The meeting was called to order at 7:15 PM by president Alan Wright. Present were Craig Cowles, Gail Hill, Carole Gabel, Don Woodley, Lynn McDonald, Andy Andersen, Gary Van Horn, Alan Wright, and Robert English. Guests Greg and Margeret Smith were also present. Guest Karen Brown arrived later.
The minutes from the previous meeting were handed out and read by all members. There was one clarification: the “neighbor” splitting the easement for the walkway was Ernie Moreno. Craig made the motion to approve the minutes as corrected, and Gary Van Horn seconded. All approve by voice vote.
Treasurer report: Gail Hill said that there had been no change in the balance sheet from the previous meeting.
Craig Cowles presented two bills: $3,500 for the new sidewalk (to be paid only when the old concrete was removed) and $75.00 for slurry coating work. Craig McLean has received the notice about the eight-inch pipe under his taxiway easement, but he has not changed it – he was actually in the process of hooking it up. Discussion followed about whether eight-inch is truly required in that part of the air park, since the runoff for the field occurs further south. Alan suggested that Craig keep a watch on it since he lives a few houses west of Craig. The overgrowth over the ditch of Plymate’s lot was next on the agenda. The Parity’s house has installed a new water softener which vents to the storm drain instead of the city sewer. This is not in accordance with the plumbing code. The contractor was the one who is ultimately responsible for routing the water properly, and the Paridees are currently trying to get this straight with him. Next on the agenda is the state taxiways which Craig just began mowing (according to what we discussed at the previous meeting). All he can do is to mow it now and then, but there has been no effort on the State’s part to spray these weeds to help keep the taxiway from root erosion. Craig also presented an inventory of the maintenance equipment the airpark currently holds – this is now on file with the secretary.
Architecture: a registered letter was sent to Al Cleveland about his gazebo being three or four feet too close to the runway, which Al refused and sent back unopened. As a replacement for 2004, he suggested Don Husser but the feedback from other members of the board was that he would not do it. Some discussion followed about who else might be available for this position – so far, no one has been found to be the architectural chair for 2004. Alan asked about the lot at the corner of Mooney, and whether the IAHA needs to take any action to cover the difficult easement to the taxiway, and the consensus was that it was not the Board’s responsibility. Carole Gabel added that escrow has not come through on this property yet, so this is a moot point anyhow.
Alan then passed around his collected papers regarding the by-laws change discussed at the previous meeting. The lawyer’s bill came to around $780.00, well within our $1,000.00 spending cap. Alan asked for feedback regarding suggested changes. Gary commented that the language was everything we had discussed at the meeting earlier. Discussion ensued about the ODA’s agreement, which currently is represented as a 30-year agreement renewable at our option every 10 years. The fee is a different matter; the ODA fee schedule is reviewed every two years and increased at their option at that time. Alan’s proposal to the ODA was to hold the fee at $15.00 a month, which is what the Stearman St. agreement currently is and will be until January 2012. ODA wants one agreement for the entire airpark, and that will happen at some point, but looking ahead it would be a nice thing to do eventually to get every section of the airpark on one agreement with the ODA.
Gail praised the job that Alan had done to lighten the treasurer’s load by not making it necessary to tally the tail numbers and owners for each and every airplane in the airpark. Alan explained that his position on that point was that the information gathered would be an informational nightmare that wouldn’t provide much valuable information anyhow. Though the reasoning is understandable, this organization cannot and will not be the enforcement arm for the ODA – especially considering that the treasurer of IAHA is not a paid position.
Alan stated that the informational meeting to introduce these changes to the membership would be in two weeks, and the vote for it would be at the December meeting. Gail asked about proper procedure in adopting a resolution that these motions be presented before the membership, and at first this was considered to be the County’s paperwork that required that but it was in fact the IAHA procedure that requires this.
There was one minor correction noted: Gary Van Horn was listed as being the Secretary instead of Robert English in a couple of spots. Other than that, all seemed to be in order. Alan asked about how mailing ballots was done in the past, whether this required anything special, and Carole said that she had a special stamp to mark the ballots so that returned ballots would be determined official. Alan asked to borrow it and Carole said he could.
The official copy of the Oregon Revised Statutes (chapter 94) was consulted, that the CC&Rs reference (as ORS 94.590), and this document says that 75%, not 2/3, need to approve changes to the bylaws. This makes the coming vote very critical, as if this does not pass then the IAHA does not have the power to put a lien on someone’s property if they do not pay their ingress/egress fee. Discussion about how to mark the ballots to find out who has not voted ensued, as there is no stipulation anywhere in the bylaws that the ballot should be secret. Gail suggested a numbering system in order to find out who has not voted, numbers specific to the piece of land. Gary seconded the motion. All approved by voice vote. The ballots will have numbers on them. The next vote was to present this as a motion to the members-at-large. Gary made the motion to approve, and Gail seconded. All approved by voice vote. The signature sheet went around at this time, for every board member present to sign. While this was done, the next meeting date was decided: the 18th of November, at 7 PM, was decided. The December meeting will be on the 7th at 2 PM.
Aero Larson’s letter of recommendation for the passage of this fees agreement was passed around again, with the idea that it might be included – the length of it, several pages, made the likelihood of it being read a remote possibility. It was decided to reference this letter in the document accompanying the ballot, saying that anyone who wants to read more about this issue could read the letter.
At this point, Gary Van Horn had to leave the meeting, so the remaining points were discussed without him. Copies of an e-mail exchange between Alan Wright and Daren Griffin were passed around and read. The exchange had to do with the finalization of agreement between the ODA and IAHA (the points of which were already discussed earlier tonight). The discussion that arose from this had to do with the Stearman St. agreement being voluntarily given up in order to have one agreement for the whole airpark. Since there were three residents on that street currently in attendance, there was some spirited but civil discussion on this point. Gail proposed a built-in termination for other agreements to roll into the one agreement in 2012. Alan said he would continue to leverage to get a fixed rate for everyone, as a “plan A”, and that Gail’s suggestion would be a “plan B”.
Since Alan was going to be taking off in the next few days, he said he needed to hand off the corrected ballots to someone he knew would be able to mail them out. Carole said she’d be able to help out with that.
Talk returned to the subject of architectural chair, i.e. who would take that chair beginning in 2004. Greg Smith expressed some availability and interest, and this was welcomed – Don said that he would continue to serve on the committee but just not as chairman anymore. Don said he would think about it.
Some discussion was tendered about the previous evening’s ISAS meeting: it started with what exactly was agreed on (not much) and went on to an assessment of what the current state of ISAS has become. Gail, who chaired the meeting last night, said that the organization had reached a critical mass and a redesign would be necessary. Alan added to that by saying that the ISAS groups have been ad-hoc about informing IAHA about their various activities, specifically the ingress/egress agreement last year.
Carole made a pitch for books for the library, specifically books about aviation, to stock the shelves.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:40 PM.
Respectfully submitted by Robert English, secretary.