As always, listen to the tape of the meeting to verify for yourself. I attended the meeting, and have provided the following information to the best of my ability. Comments, will be noted as such, as they are printed in RED
The three committee reports are: Finance, Grounds, and Roads. The two board members are Cline and Anderson. The committee reports mentioned in this article are not complete, but allow me to make the point. Complete reports will follow later.
Finance: Treasurer DeMarchi states that he, and Kathy have been contacting banks for a better interest rate. He would like to transfer all the money from Edward Jones to a new account. He goes on to mention a few banks, amongst them, South Atlantic, that offers .3%, He says they pay much more than Edward Jones, which pays .1%.
Cline questions moving the money, and wants proof that it is more. She feels more money is made at Edward Jones. It isn't just the .1%. We have made more on purchasing CD's through Edward Jones. Garrison says that based on what DeMarchi says, he would propose closing out Edward Jones, because he believes there are better opportunities at the bank. DeMarchi comes back saying that the banks offer CD's, but interest rates are so low. Finally, a board member suggests that they transfer $50,001 from Edward Jones to South Atlantic, and leave $58,000 in Edward Jones. The motion passes.
Cline exposed what DeMarchi, would not. I'm not sure why. As Treasurer, he should know the true value of Edward Jones, as past Treasurer, Cline does. Edward Jones may only pay .1% today, but they continue to offer partial CD's, at much higher rates. In my humble terms, these CD's were previously negotiated by other parties, with large dollar amounts, and a maturity term. If the originator has to exit the contract, usually with penalties, Edward Jones makes the balance of the contract available, at a higher rate, than today's rate. Thank you Board Member, Cline for speaking out, and reminding, and re-educating all of us.
Roads:
Roads Chair, Anderson, reports that they have been doing some cold patching. He is also ready to start evaluating our roads, for another project. He has contacted several engineering firms, and proposes that we hire Earth Works. They would assist in evaluating the road areas most in need, prepare the bid package, contract, and provide project oversight, with their contract, not to exceed $3,250. DeMarchi wants to know if we can just get the asphalt??? Anderson wants the project handled as the last project was. He says he doesn't know roads. In the end, the board votes to approve. Anderson, should be thanked for sticking with professional engineering and oversight. Quite frankly, he, or any other board member, does not have to be an authority on roads, building, etc., their job is to have enough knowledge of good business practices, and bring the right people in to perform the services for a job well done, at our expense. The rest of this board, minus the newest member (Ebert), have continually spouted about their expertise, to the detriment of many of our projects, that have cost us more in the end, because they didn't have a plan. Some how, this board listens to Anderson, when they have failed in the past, to hear another board member, asking for engineering, oversight, etc. Anderson, followed the same path with a successful outcome, about a year ago. At that time, at least two large areas had to be done again, after we had paid for them to be done a few years, prior. Then, a board member, who sat on the Roads Committee, wanted engineering, on what ended up to be a $29,000 failure, and the contractor was sighted by the state. Here is what three of the current board members had to say about the request for engineering. The following was taken from WPA meeting minutes.
McBride," What I would like the board to approve, is to approve the roads committee to search for technical support to determine what we actually need to do with these 42 spots that we have out there. Before they get any worse, ok, and procure bids for that at the same time we need to search for what money we might have available to do the job. But there will be a cost with this help that we need. I think we need the help because there are too many different ways to patch something and the best way and there is an affordable way and we need the affordable way.
Bob Garrison: In my view, that’s what we’re paying the guys that’s doing the paving to figure out. To bring in an engineering firm or a manager, whatever you’re suggesting I think is just wasted money. We’re not talking about sending something to Neptune here, we’re talking about paving roads. That’s a fairly straight forward concept I think there’s enough expertise here with people that do this and have done it, Johnny & Jacky, that we don’t have a pretty good idea of what we can spec to without having to spend money to tell us that. That’s just my view.
Jacky Walton: Can I make a comment? This is just my recent past experience, I used a paving company to come out and do some patching for me. This particular company had their own engineer in-house, so when we contacted them they sent him out to observe and to give a quote based on their engineers specs.
Johnny Huggins: Why can’t we get the road committee look into the specs?
John McBride: I did, I got a book, I haven’t had Kathy print them out because the book probably 100 pages long. I’m not a road expert, (COMMENT: This is what Anderson said, but now these three guys, will listen, and vote his way, without demeaning him, or getting nasty) I cannot do this. I can look at what we need to do but I cannot specify what we need to do the right job on these patches, some of these patches wouldn’t have been done with what I know now, would not have been done the way they were done, ok, so I don’t feel like I can rely on a contractor to do what I need an engineer to tell me what’s the best most affordable to make, let’s just say, a cul-de-sac useable to us for a long period of time. Stuff we have going through these cul-de-sacs today they are tearing it up. Just tearing it up, so what do we need to do, how thick does that asphalt need to be, how thick does that base need to be, what kind of base do we need to use its complex, it’s not simple. One of the things we’re seeing where these roads are alligatoring you see a lot cracks and you see a lot of sand on there, that’s the base coming through the cracks. So you’re losing the base. New base has to go in, all that has to come out and it’s because of water. But I can look and see if there’s a company that has that but what do I do if I can’t find one? (COMMENT: When Anderson brought engineers in on his first project, everything said here, needed to be done.)
Bob Garrison: Let me ask you a question. Are ya’ll prepared at this point to move ahead you already got this other $9,000 approved, right? We’ve got plenty of stuff to do that doesn’t take an engineer or a rocket scientist or anybody else to figure out where some of these holes are. Now what the best way to fill them is to be is open to question, I understand that, are ya’ll prepared to spend that $9,000 now with the guy we got?
Johnny Huggins: Then you have another month without any road repair.
John McBride: It’s not going to hurt us? We’ve been months right now. I just don’t want to spend money and not get value for it.
Jacky Walton: Well, here’s one of the problems if we don’t address some of these holes now, if we wait another month, we wait another 2 months instead of spending $1,000 to repair these holes we’ll be spending $10,000 to repair because we didn’t repair them now. (Board Commotion) Inaudible (COMMENT: First, as you read Garrison's comments above, obviously the board did not have the expertise, Garrison claims. He and his crew on the board, usually love to state their "EXPERTISE". Second, read Walton's comments again. If you attend board meetings, they are always in a hurry to get to it, and we suffer for their lack of EXPERTISE, AND IN THEIR HURRY, THEIR FAILURE TO USE SOUND BUSINESS PRACTICES. Two years ago, the gatehouse, had to be done. Garrison, as Legal Chair, would not listen, or seek legal opinion regarding conflict of interest, and voted with his cronies, to give a contract to the WPA president's firm. The work still isn't complete.
John McBride: I’m saying, to spend $9,000 it will take $15,000 to do the same amount of work….in other words he’s going charge us too much money, by $5,000. I’m not willing to spend $5,000 to throw away. That’s more than $10.00 a person here. That’s a lot of money Johnny.
Jacky Walton: I agree with what you’re saying, but here’s another problem, do you know asphalt? You don’t have a couple more months and they’ll be shutting the plants down. So now you’ll be waiting until the spring of next year.
John McBride: I think we can take the major holes we have and fix them.
Bob Garrison: How many big holes do we have?
Jacky Walton: Who’s going to check them?
Bob Garrison: Well you know where they are.
Jacky Walton: I make a motion that we use Myrtle Paving to continue with the paving using the remaining $9,000 from the budget.
John McBride: That’s not going to complete the work, though.
Bob Garrison: Well, we know that. You’re never going to complete the road paving work because….
John McBride: I want to take that $9,000 with a new contract, if we put it out for bids and do it in the right way, ok. Use some of that money with an engineering company so we correct these problems the right way.
Johnny Huggins: We got a motion.
Bob Garrison: Second of all if you’re using some of the money for this engineering firm then you don’t have much money in terms now it’s not a $1.25 a square foot anymore. It’s $1.25-1.30 a square foot plus the engineering firm divided by that number of square feet. When we get all done, we probably talking about less than $1.00 a square foot and waiting 3 more months to do it.
Bob Garrison: Alright, any other discussion?
Larry McMillin: For the sake of timing and everything I think this is the right way to go with this. I think if we prioritize the areas that we want done to get the worst ones done first and whenever he runs out of money that’s it. We have a new budget coming up give me some figures you think you need for next year and dollar amount and we will work it in. For expediency and the fact that the school buses are going to start coming in next week we need to get something done. We’ve waited all summer. (COMMENTS: Yes, McMillin is in a hurry too! The problem is that he never stands up for quality, and sound use of our money. How did that work on the gatehouse?
Bob Garrison: Alright, any other discussion?
Johnny Huggins: Ok, he just resigned. From Roads.
John McBride: Yep, I’m done. If I don’t get the help I need to do….
Bob Garrison: If you don’t get your way….. (Commotion)
Johnny Huggins: That’s ok, let’s not argue.
Bob Garrison: All those in favor of the motion presented by Jacky , signify by saying aye.
Motion passes 7 to 1.
So, we're back to comments in red, as we end the second committee report. Again, Anderson should be thanked for handling his projects in a credible, business manner. DeMarchi's comment, should be considered, because our board hasn't lost the disease, that took us down the $29,000 project, discussed in the minutes above. The "expertise", "we've got to get it done now", "volunteers can do it", continue to be symptoms, of the disease, because this board, in general, and in mass, continue to vote "yes", in these shoddy circumstances.
Grounds:
For now, we are only going to address one portion of this report, which was given by McMillin, because he has another less than professional manner, for handling a money situation, which has to be cleaned up by another board member - Cline.
McMillin, starts off saying that he wants to get ready for spring planting. He'll need plants, and compost, etc. He'll need about $1,250. If approved, he'd like a check prepared, and CASHED, and THE CASH KEPT IN THE OFFICE. He says that he has two, or three places that he has to make purchases at, and he'll bring receipts back, and pull the cash as he needs it. Our President, questions how many places he has to go, but does not question this method! Cline, doesn't appear to think that it should be handled that way, and suggests that he call for checks, as he needs them. A second thanks to Cline, for holding this board to standard business practices!
What can one say to this? It should be noted that during this very board meeting, that it was reported that 5 or 6 cars in the association had been entered, and some robbed of electronics, etc. We're going to declare, at an open meeting, that we have decided to store $1,250 IN CASH, IN THE OFFICE??? Quite frankly, that is the least of our problems with this situation. What sound, prudent, business person does this stuff? Some on this board, elected him TREASURER, at one point!
