General Discussion:
Tommy Pham 206 723 2421 cuts 41.5 common areas. He cuts ours at the same time so he gives us a better rate due to less travel time at $65/visit. He is licensed and bonded. Professional Oriental Gardener.
He invoices the Treasurer at the 41.5 PO box in Issaquah. His invoices are infrequent and it was suggested by Alex that he invoice us quarterly.
The entrance island has 2 keys which Jane Bisbee currently has. The letters for the island's sign are currently at Jane's as well. Alex volunteered to keep the letters and keys at his house.
Virginia has 6 sandwich boards, which prompted a discussion of having a "resource" forum being added to the website for items that people have that are available to the entire neighborhood.
Virgina discussed the restrictions on what can go down the storm sewers, based on some literature that she had obtained from the City of Bellevue. Bruce will post this information on the website.
Virginia described a Bellevue ordnance about tree removal. If a Tree is closer to 10 feet of the sidewalk, a permit must be obtained that cost $227. No one was aware of this rule and a discussion of the many removals without this permit were discussed.

New business that may require expenditures from the HOA budget

• Retention wall - Virginia reported that it's not clear yet the source of the water. Responsibility for this may lie with the Bellevue Park or the Bellevue Street groups. This remains to be clarified. A representative from the City of Bellevue (Jim Bennett) is investigating the source of the water. Virginia says the retaining wall is the property of Bellevue, so we need permission to clean it.
• Entrance rocks, island and mail boxes need cleaning. Virginia got bids on doing this and the cheaper one is All Season Pressure Washing & Striping (licensed and bonded) to wash the entrance sign and mailboxes. In order to keep cost down, they will fill their water tank with water from her house (150 gallons at a cost of 3 cents a gallon) and then she will just get reimbursed by the HOA. We save the HOA $100 or more doing it this way rather then getting the approval of the city and using water from the hydrant. If All Seasons can’t do it before August 1st then it can wait until we return the end of August.

Finanical Transparency
This topic is introduced by a general concern from attendees at the June meeting that the HOA residents would like to know how their money is getting spent. The HOA bank account seems to be a high dollar amount, making some residents question whether the $100 dues are still needed. Virginia described that historically, the HOA was broke on several occasions and couldn't afford the new mailboxes or to pay Tommy, the yard care person. The big unknown going forward is the lawyer fees for the rework of the new CC&R's.

CC&R's and ByLaws
Bruce described a need for a higher level view of our CC&Rs. Rather than take rework the existing CC&R's, it might be beneficial to view some CC&Rs of similar vintage Bellevue neighborhoods that have been successfully enforced over the years. An example would be the "Landscaping Guidelines" from the Somerset HOA, which has a downhill grade similar to ours and which has maintained a much better control of the "Trees and Hedges" than we have.

The Somerset CCR's for landscaping are here.

The full list of the Somerset CC&Rs are here.

History of why we became incorporated with Bellevue

• King County sheriff took 1.5 hours for responding to a call, now it's around 5 minutes from Bellevue Police
• Our Park area was solid black berries at first and the HOA bulldozed it to try to make it usable. Maintaining that area was expensive once we planted Grass. That expense has been eliminated because the Bellevue Parks now maintains it.
• The retention pond flooded, almost flooding the house next door. Virginia remembers the water was almost up to her knees running down the street. Maintenance of this drain is now the city's responsibility.

2011 Picnic Discussion Led by Sue
It will be in the 2nd weekend in September, on Sunday (10/11/11). It should start around 4:30PM. $428 is what the picnic cost last year. The proposed activities for the picnic are:

• Tumble Bus
• Balloon Guy ($200)
• Open forum to discuss what's on people's mind
• Discussion of other proposed HOA events, such as those listed below to see what the interest level would be
• Barbecue will use HOA finances for hamburgers, hot-dogs, buns, some soft drinks, condiments, plates
• Notification will be a email blast a month before by Bruce, followed by a door-to-door notice by Sue's kids the week prior to the picnic

Other proposed HOA Events:

• Ice cream Social (Alex proposed this might be end-of-school or July 4th event)
• Fall Spaghetti Feed
• Easter egg hunt (Vasa Park's is getting too crowded and competitive)

Website Enhancements

• A request for input on the Message Board to see who is having "water problems". This stems from the upper neighborhoods issues with water, possibly causing the constant water presence on retention wall between the neighborhoods
• A new Members Only Forum for posting suggested changes to the drafts of the CC&Rs and ByLaws
• A new Members Only Forum for posting suggestions to the HOA board members
• A new Members Only Forum for posting resources such as services or items they can either supply or recommend to the rest of the HOA residents
• A new Members Only page for "What do I get for my $100?" that will have information such as:
  • Green Tagging unsightly problems in the neighborhood, such as poorly maintained yards, homes, things parked in the street, etc.
  • Keeping track of vacant homes or poorly maintained rental homes and notifying their respective owners
  • A description of what the yearly duties by the HOA board members are
  • A digital version of Sue's board-of-shame comparing no HOA neighborhoods to ours.
  • A link to our new "financial transparency" page
• A Members Only Page describing in detail what is being spent with the HOA funds (our financial transparency). The format will show "description", "price", "budgeted: yes/no", "date". This might be a link to a spreadsheet that the Treasurer will be using to track things. It could also be a new database table... it's not clear yet which format
• A new Members Only Page for describing current projects. This would include "description" "date assigned" "deadline date" "owner(s)"
• A board-only sub-site for tracking information and data that's not relevant or appropriate for HOA residents to view. Things like green tagging, foreclosures, liens, and board specific communications will go here.