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The Annual Board of Directors Meeting of the Quail Creek Homeowners Association was held on Monday, October 4, 2021 at 7:00 PM at the home of Perry Swearingen at 275 Pheasant Hill Drive. A quorum was established with 38 members including proxies at the meeting. The meeting was called to order at 7:13 PM. A review of the Rules of Order of Business was presented.

The meeting agenda was presented for approval.

Election of the Permanent Meeting Officers was conducted. All positions were filled by unanimous consent with Bob Steinhagen acting as the Permanent Chair, Ken Daulong as Sargent of Arms, and Debbie Smothermon as Secretary for the meeting.

The minutes from the Annual Meeting on October 5, 2020, were approved as presented.

President Steinhagen began his annual report by allowing homeowners to introduce themselves as several new homeowners were in attendance. The President highlighted actions of the HOA Board over the past year, which included:

1. The President reviewed the reasons that the HOA entered into a contract with Goodwin and Company. He shared that the expectations for the support the HOA would receive were not met and that Board members were actually doing much of the work delegated to the management company. Because of this, the Board canceled the contract with Goodwin and Company Management Company. President Steinhagen reminded homeowners that the HOA is a governing body for the neighborhood and that all homeowners are agreeing to the covenant when they move into the neighborhood.
2. Information was shared to update homeowners on the lawsuit which was settled. The settlement received from the Defendant/homeowner was $7,500. An additional $2,500 was received from Goodwin and Company to help with the cost of legal expenses.
3. An update of legislative changes to HOA law was briefly shared.

The Treasure’s Report was presented by Shana Nalls. Information was provided regarding ongoing expenses for RCH Water, Farmers Electric, and JG Landscaping. Items to be included in the 2022 budget were:  an increase in landscaping costs to replace shrubs lost in the freeze, funding for updating street signage, and sealant for cracks/street repairs. Due to the cost of concrete, major street repairs were not included in the budget, and no special assessment for 2020 to present. No increase in annual dues would occur in 2022.

President Steinhagen shared that changes in HOA laws will require a ballot initiative in order to bring the Quail Creek CC&Rs and Bylaws in compliance with state law. This was previously done in 2015. Board members will study the new laws and current CC&Rs and Bylaws to create a ballot showing old language and new language to assist homeowners in voting for changes. Other items to be included in a ballot initiative include Restructuring of the ARC, prohibition of short-term home rentals, and limiting the number of unrelated tenants within leased homes.

Section 5.10 of the Bylaws allow homeowners to present a motion or motions for inclusion at the Annual Meeting. One motion was presented for consideration:  Homeowner Grant Ashmore presented a motion to charge the new HOA Board to study costs for continued improvements to the Clint Packer Memorial Park and bring information back to homeowners. Motion passed.

Election of the 2021-2022 HOA Board members was conducted. The following slate of officers was presented for voting and approved by unanimous consent:

President – Bob Steinhagen

Vice President – Ken Daulong

Treasurer – Shana Nalls

Secretary – TBD

Members at Large – Herb Harker, Beverly Stibbens, Daryl York

ARC Members – Perry Swearingen (Chair), Shawn Allen, Grant Ashmore

The slate of officers was approved as presented. Receiving the majority of votes for the ARC committee, Perry Swearingen will serve as the ARC Chair.

President Steinhagen reminded all homeowners of the upcoming Annual National Night Out to be held on Tuesday, October 6, 2021 at the Clint Packer Memorial Park. All homeowners were encouraged to attend and meet new neighbors and local law enforcement who attend the event.

The meeting adjourned at 9:12 PM.

The Board of Directors voted unanimously to end the management contract with Goodwin & Associates [G&A] and return to self-management. The Board determined that after three years, the management company provided no real benefit to the Association or the Board while the engagement created unnecessary costs and significant burdens to the board and homeowners.

Until March of 2018, the Association was governed and managed by fellow homeowners, board members who are elected at the annual meeting.  However, as those who have served on the board understand, the work is not limited to the regular monthly meeting as there are ongoing responsibilities, especially for positions that carry the greatest burden of management, which include the Treasurer, Secretary, and the Architectural Review Committee [ARC].

When interviewing management companies, G&A’s sales team made service claims and promises that the board has determined were either inflated or completely false. G&A’s sales pitch was punctuated by their claim that the burdens of management would lessen to such an extent that the board might consider a change from monthly to quarterly meetings (though Bylaws require that the board meet monthly).

However, during open deliberation to terminate the contract, board discussion centered on the realities of services received:

• Over the entire term of the contract, G&C exhibited little to no understanding of Quail Creek’s Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions [CC&Rs], which has resulted in the majority of G&A’s violation reports to be for items that are not in violation at all, which included the May report.
  • After homeowners were consistently mailed notices for offenses that were actually not violations, the board stopped G&A from sending notices automatically and from that point forward, required G&A to get direction from the board before taking action. Despite this, several homeowners received unauthorized violation notices for matters that were in compliance with the CC&Rs.
  • The board ended up creating its own spreadsheet to manage violation notices, which was not something that G&A provided, to keep track of timelines and action steps. There are instances where G&A was unable to provide the Board with either accurate timelines or proper evidence that proper procedure was followed, which resulted in added costs to the Association and time-consuming added effort of the Board.
  • Regardless of the severity of a violation, any violation notice sent by G&A included an administrative cost to the homeowner, regardless of how minor the offense, where all notices sent by G&A were delivered via US Mail.  So, to mitigate the cost to homeowners for violation notices, the board instituted a new process of first sending a “courtesy notice of violation” by email from the board, before authorizing G&A to begin the costly process of mailing violation notices.
  • The Board also had to begin requiring that any notice sent to a homeowner via certified US mail also be copied and sent via regular mail, since homeowners have sometimes refused certified mail from the HOA in the past.
• G&A claimed to provide legal services to the HOA when selling the contract to the Board. In fact, during the 2019 annual meeting where the G&A representative “ran” the meeting, homeowners were again reminded about the added value that G&A brings because their in-house legal counsel provides legal services to the Association, should the need arise.
  • However, G&A does not provide legal services and their in-house legal counsel, if G&A has it, is limited to credit reporting and collections.
  • The Board also discovered that the G&A contract actually indemnified them from any legal action, which leaves the HOA completely exposed to actions taken on behalf of the Association with or without the Board’s knowledge, authorization, or understanding. This means that if G&A is sued by a homeowner of QC, the Association must pay for G&A’s attorney fees for their defense, and if they lose, the Association pays the judgment.
  • The insurance policy which protects Board members from personal liability, a policy that G&A directed the Association to purchase, does not cover G&A.
• G&A exhibited a lack of understanding of the Association’s policies as well as state and federal law governing HOA’s when taking action on behalf of the Association.
  • Before taking legal action against an uncooperative homeowner who was in violation of the CC&Rs, the board decided to re-do the state-required & board-policy instituted process of official notices to the homeowner, as G&A could not provide the board with sufficient proof that the process was precisely followed.
  • At last year’s annual meeting, members had approved a special assessment for street repairs, however, that vote was challenged by a homeowner for improper notice, and the Board withdrew it because G&A failed to include state-required wording in the meeting notice that a special assessment was up for consideration, which meant that most homeowners were completely unaware of the proposal.
• Last year’s annual assessment notice was incorrect and had to be re-mailed to homeowners because the increase to the Assessment was not included.  There were several homeowners who had already mailed in their assessment payment before they received the second notice, which required further follow-up by the board & G&A to recoup the difference. That led the board to require G&A to receive board approval of any draft for mailings intended for the entire membership.
  • Despite this, G&A mailed out this year’s annual assessment without the board’s review and approval, and in spite of the board president’s notice to G&A of the contract termination, which included the following wording: “…we request that G&C cease all services that require additional service fees, immediately.  This includes the upcoming annual assessment mailing that is scheduled.” Not only was the mailing unauthorized, but again, homeowners were billed for an incorrect amount.

Discussion to terminate also centered on the charges incurred by homeowners for G&A’s administrative costs, which the Board agreed was out of proportion to what is reasonable for a neighborhood with just 69 homes, especially since the Board is actually doing most of the work.

• Meeting minutes have continued to be the job of the Board Secretary, not G&A.
• The Association pays just three regular bills per month, along with a few others that are infrequent, and also provides title companies with resale certificates (at a cost of $250 to the homeowner, where before it cost just $50).  While having G&A pay these bills creates the impression that the Treasurer’s work is lessened, our current and past Treasurer have highlighted the added burden of playing watchdog over G&A accounting, as overcharges and mischarges to the Association has been an all-to-frequent occurrence, which has created more work for them, not less.
• The ARC has continued to do its work without the assistance or guidance of G&A.

In summary, while the work of the volunteer Board to self-manage the Association can sometimes be time-consuming, G&A’s actions actually added to the Board’s monthly burden, which resulted in the Board managing the management company.

In the future, for those rare instances that a homeowner refuses to come into compliance with CC&R’s following state-mandated notification efforts by the Board, the Board, in compliance with the established state-mandated policy, will turn over further compliance efforts to an attorney to remedy the matter in a court of law, the cost of which will be incurred by the homeowner, not the Association.

The deliberation to terminate the G&C contract was included on the last three Board Agendas (March, April, & May), however, when G&A contacted the board’s president in response to the termination notice, they claimed that the termination was a complete surprise.

Since last October when the special assessment was passed for street improvement the HOA has received full or partial payments from all but two homeowners.  These payments have given the HOA special assessment fund enough dollars to proceed in procuring additional comparison bids on the work before we proceed to make sure we are getting maximum value for the residents of Quail Creek.  The Board (officers and ARC members) felt this was prudent since the last bid we received on the work was almost 1 year ago and most bids are only valid for a period of 60 days from when they were quoted.

To date we have contacted six contractors.  Two of the contractors did not reply, one of the contractors replied they do not work with homeowners associations, and we received three price quotes for the work orders for the crack repair and concrete section replacement.

All prices are relatively similar to what we were told last year when the special assessment was presented to the homeowners in October.  A big thank you to Cary Hughes for attaining additional contractor contacts and assisting with bids!   Kudos to Kevin Court, too!  He has contributed valuable professional expertise in evaluating our bids and coaching us on pitfalls to avoid.  Please extend your thanks to these guys when you see them.  We want them to know that they are appreciated!

What’s up first?  The Board has agreed that repair of the existing cracks on the streets away from the front entrance is paramount at this time to prevent further deterioration.  Having these cracks filled should prevent water penetration which in turn means we should be preventing further damage for quite some time once we get this issue addressed.

We have not forgotten about the front entrance deterioration and we will continue to monitor that area carefully and make patching repairs as needed until the next batch of special assessment funds become available.  With the amount of rain received this year and the ground remaining saturated, the front entrance degradation has been slower than anticipated.

To those homeowners that have made payments towards the special assessment, thank you for your help in getting this project off the ground.  Please remember if you are delaying full payment, this limits our ability to move forward with additional repairs. However, we understand that installments are necessary for some homeowners.  If you have the ability to make an early payment or complete the full assessment payment, that obviously helps tremendously in the HOA Board’s ability to plan the next stage of work.

We hope to see some movement on this project in the coming weeks.  Please be patient as the work crews make the necessary repairs and also as we gather additional funds to complete remaining concrete replacement and repairs.

A great big THANK YOU to homeowners David & Misty (and their daughter Ashleigh) Hoye for sacrificing their Saturday morning to help improve and beautify Quail Creek.

The fence that runs along Pheasant Hill for fifty yards at the turn where Quail Creek Road ends and Pheasant Hill Drive begins, has always been a blight on the neighborhood. During last November’s Board meeting, David, who has teamed up with fellow member of the Archectural Review Committee (ARC)  David Fuller to apply “cold patch” to the cracks at the entrance of our neighborhood, moved to approach the landowner for permission to paint the side of the fence that faces Quail Creek.

The Board approved the motion by unanimous consent and the landowner graciously gave consent.

Using their personal electric generator and spray paint gun, David and Misty, under Ashleigh’s supervision, started early this morning.  In a matter of hours the red-primer & rust laden fence was transformed to a classic glossy black.  Work was slowed on occasion as several neighbors stopped to thank David & Misty for their efforts, but by noon the work was complete.

If you see David or Misty, be sure to thank them for their continued efforts to help make Quail Creek such a wonderful place to live!