HPP Biz

[mermaid53]

I see 2 problems with this statement from the President. 1. As has previously been posted several times on this thread (and recently)the membership has only voted in the Oct. 2015 meeting to require the Board to postpone chip seal until they have presented the membership with the facts and figures involved in this costly process and then the membership can give approval or not to chip seal. After all, it's the members money.

2. The attorney must have given his opinion as a result of some sort of disinformation from the board of directors who posed the question to him. Chip seal is not road maintenance, the association doesn't need County, State and Federal permits and permission for maintenance but we sure do for chip seal and including a licensed contractor.

Again what is the reason the board has so much resistance and combativeness to let the membership decide whether WE want chip seal or not? If they truly care about the best interest of the association, they'd do the presentation and let the membership vote. If they truly had the best interest of the association in mind, the whole proposed project would be totally transparent. They have been tight lipped about the whole project. If they're planning on doing this in house w/out an engineer and experienced professionals involved....red flag.

Going to an attorney to see whether they can overturn a membership vote only proves their arrogance and their resistance and combativeness towards the membership. They are only volunteers who are supposed to be representing us. They have a history of constantly breaking our bylaws, not having their ducks in a row and making hasty decisions. Red flag for this size of a project.

Obie pointed out that there are other professionals out there, but the board told us there was only one and they were going full steam ahead w/that guy until Orchidland filed a suit against him. They then changed their direction to do it all in house at that point. Not look for another chip seal contractor....why? When a member at a board mtg asked whether the board had rented out chip seal equipment already, they wouldn't reply. Why? When asked if they were doing the work in house, again no reply. Why?

The board keeps insisting this is called road "maintenance". This is far from being road "maintenance" if you need permits and a contractor's license as knowing members keep saying. Far from being road "maintenance" if you require expensive equipment we don't own. But that language works for the board as long as they can convince lay people of it.

The board hadn't planned on doing a test road to begin with and hastily started clearing a road to chip seal, w/no transparency involved. After the membership spoke up, the road they had already cleared (instead of the road crew working on our easements etc) suddenly turned into a "test road", AND all done w/out proper permits and a contractor's license. The membership delayed their progression by bringing that to their attention. As you see, the membership is having to watch and step in bc they don't have their ducks in a row. Red flag.

Chip and sealing is an accepted road maintenance option.It doesn't require a rocket scientist to do it.Most of your roads would be good candidates for chip and sealing with high traffic roads be better suited to be paved with AC paving.

Obie, the board isn't looking into paving at all even for high traffic roads, just mass chip sealing. I didn't say it takes a rocket scientist to do the chip seal...I said:
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that these variables make a difference in how each road should be approached w/chip seal. The result will only be as good as the foundation it's laid on, which requires a decent engineer and an experienced professional.

So my take on chip seal is it can work really well if done right, and be really terrible if done wrong.

THAT has been one of my major points and concerns all along! After their hasty decision to progress as quickly as possible and observing that they weren't following our bylaws and corporate policy on the undertaking of a project this size, despite how the membership felt from the beginning, and using over $300,000 of our hard earned monies, it is a MAJOR concern "if done wrong".

The link in my earlier post proves this is no minor project that our GM and our small road crew can do "in house". We're being kept completely in the dark about this costly project. Why? If you've nothing to hide, why not be totally transparent, right? And why put a slant and add non existent verbage in the Nov minutes on the chip seal topic? Our minutes are getting tweaked over it, why?

Sorry, edited for word correction, 1st sentence last para.