good business decision.  Would we ever want to take on the liability, construction, of such a project, and supervise the related employees?  As to the playground, that has been brought up several times.  I attend most meetings and haven't seen the group that was interested at a meetings in almost 2 years.  We are having a problem now with young people gathering at the front gate and landing, and tweens (too young to drive) running around in golf carts without lights, and boom boxes blaring, hanging off the carts, at all times of the day and night.  This board fails to police and question each other. When one asks questions honestly and openly he/she is rebuffed, smirked at and demoted to the least responsible committee assignments by our board president, who is running for board again.  We have one or two who pose questions but don' follow through.  It is a show for your benefit and they allow their cohesive cohorts on the board to continue on.  I received an email from a resident who commented on the fact that we only had three running for board, who said we can expect in 2014, what we have in 2013.   Back to transcription.

Garrison, "NOT AT THIS TIME."  McMillin, So that would have to wait until 2015 as well"  Garrison, "As it stands, yes, I would think so."  This was Garrison's chance to ask where all  this was coming from and find out who "WE" is, but just maybe he is part of "WE"  McMillin, "Does anyone know the status of that property?  President Walton, "Al is still working with that?"  President Walton doesn't ask where all this is coming from. Is he "WE", and just hasn't told you because you haven't called him on any other off the table decisions.  

I've stopped the transcription.  I was at the meeting and I did listen to the tape to the end of this discussion. The board went on to discuss where they were in seeking access to the land mentioned above that was quit claim deeded to the association.  During the discussion McMillin described the pipe that HE sees as necessary to make the land useful.  If only he had a maintenance building he could save us a fortune  He sits on the Water Amenities Committee, how did the old dock work out for us?  We don't know because your board didn't report on it.  Someone on the board and committee posted a sign and advised you to ask me.  Here's your answer:  Your board failed, ignored their own motions, covered up, and allowed this committee to abuse a fellow board and committee member.  It didn't go well and the whole thing lacked ethics and truth.

This section of the meeting was disheartening from an administrative, good governance, good boardmanship, perspective.  I'm not sure why, but maybe it was just the final icing on this miserable poorly, half baked, Wedgefield administrative cake.  It was another indication of what this board is going to do with the findings of the Reserve Study that we all just paid $4,000 for.  We don't have any compliance measurement of this group. Our compliance person is the treasurer.  That is just a big no, no!  When your board isn't properly regulated by true compliance, it is up to the membership. Where are you?

P.S.  Don't build a shed. Clear the junk out of the house at the landing and the gate house.  Get rid of some of those old decorations.  As you drive in, take a look at the gate house which is a land mark piece to our entrance and clean the little trees out of the eves.