The meeting was called to order at 7:16 by president Alan Wright. Present were Carole Gabel, Lynn McDonald, Gail Hill, Alan Wright, Gary Van Horn, Phyllis Upright, Greg Smith, Craig Cowles, and Robert English. Guests at tonight’s meeting: Harry Malette, Larry Kruljac, Miles Towner, Don and Linda Woodley, John Sedey, John Husser, Jim Kirkendall, Wanda Van Hoomissen, Dan Hill, Bobbi Keeler, Paul Psenster, and Katie Altman.
Minutes of the previous meeting (May 11) were passed around and read by the officers present. Gary suggested adding the option of litigation besides the “letter-writing” mentioned as an option for IAHA enforcement of CC&Rs. There were a couple of minor punctuation and spelling corrections. Gary Van Horn moved that the minutes be approved as corrected. All approved by voice vote.
Treasurer’s report: Gail handed out the net worth report as of today – the Association currently has $87,223.37 in the bank (most of which is earmarked for taxiway maintenance). There is one proposal on the table, to increase the maximum cap on the sidewalk work to $3,400.00, because the actual work wound up costing another $400.00 over and above what the contractor had figured. Gary seconded the motion, and all approved by voice vote.
Maintenance report: Crack seal and slurry coating is on-going, and is on track. Craig had eight proposals with him for a new tractor in order to keep up with the Airport grass. The workhorses that have been doing the job for us up to this point are wearing out, and will need to be to be replaced. We also have an opportunity to upgrade so that the drainage ditch work that had been discussed earlier could be done without having to hire out an external contrator. He went through each one, comparing features on each for those present, and said that the John Deere tractor was the one he favored. Gary asked if the machines were comparable, and Craig said that the horsepower was the same on each one. Gary moved approval of the purchase of the Deere tractor, and Gail Hill seconded. After some discussion, including Alan’s point about whether a wider one had been suggested at a previous meeting (Craig answered that there were many tight spots that couldn’t be accessed by a wider machine), all approved by voice vote.
Architectural Chair report: the Committee met four times since May, approving one new project each time. There were no pending projects, but there were more on the way.
New business: Harry Malette suggested that the next newsletter have an article remind folks to look in the CC&Rs, article 4 section 7 (dealing with storing things long-term, such as motor homes or boats, on the property). He suggested the article be worded to remind people to take appropriate action to keep their property looking nice in accordance with the CC&Rs. Alan said that he would be glad to add a mention of that in his article for the next newsletter.
Guest Paul Psenster, at Harry Malette’s request, passed out some flyers about the “Hop and Heritage Festival” which will be held downtown on September 24th. This will be the first year that the Airport will be incorporated into the festival. There will be shuttle busses going between downtown and the Airport, and there will be some further coordination to highlight the Airport and make it a crown jewel of the celebration. Alan asked if there had been any effort at contacting the ODA, and Paul responded that they had contacted several organizations including the FAA but didn’t remember offhand (they probably had). Carole suggested notifying the Block Heralds so that folks here who have antique aircraft could be notified and bring those airplanes out for the Festival. Phyllis asked who would be the guy that people should contact after talking to the Block Herald, and Harry said that he should be the one to call.
Miles Towner was next on the agenda – he provided survey maps from the County to show that the easement specified needed to be changed. He requested that the IAHA be the responsible party and move the ditch so that he could put his hangar where he wanted it. He said he did not want to reposition his hangar, and therefore “give up” 20 feet of his property. Gail Hill chimed in saying that if they go ahead and build their own hangar then Miles would have a serious problem of access. There were questions that came up at this time: one was about the environmental impact report that might have to be filed before a ditch could be moved. Also, whether Miles had taken a discount on the property in the beginning and his issue was actually with the original property owner and not with IAHA. Gary suggested at this point that they needed a specific request in writing so that it could be evaluated properly. Miles said he had talked with people at City Hall, and that the best sense for drainage meant that the pipe should continue straight. Alan said at this point that more research was needed, since there was so much data missing, and once this was put in writing for the IAHA’s consideration that they could discuss it rationally.
Alan then brought up the possibility that there were “holes” in the process of architectural approval process. The discussion from this point had to do with the original approval process on Miles’ property. The consensus was that Miles had asked for approval of the house only and that he would be building a hangar later after he had worked out the issue with the drainage ditch. There was also the issue, one that Harry brought up, that the ditch was in fact a Federally-engineered drainage ditch and that nothing can be done with it without Federal approval. Much more discussion ensued, including the actual architectural committee meeting where this house was approved (present at that particular meeting in the Fall of ‘03 : Don Woodley, Linda Woodley, Larry Kruljac, Jim Kirkendall, Carole Gabel, Wanda and Gerry Van Hoomissen, Buzz Thede, and Miles Towner) and that easement adjustments like this had never been the responsibility of the Homeowners Association. Other drainage ditches, and their relative conditions, were also discussed by the attendees. Craig mentioned that he had cleaned drainage ditches for nothing in one case in order to keep the drainage from backing up, and wondered aloud if a contractor could be hired and a lien put on the homeowner’s property. Alan said he had talked to that particular homeowner and had secured a promise from him that the ditch would be cleaned out by him this Fall. Another point was brought up in discussion – a row of new trees planted along Stryker Road has proven to be a visibility hazard and several people have nearly had accidents at that intersection. It was determined that the City has an ordinance against this, and that the City could be the ones to enforce this. Returning to the issue at hand, Alan asked what kind of precedent there was for IAHA policy if someone wanted to cover a drainage ditch – it was certainly the policy to maintain the open ditches, but the policy was unclear about covered ones. Harry brought up the point that the Architectural Committee have traditionally been the inspectors on drainage pipe installation. Don Woodley said that he had personally done many inspections, and in some cases made the property owners change to larger pipe. Gary said that the policy from the beginning at the Airpark has been to establish all the plans on paper and come to complete agreement before anything was built. Various policy suggestions for pipe dimensions and type were floated, as there had been at some previous meetings, but no agreement was reached. Cooperation with City officials was also brought up, as a possible means of helping to enforce CC&Rs, but their actual role is more of an assist in the approval process and not an enforcer of local Airpark regulations. John Sedey brought up the variance that was drawn up for him when he had a similar issue with his property. Gary had a process comment: that we needed a proposal from Miles Towner in writing and then to have an executive session with possible legal assistance. Gail Hill seconded the motion. During further discussion, points were brought up about amounts to spend on legal advice and possible repercussions if the Board turned Miles down and waited to see what kind of reaction comes of that. Gary suggested the $3,000.00 cap on legal advice, in the event that a letter be received from Miles Towner about modifying the Board’s payment for changing the flow of the drainage ditch. The key point here was that we would spend no money until we receive the letter from Towner. Gail Hill seconded, and all approved by voice vote.
The next point was maintenance of that ditch, from the top of the ditch to Stryker. Craig said that IAHA was the only party that has historically done anything about cleaning that ditch out. A proposal was put forward to call Mick Wood to give the Association a bid on the cost of cleaning the ditch out. After lengthy discussion, pro and con, it was ascertained that this ditch was very important to the drainage of the entire airpark. Alan said that he would talk to Mick and see if an estimate and deadline could be ascertained. Then the Board could discuss it further.
The ingress/egress meeting was mentioned, saying that the agreement as signed has been recorded at the County offices. The rest of the meeting agenda for tonight was officially tabled until the next meeting. The review of the IAHA position and tactics regarding the ODA divestiture policy was touched on, and this quickly turned into an active discussion. The consensus was that the neighborhood should be prepared to fight this as, and when, necessary.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:30 PM. The next meeting date was suggested to be the 14th of September, same time and same place. Repectfully submitted by Robert English, secretary.