President Alan Wright called the meeting to order at 7:00 PM. Present were Craig Cowles, Don Woodley, Carol Gabel, Gail Hill, Dick Paridee, Lynn McDonald, and Andy Andersen. Phyllis Upright arrived while the meeting was underway.
The
minutes of last week’s meeting were passed around, and Gail Hill made the
motion to approve the minutes as read.
Lynn McDonald seconded. All
approved by voice vote.
The
pictures which were shown at the last meeting were brought out again for the
review of those attending who were not at last week’s meeting. It was further explained that the current
taxiways are in fact overlays on top of the original taxiways, so the original
gravel bed has not been disturbed since the taxiways were first made.
Alan
passed around copies of a letter that he had drafted which presented the
information that we had gone over in the previous meeting.
When
talk came to the possibility of a general meeting on this subject, the point
was brought up that it is the Board’s responsibility to set and maintain
policy. While notifying the homeowners
is a nice thing to do, bringing them in on
the decision is not necessary since the Board has the job of doing what
is necessary to maintain the common property (which includes the 18” section of
gravel alongside the taxiways).
Putting
this into the CC&Rs requires a vote of the membership to institute, and
that is the only reason that the Board would need to solicit the approval of
the Airpark residents. If our properly
maintaining these taxiways requires this change to the CC&Rs, then this amendment needs to be made. If the rule can be made without changing the
CC&Rs, then it would be well within the Board’s authority to do so. Reviewing the CC&R booklet, it calls for
a simple majority to amend the by-laws, but also (on page 9) sets the authority
of the Board to “manage property of the Association”. The diagram on page 29 of that booklet, which shows the taxiway
and 18” border, shows the essence of the policy being considered. A suggestion was made to simply modify this
drawing to make the 18” border area plainer.
The
question was raised as to whether some of the current taxiway gravel needs to
be redone along the edge. Some of them
do need to be redone, but it’s not a serious problem yet. There was some more discussion about what
kind of material might be better than gravel, and various sizes of gravel
points, and this size of gravel was confirmed to be the most economical while
providing the best road bed. There was
also some discussion about the pipe used in the drainage ditch along the
taxiway, if that should have to be replaced anywhere, and the 8” standard was
confirmed.
An
idea was put forward to publish the informational letter along with the next
newsletter that goes out, and then to individually contact specific people who
are in violation of this standard. The
general meeting for approval of this measure would not be pursued in this case. Another idea was to go to the violators
individually before the letter is published, so that they can get into
compliance beforehand. This was
strictly informational, however, and the first idea (to publish and then
contact) was the one that was decided upon.
In other business: Andy Andersen briefly went over the ingress/egress proposal as presented in Harry Bladow’s letter (which was passed around). Some discussion of this issue ensued, the general agreement being that the proposal (per-lot rather than per-airplane assessment) was a good one. A letter from IAHA, to accompany the one already prepared by Harry Bladow, was requested in lieu of actual attendance of the meeting at the Eagle Crest lodge in Redmond. Some discussion followed as to what form the letter would take, and what concerns would be expressed in it. The main concern that emerged was whether the collected money would be used to help maintain the airport or would be used elsewhere. An early detail emerged from this discussion, that the FAA didn’t want the Independence airpark built in the first place, but a fee was assessed per lot from the beginning in order for this airpark to be self-sufficient. There was much more discussion about various types of fees and how they might be assessed. The main headache is how to administer a per-plane assessment, that a per-lot fee would be easier since no one needs to look in anyone’s hangar to see if they have a plane or not. The fact that this plan has no equality for those without hangars is a concern however.
Alan
asked whether he’d be writing this letter on the Board’s behalf, and who wanted
to review it once he had written it.
Andy replied that the requested letter would be on behalf of the IAHA
Board, and also suggested what form the discussed concerns could take. Alan said that if anyone wants to see a copy
of the letter before he sends it out, that they should e-mail him and he would
send it to them for review.
The
meeting was adjourned at 9:17 PM. Next
meeting is to be on September 9 at 7:00 PM.
Respectfully
submitted by Robert English, secretary.