ME OH MY: POHOA Landscaping Committee Forms & Schedules First Meeting

EDIT: At 2:19pm on Monday, February 19, Lora Ballweber composed the Meeting Agenda for the 2/21/24 Landscaping Committee Meeting. The document is posted at the bottom. Stormwater Drainage is not on the agenda, specifically.

The POHOA Board quietly posted new details about the Landscaping Committee onto the Frontsteps Website on Thursday, February 15, 2024. It will meet for the first time at 8am on Wednesday February 21 at Me Oh My, a breakfast/coffee shop in LaPorte. While invitations to attend or participate were emailed, mailed, and the calendar doesn’t expressly state that anyone is welcome to attend, in fact, everyone is welcome to attend and participate – as confirmed by the POHOA Board at the 1/10/24 Meeting. It just might not feel like it.

Two documents were posted, including the Landscaping Committee Charter and a document commemorating the new members and assigning of the positions of Chair and Secretary.

The interesting thing about the Charter, in terms of welcoming people to meetings, is that under “Authority and Responsibilities”, it says “promote community participation”. You would think emailing everyone about a new committee meeting would be part of that promotion. Guess not.

I doubt the sandwich board will be erected at the entrance to the neighborhood either.

For those wondering, yes, I did ask to be on the committee. I got my response the same day the notice was posted on the Frontsteps website.

So, I noted the “sufficient numbers”, which means this time around, unlike the attempt to form a committee in September-October of 2023, they met their arbitrary minimum number for a committee: 3. You can see it in the charter, the committee is designed to have 3-7 members.

So, of course the second document posted on Thursday was the new members. Obviously the committee was filled to the brim of 7 members of the 3-7 in the Charter.

I guess not. Of course, the criteria may have been high for this prestigious committee. Others, like myself, may have been turned away. I asked on Thursday if that was the case, and as of Sunday night, there’s been no response.

I also asked how, if the committee just formed in “February, 2024” which is oddly auspicious as even the Charter has an exact date on it. Yet, even that is curious, because also President Lora Ballweber signed the Charter on the same day the vote was taken, it was Sara Young who actually authored the Charter document that was ultimately uploaded to the Frontsteps website . . . on February 14th, more than a month later.

You see, the document properties indicate it was created on January 16, 6 days after the vote and the signing. But, according to the latter document, Sara Young isn’t on the committee until “February, 2024”.

The next most logical questions I could imagine flowed. Such as whether or not there was ever an effort to make known that the opportunity to join this committee was broadcast, giving everyone an equal opportunity to participate. Because, for not the least of reasons, the Charter itself says it is a responsibility of the Landscape Committee to “encourage participation”.

Yet, I don’t recall any broadcast email, nor any USPS mailing to the entire committee inviting people to join the committee. If there was one by mail, please forgive me, as I did not receive it. But, same as my other questions, the POHOA Board has not furnished any evidence that such an effort was made.

So, it was most likely the same type of recruitment that has been going on for years. There’s a network that has led to a minority of households holding power in this HOA for at least the past 8 years, and arguably since its inception. Even this committee is made up of 3 households that have been significantly if not continuously involved since at least 2016. No one new.

I don’t think that those who were not contacted in the outreach program had much of an idea that a committee was forming, let alone any details of the Charter. I asked for a copy on 1/10/24, and was told I could not even review the one they were passing around that night.

But, it wasn’t just withheld from publishing until after the meeting. No, we now see that at the very least Sara Young, who was arguably not on the committee yet, at least helped with creating the digital document that was then uploaded – a MONTH LATER – to the Frontsteps website.

I mean, if there were any serious effort to actually recruit people to join a committee based upon the purpose of the committee, you would think that the Charter would be shown to them out of the gate. In fact, why not publish it on 1/16/24 and put out an email saying “Here’s what we are doing. Who wants to help?”. Isn’t that what a normal HOA would do if they really wanted to fulfill the mission of encouraging participation?

Instead, the Charter is only published after the decision has been made, and the committee, which could be up to 7 people, but was finalized with 3 people, was not only hand-picked and hand-recruited, but is also furnished with their respective hierarchy. No surprise, Gloria Jones is Chair, once again. Again, as a post she has more-or-less held for the last 8 years – including the overlapping years when she was on the Board, even acting as President.

But, on the flipside, there’s certainly no one who has more experience. I have to admit that is a fact.

Besides the odd rollout of recruitment, information, and announcement of membership, the Landscaping Committee Charter has another interesting feature.

It apparently is poised to address the issues I’ve raised last July regarding the Stormwater Drainage Facilities (HOT POTATO: PID Claims POHOA Responsible For Outlot Concrete Drainage) . What was most interesting was that the Charter goes out of its way to mention in the most clumsy way possible a relationship to Larimer County Policy.

Now, the term “unirrigated drainage areas” is a brand new made-up term. In fact, it’s meaningless, as it appears to refer to our Stormwater Drainage Facilties without recognizing that one of the most important connector elements between the South and North systems is a concrete surface drain (aka “trickle pan), that runs right across the area we irrigate the most: The fertile golf-course green lush jungle lawn adjacent to Director Clay Jones, and now Landscaping Chair Gloria Jones own home. So, I mean, it’s not like they can’t see it from their front porch or anything.

But, here is one of many instances in the Larimer County Policy on Stormwater Drainage Facilities that is perhaps foundational:

And, as I attempted to point out the the Larimer County Engineers, the PID#30 Board, and to the POHOA Board (which never once responded to the emails on the subject) that the underlying problem was a lack of “clear assignment of responsibilities of an established entity” causing PID and the POHOA Board to toss responsibility back and forth to one another for 20 years like a Hot Potato, it had to land somewhere.

Now that it has landed, perhaps the full agenda of items I raised, particularly surrounding maintenance, but also including having a Budget and Reserves for this MAJOR infrastructure we collectively own is going to be tackled by this new Landscaping Committee. The problem is, those who have had at least 8 years to have come to realize it was a responsibility and act on it are now attempting to have iron-grip control over the decisions going forward.

Totally makes sense, right?

But, here’s the kicker. While bringing this to the attention of Larimer County via the Engineering Department, and including Commissioner Kefalas on communications as there was some pushback from that department, there was a message that was loud and clear. They insisted that neither Larimer County or the PID#30 has ANY authority or responsibility for the Stormwater Drainage Facilities outside of the boundaries on a map that is on the PID Website:

The rest of the area in our rectangle area of POHOA that is outside of this red line is the responsibility of the POHOA Board – and paid for by all of us. Yes, we’ve mowed this area, but no one has ever thought that the concrete or the culverts that go underground are things that the POHOA Board and its Directors need to put some thought into. No one before July 2023 had bothered to tell the Directors.

And, that appears to be in direct conflict with the Larimer County Policy (Paragraph #10 above) before July of 2023. The neighborhood began build-out in 2004, and was completed in 2009. Yet, there’s not one word in our governing documents to give Directors a clue.

Awkward!

So, because the Landcaping Committee Charter mentioned Larimer County Policy, I found something else interesting. You see, the ultimately responsibility is on the County itself to have a cohesive plan for drainage and maintenance of such facilities. And, they know that often, this is on private property, like with POHOA and other HOAs.

But, the problem is that if the HOA doesn’t take responsibility, and more importantly, fails to maintain or have reserves for the fixing and replacing of these assets, what happens when they just ignore it completely?

As it turns out, in Section 3.5 Paragraph 4, we find out that the County itself will enter the property and do the work – and send the HOA the bill for the costs!

It turns out that while Larimer County Engineering, which took a very hard-line stance on distancing themselves from ANY responsibility actually has the ULTIMATE responsibility, and POWER to do the work themselves and bind an HOA to the costs created.

Quite a revelation in this hot potato saga.

So, while the Charter is out, the Agenda for the meeting is not. Even 2 days prior to the meeting. I sure hope that this topic makes it on the agenda. I would know if I was allowed to be on the committee, or maybe it would be withheld from me, like everyone else until the last minute.

But, suffice it to say that I am honestly grateful that we have moved past the point where this topic can be ignored with stonewalling. At least it is on the Charter. One step at a time. Little by little.

EDIT 2/19/24 2:19PM: Lora Ballweber posted the agenda for the meeting on the Frontsteps website.