The Annual Meeting of the Association was held on February 22, 2021. The meeting was held in the open-air pavilion adjacent to the South Irving Library at 601 Schulze Drive as CoViD-19 restrictions prohibited meeting in the main building.
It was a beautiful 67˚night that was accompanied by the sound of ducks and geese in the pond. Discussions were led by Randy Ranew (President), Natalie Brink (Vice President), and Shedrick Jackson (Secretary).
Randy Ranew opened the meeting with a brief history of the how he was asked by a struggling 2020 board to step in as president to get the Association back on track and how he was learning the role, which he described as “a lot more time-consuming and complex than most would think”.
Financial Overview – Randy Ranew reported the long term financial condition of the Association as healthy and the short term situation as bumpy.
Beverly Oaks has $100,000 in its capital reserves to fund future replacement of aging water mains and roadway repairs which will be $200,000+ in future years. Randy thanked the last 12 boards for identifying these needs, having amendments passed to insure the funds would be set aside and protected, and for setting aside the funds each year according to the reserve plan.
Randy was also reported that the Emergency Reserve was at its required $17,000 level. $1,000 needed to be replenished (as required by the CC&R) to replace funds spent in 2019 to repair a water main break in the southeast section of the community.
Randy shared his frustration with the $21,000 in uncollected accounts he inherited. The problem emerged in 2019 and continued forward. As a result, the Association struggled to pay its bills in November and December 2020 and has had to raise dues to cover expenses. "Nobody wanted this type of dues increase. I certainly don't".
The DealyBlend law firm has been retained to collect delinquent dues, most of which predated CoViD-19. The Association will begin credit reporting on delinquencies starting in 2021.
Robert Bauer - Randy thanked Robert Bauer for being a reliable technical consultant to the board since Robert stepped down from board leadership at the end of his 2018 term. Robert has served as a consulting board member for 2 years and has been an invaluable resource for explaining how things work.
In addition to being an consultant, Robert agreed to manage the Association’s brokerage account for one year (2020) and earned $14,000 for the reserve in the stock market.
Robert also agreed, at my request, to come out of retirement to host one last election (2021) after efforts to run the 2019/2020 election with a Canadian company failed.
Capital Projects – Natalie Brink explained that there are three funded and approved projects planned for 2021; an exit gate, security cameras, and traffic spikes.
The security camera system is on order. It will have two state of the art high resolution cameras (significantly higher than Ring cameras) that can read license plates in many situations. It will also have a Ring camera (or similar) for alerting the board of suspicious activity.
An exit gate design will be circulated in April for owner feedback. There was discussion of the pro and cons of a "pivot arm" vs a "swing gate" vs a "sliding gate". There was also discussion about "direct drive" vs "chain drive".
The traffic spikes are tentatively scheduled to be replaced in late summer. The 2017 board had owner approval and purchased a new set of spikes in 2017 to install when the roadwork was complete. We are still waiting for the installation of new water/sewer lines to be completed
Management Company – Randy explained that Beverly Oaks and Guardian Management will end their working agreement at the end of February. Guardian has changed its business model and its relationship with Beverly Oaks is no longer a good fit for either party. “It’s a big job making this transition. Losing a week in February has made it harder.”
Owners are encouraged to pay assessments by debit/credit during the transition and over the next 3-4 weeks.
Mandatory Services – Randy gave an update on the status of Landscaping/ Tree/ Trimming/ Fertilization/ and Painting and the plans to continue with the same service contractors that have been proving services in recent years. It's a contractor's market right now with a shortage of workers. The existing contracts are at or below market prices. New contractors require a lot of supervisory time.
He explained that the Association is continuing its practice of purchasing “B” level quality services, for the lowest prices possible.
“My goal is to negotiate the best prices we can get for “B” services. I know money can be saved by if we switch to cheap paints or hire the landscapers that cut the grass at McDonalds or lower our insurance coverage. The community did that years ago and it did not work out well . It took up to eight years to recover in some areas."
Randy thanked Natalie Brink for her management of the mail/package room and for overseeing quick recoveries when the door/keypads needed repair.
Capital Land Sale – Shedrick Jackson reported that the City of Irving is looking to purchase a 471 square foot easement at the far northeast corner of the property to install sewer lines. The construction is currently planned to cut through the area where the electric service, traffic spikes, and wall are currently located.
Board Candidates/Election – Anyone interested in serving the community may declare their candidacy for the Board of Directors here: https://beverly-oaks.org/forms/board-candidates.htm
