2024 Updates

 PRESENT: Daniel Kienzler, Brittany Stull, Mary Deatherage, and Emily Creasey.

One Resident: Chrissy Tibbs.

Opening Business 

• Opened Meeting up with vote to remove Tony Etychison from Grounds Board Position. Vote  - all in attendance voted yay.
• Resident  Chrissy Tibbs volunteered to fill the Welcome Director Board position. Vote  - all in attendance voted yay.

Financial Update  

• Discussed bank account totals.
• Delinquent Accounts: 11 outstanding accounts.
• Moving $8,840 to pond account based on dues paid.

Items Discussed

• Bylaws Violation –  Warning letters will be issued for violations followed by legal. 
• Current  Collections accounts.
•  Retaining a Lawyer. (fines and liens)
•  Trees on common ground that need addressed.
•  Mowing contract is continuing through November 2025.
• Trees on common ground must be cared for/ removed by our current mowing service.

Next Year’s Dues (2025)

•  Same amount no change. ($205 or $215 if paid with Paypal)
•  Invoices will be sent out second week in January 2025. No material needed.

Overview of Upcoming Events:  

• Next Board Meeting set for  February 17th at 6:30p. Location: Sherman Village Hall.

Respectfully submitted,

Emily Creasey,

Board Secretary

 PRESENT: Daniel Kienzler, Brittany Stull, Tony Etychison, Mary Deatherage, and Emily Creasey 

• The meeting began approximately 7:00 pm with Acting President Daniel Kienzler opening the floor for comments from attending residents.
• Residents expressed their concern of:
  • remaining campers and boat trailers still parked outside of homes throughout the subdivision,
  • garbage cans stored in front of individual properties, and random items being stored in the open between property lines.
• Reminder: the Board is currently seeking an individual to fill the Welcome Director position. 
• The Board will create a Flaggland Parks Residents only Facebook rather than send out newsletters. 
• Continued the discussion from previous meeting regarding our finances and what expenses we might face during 2024. It was decided that the 2023 remaining balance would be moved into the Pond account. To move forward with the pond’s current issue, bids will be sought for a potential vote on drudging the pond in 2025.
• 2024 Update:  Out of 232 residents, 104 have not paid their dues. Late fees will be charged/ imposed on any outstanding dues after March 2nd. 2024 Dues remain the same as 2023: $205.00 if paid by check with an email address and $215.00 if a person chooses to pay via PayPal. The extra $10.00 is to pay the PayPal fees. 
• Discussed a spring 2024 community workday to help revamp the main park areas. Motioned and passed the needed material budget of $10,000 to move forward with this project. More details of this event will be posted in the near future. 
• The next meeting was scheduled for May 9, 2024 at 7:00 pm in the Village Hall.

Meeting adjourned at approximately 9:00 pm

Respectfully submitted,

Emily Creasey,

Board Secretary

PRESENT: Tony Etychison, Mary Deatherage

GUEST: Michael Stratton, Village Administrator & Economic Development Coordinator

• The meeting began approximately 7:00 pm with Acting President Tony Etychison asking those present if anyone would be interested in serving on the HOA Board.
• Emily Creasey volunteered to act as the HOA Secretary at the September meeting and she was voted as Secretary.
• Daniel Kienzler volunteered to act as the HOA President and Brittany Still volunteered to act as the HOA Vice President. Both were voted into office.
• Much discussion was had concerning our finances and what expenses we might still face before the end of the year. It was decided that moneys would be moved into the Pond account after the February meeting. 
• Dues for 2024 will remain the same as 2023. $205.00 if paid by check with an email address and $215.00 if a person chooses to pay via PayPal. The extra $10.00 is to pay the PayPal fees. Invoices will be going out in early January for the dues.
• Michael Stratton spoke at the meeting and thanked everyone for coming forward to serve on the Board. He also informed us that the Village of Sherman has no interest any properties that belong to the HOA. He did clarify that if that ever were to happen (which it will not) the Village would have to implement a special assessment tax to Flaggland residents only to cover the cost of maintaining the 20 parcels of ground that is currently owned by the HOA.
• The next meeting was scheduled for February 7, 2024 at 7:00 pm in the Village Hall.

Meeting adjourned at approximately 8:30 pm

Respectfully submitted,

Emily Creasey,

Board Secretary

 September's meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, September 13 at 8pm at the Village Hall on Flaggland Dr.

Agenda:

• Financial update
• Review park updates
• Review pond maintenance with new company
• Vote on new president
• Discuss grounds for 2024
• Schedule November (annual) meeting and whether an October meeting is necessary.

Discussed:

• Branch/tree issues by various residents
• Will be posting details about what expenses HOA is paying on the website
• Mowing contract
• Tony will be reviewing the mowing contract, updating it, and sending it out to potential businesses
• Alex Foster stepped down as president and provided information for next president to Tony
• Emily Creasey voted in as secretary

June's meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, June 7 at 6pm at the Village Hall on Flaggland Dr.

Agenda:

• Financial update
• Decide on park updates
• Discuss pond maintenance (new vendor and other options)
• New President Needed

We set a budget of $10,000 for park updates to include:  patching and sealing the basketball and tennis courts, adding a pickleball net adjustment to the tennis court, and beginning the process of putting in new borders and 1/2 mulch for the playground with doing the other half in Spring 2024, along with new playground equipment to be determined at a later date.

We approved a new pond maintenance company that will be applying treatments twice per month at a yearly rate of $1775.33.  The previous company was $1404 per application, twice per year ($2808 total).

With the updated covenants not requiring monthly meetings, we have set the next meeting to be September 13th at 8pm at the Village Hall.

May's meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, May 17 at 6pm at the Village Hall on Flaggland Dr.

Agenda:

• Vote on covenants update (proposed updates are available for download above - anything added or removed is in red - ARC document has been included in Covenants instead of being a separate document)
• Financial update
• Decide on park updates
• Discuss pond maintenance (new vendor and other options)
• New President Needed

New covenants were approved.  They have been posted to the website.

The meeting was cut short due to Williamsville Junior High having an emergency PTO meeting, so one of the Board Members had to leave after the approval of the covenants was done.  Some topics will be touched on again at the next meeting.

April's meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, April 12 at 6pm at the Village Hall on Flaggland Dr.

Agenda:

• Vote on Combining 12 Additions into 1 to aid in future covenants vote
• Financial update
• Setting a budget for updating the playground

Also discussed:  HOA will need a new President soon as current President is moving out of Flaggland.  He will stay on for as long as possible to help in the transition period.

March's meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, March 15 at 6pm at the Village Hall on Flaggland Dr.

Agenda:

• Accept New Treasurer
• Financial update
• Future dues discount for providing an e-mail address
• Covenants
• Setting a budget for updating the playground [not discussed due to time]

 Discussed:

• Hiring an accountant for tax return - checking on who did it in the past.
• Hiring an accountant if treasurer position can't be filled.
• Future dues discount for paying by check and giving e-mail (e-mails will save HOA money over the long run).
• Need to put budget and expenses on website (awaiting treasurer or accountant's help with this).
• Putting out a one-time mailer about utilizing the website for communication.
• Reaching out to DNR for help with the ponds.
• Covenants - trying to get them ready for review at March meeting.

February's meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, February 8 at 6pm at the Village Hall on Flaggland Dr.

 January's meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, January 11 at 6pm at the Village Hall on Flaggland Dr. 

Discussed:

• Lawyer meeting for covenant updates set for January 17th.
• Looking to come up with solution for trash cans to be emptied on a more regular basis (possible Eagle Scout project)
• Playground updates discussed - will get new quotes.  Budget for project will be set in March after HOA dues are collected.  Plan would be for an April/May refresh on the playground.
• Volunteers needed for board positions and for help with playground in the Spring

We encountered a slight roadblock in updating the covenants, due to how the original covenants were set up.  We are reviewing options with a lawyer to see how best to handle this, but we do expect to be able to resolve the issue and combine the 12 versions of the covenants (one for each land addition made to Flaggland Parks over the years).  Once we resolve this, we'll be able to set a date for all Flaggland Parks homeowners to vote on the updated covenants.

We have successfully collected dues from several residents on the list of unpaid dues and have turned over to collection several people that have yet to make contact or pay their dues from past years.  We discussed that we would turn over to collection the remaining unpaid dues from residents by the end of the month after several unsuccessful attempts at making contact.

We have decided to pull away from the unofficial Facebook group for Flaggland Parks and update residents strictly from the official website (www.flagglandparks.org) and at official HOA meetings.  Going forward, these will be the 2 methods of communication.  We may expand those in the future if more residents volunteer as board members to help spread the word.

Current board positions open:   Treasurer, Vice President, and Secretary.

After feedback from residents and further review of the bids we received, we voted to keep our current mowing company (KLC) and accepted their bid.  We did not receive a cheaper bid that included the same additional services that they will provide.  They will also take down the broken playground equipment at no additional charge.

KLC is offering a 20% discount on their services for residents of Flaggland Parks.  If you're looking to save on your personal mowing expenses, please contact them for a bid.

After reviewing our current mowing expenses compared to the upcoming mowing expenses and listening to resident feedback at the meeting, we have voted to raise dues to $215 to cover the increased expenses (if paying by check, a $10 discount may be taken).  Fortunately the increase in expenses was not as high as originally calculated, allowing our dues increase to be kept to a minimum.

With feedback from residents, we are going to add an option to lower the net on the tennis court to be able to play pickleball.

We are in the process of hiring a lawyer to review the covenant/bylaw changes to provide a more concise and readable document.  Once we have the documents finalized, we will present them to be voted on.

Finally, we would like to remind everyone that campers/trailers need to be removed by November 15.  Please let us know if your arrangements cannot be done by then.

According to the current by-laws, an annual meeting is to be held each November for the purposes of elections and updating everyone about the upcoming new year.  We would like to encourage anyone willing to serve to put their name in the hat so-to-speak.  

We would like to replace our Treasurer, as she would like to step down (she will remain to help the new treasurer get up to speed).  We also have the following positions available:  Secretary and Vice President.

If anyone would like to join, please e-mail president@flagglandparks.org.  We also welcome any "write-in" candidates to show up on the day of the meeting (November 9th).

Thank you to the residents that came to tonight’s HOA meeting. It was helpful hearing from you, and it looks like we’re on track to getting things worked out to everyone’s satisfaction.

As a recap, we had received around 8 bids total for the new mowing contract and decided the rate increase based on the lowest bid we received. While we were hopeful to be able to fund a few resident requested projects by adding onto the necessary increase, it was determined at tonight’s meeting to forego that and simply increase the dues based on the exact contract increase and then do some kind of special fundraising to do other projects. 

As we discussed at the end of the meeting, we will keep the bidding process open to allow for more bids to be received to hopefully keep the dues increase to a minimum.

As discussed, we want everyone to prepare for dues to increase to $225/year (from $170/year) in the event that we do not receive any lower bids. All residents are encouraged to seek out bids from other mowing companies to this end.

At the conclusion of our meeting, we received a verbal bid that could make the dues increase quite minimal. We will await the official bid and any additional bids before making a decision. 

We would like to vote on this at next month’s meeting, but we stated we could keep it open until December’s meeting and make a decision at that time if we don’t receive enough bids. 

If you have any feedback, please e-mail president@flagglandparks.org

We are working to digitize and consolidate the 8+ additions of the covenants (new additions were added over the years when new sections were added onto Flaggland Parks), as well as update restrictions based on resident feedback (e.g. bigger sheds, parking in the street, etc.).  While the covenant restrictions made sense decades ago, the demands of life today are different than what they were back when these were created, so we're hopeful to be able to make everyone's lives easier, while still keeping the neighborhood looking good. 

Moreover, the current covenants are a bit outdated and can be hard to find what you need to know, because much of it pertains to the building of property, which is not applicable to most of us.  While we won't remove the building restrictions, we're looking at moving them to a separate section, so it's easier to understand what applies to most of us today and what could apply to someone should they have to build again.

We are also working on condensing and simplifying the bylaws that govern the administration of the HOA Board.  There's a lot of language about committees and director positions that haven't been applicable to the Board in decades.  We also want to update the language to include modern-day digital communication as a viable means of communication.  There're also requirements to have "monthly meetings"; we feel this is unnecessary and may be a hindrance for some people to volunteer their time for a board position.  We are going to update the wording to allow for "regularly scheduled meetings" without a specific number required to allow for flexibility in the future.  Likely, we will change to quarterly meetings at the most.

We will make our revisions, consult a lawyer to make sure all is well, and then present it to everyone to vote on at an upcoming meeting to be announced.

If you have any feedback in the meantime, please e-mail president@flagglandparks.org.