April 14, 2009
Hello Kachess Community Members,
You are invited to attend the Kachess Community Association annual meeting on Saturday, May
16, 2009 at 11:00 AM. Please see the enclosed notice and the flyer concerning the potluck lunch
that will follow.
We have enclosed a lot of information for you to review.
- Notice of Meeting / Meeting Agenda
- Proxy for you to fill out if you cannot make the meeting
- Short bios on our three candidates seeking to fill two positions on the board
- Water Committee Message
- Potluck dinner announcement with details
I have a few words concerning the proxy form and the voting. Last year, under advice from legal
council, we changed the way we conduct our voting. Basically, according to our CC&R’s, all
voting must take place in person at the meeting. If you can’t make it to the meeting, there are
provisions for assigning a proxy who can vote on your behalf. The proxy then must be in
attendance and on time. We no longer mail ballots to community members. The ballots are
distributed before the meeting to those in attendance (one per lot) plus one ballot per proxy (one
per lot). This way we can keep the voting private and anonymous.
If you can’t make the meeting and you want to vote, find a community member who you know
has plans to attend the meeting and fill out and sign the proxy. You can also assign a board
member to be your proxy by naming the board member and mailing the proxy to our P.O. Box
listed above. Your proxy will need to bring your signed proxy to the meeting and will receive an
extra ballot to cast your vote. You can give your proxy instructions on how to vote or you can
have them vote as they see fit. If you have any questions about this procedure, give me a call or
send me an e-mail.
The main issue this year is the vote on assessing ourselves to pay for replacing nearly all of the
water system. This is a project that we don’t take lightly. For those who haven’t attended board
meetings, it has been the consensus of those attending that the board must act on behalf of the
community and put together a plan to replace our failing water system. We have done this.
Please read carefully the Water Committee Message that is enclosed.
There is a significant risk to not replacing our water system and leaving the system the way it is
today. Depending on when and where a future break is, the worst case is that we all could be
without water for many weeks; perhaps as long as there is snow on the ground. Is this a stretch
to think that we will have a major break or that we would be without water for that long? Not
really. The board of directors has come to believe that we need to replace the water system as
soon as is practical. In the meantime, we have taken steps to minimize our chances of running
out of water if we do have a break. Unfortunately, there are so many scenarios that cause us
concern. It is crazy making!
The total amount we are asking for is $9300 per lot over three years. That’s a great deal of
money for most of us, especially in the present economy. However, we believe it’s very
necessary, and it is our fiduciary responsibility to bring this to your attention.
Essentially, we have had free water service for over 30 years. Is that fair to those of us who
haven’t owned our property for 30 years? No. Should the original contractor done a better job
installing the system including proper beading of the pipes so that it would have lasted 50 plus
years? Yes. We can’t look backwards and blame. It simply isn’t helpful. We need to look
forward and do what we believe is the right thing.
On a less than pleasant note, the Association, through its Board of Directors, has the right to
suspend voting rights if you haven’t paid your dues (due last November). We plan on exercising
this right at the May 16 meeting. Legal steps are being taken to collect what is past due.
I want to thank this year’s board of directors for their time and effort. It is a good group of
people who are passionate about the Kachess Community. Two of us will be stepping down as
our terms have been completed. Howard Ringoen and I will certainly miss the camaraderie that
exists on the board and look forward to helping out in the future where we can. The board
always needs volunteers for certain projects.
It has been my distinct pleasure serving you as a member of the board of directors these past
three years. I have learned a great deal about all that goes on in keeping our community running.
I continue to be amazed how much effort so many people make. I have a new found
appreciation for the many volunteers who ask for nothing in return and rarely get thanked. I
offer my heartfelt gratitude to all who have given their time and talents to make Kachess the fine
community that it is.
The greatest pleasure, however, of serving on the board is that I have been able to meet most of
you. Sure, we may have our differences in opinion on how things should be done or even what
our goals should be but there are three elements that bind us all together. They are our feelings
for our village, the lake and the mountains.
Thank you for allowing me to serve. Thank you for your support.
Tom Carmody
Kachess Board President
April 8, 2009
Hello Kachess Community Members,
A new Water Committee was formed in 2008 when the first meeting of the new Board of Directors occurred.
Their four main goals have been:
- Stabilize the system and improve operability to comply with more stringent Department of Health guidelines.
- Improve our readiness to address more frequent failures and water outages
- Investigate alternate sources of supply for our domestic usage
- Analyze alternatives and develop a proposal for the replacement of the aging (30 years plus, with no capital reserves) water system with detailed engineering and cost estimates
Much work was done by our Water System Administrator - Dan and Carol Riblett, Randy Hoffine, and a long list
of volunteers and Board Members responding to no less than 5 major breakdowns in the system at a cost of tens
of thousands of dollars to the community.
Goal #1: During the year, the team developed our Small Water System Management Program which is in the process
of review by the Department of Health. This is a requirement for us to operate. We also reconfigured our
chlorine injection system to improve reliability, consistency, and safety of our drinking water. Our system
received a “Green” rating by the DOH, the best rating we can achieve.
Goal # 2: We collected and updated our maps, valve locations, and developed a response plan to isolate
sections of our system to avoid full outages in the event of section breaks. This works to both isolate leaks
as well as disable sections should we have a major failure in a section. Additionally, we installed technology
to remotely monitor our pump volumes, as well as our tank levels. Prior to this, in response to several
failures, one of our volunteers was required to enter the pump house to manually read, calculate, and
communicate to the team our water usage. Prior to this, a week or more could go by and a leak would go
undetected which would drain our entire 100,000 back up supply and outstrip our capacity to pump water. On
three occasions during 2008, we discovered we had a problem by a homeowner’s phone call informing us that “we
have no water”. This resulted in at least two full shutdowns and significant expenses. The $11,000 spend on
the monitoring equipment is about equivalent to two or three system failures. This process has been in
parallel testing for approximately 3 weeks now and is notifying our team daily of gallons pumped, levels of the
tanks, and chlorine residual.
Goal# 3: The team exhausted our search for an alternate supply of water. When the infiltration trench was
installed approximately 30 years ago, it supplied approximately 80 gallons of water per minute or 115,000
gallons per day. At the beginning of 2008, the infiltration trench that supports our drinking water had
diminished to about 25 gallons per minute in output. At best, it could put out 36,000 gallons per day and in
summer we had dropped to under 25,000 gallons per day. One leak in a household can consume over 40,000 gallons
per day as did occur on 3 occasions in 2008. Our initial intent was to move away from the infiltration trench
and find one or more suitable well locations. We hired a company to try and locate well locations. With the
aid of technology we did seven “soundings” around the community. As it turns out, we have no suitable well
locations in our community. Stated simply, we sit on solid rock for hundreds of feet and no well locations
could be found.
We then hired a company to investigate alternatives to rebuilding our infiltration trench. After looking into
rebuild versus repair, we decided to try repair. Again with the help of some talented professionals and
volunteers, we “jetted” our existing lines as a form of maintenance and the system is now reliably producing
approximately 86,000 gallons per day. This exceeds what we can even pump. We do believe that with ongoing
preventative maintenance, this source of supply could last for many years to come without need of relocation or
replacement.
Goal #4: Our work is still underway but should be finished shortly. As approved by the community in the last
September budget session, we contracted with ESM Consulting Engineers to redesign our water system for
replacement. The engineering has now been completed and has been submitted for approval to both the Kittitas
County Public Works Department and the Washington State Department of Health. Both groups have expressed their
satisfaction with the work and we expect full approval by early April. We also have design approval from
Kittitas County Fire Marshal Office and Fire Chief. (Note: a copy of the ESM plans is located in Club House
for your review.) We also expect approval for our Franchise Agreement which will give us legal ability to
repair, maintain, and replace our system within the County Right of Way. We will be releasing for bid to
qualified contractors by April 15 the plans so we can receive valid proposals to perform the work by licensed
contractors. The engineer’s estimates are nearly $1 million for the system using standard rates and cost
estimates for materials, and approximately $200,000 for road repair and resurface (numbers to be validated in
April). We have allowed for approximately 20% contingency for uncertainty for this type of work.
While we recognize this is not the optimal economic time to go to the community to ask for money, it is a good
time to hire work to be done. Contractors and suppliers are very aggressive in their pricing as work is slow.
We investigated many alternatives for funding and thought government loans might be a viable answer. What we
learned is the cost of complying with their requirements, and the timing of availability would not be work or
be in our best interest. Additionally, in surveying the community, the majority of the respondents stated
they had the means to pay their share in a lump sum should that be necessary. After reviewing many options, we
determined that a phased collection would allow us to take action in 2009 whereas a full assessment would push
us out into at least 2010 – a risk we do not recommend taking.
This three tiered plan allows for the installation of water meters at each residential or lot connection with
the 2009 assessment. This first piece of work will cost approximately $240,000, and may save our operating
budget $10 – 20,000 per year and take a lot of burden off of the volunteers. This is a vital first step as one
or two “customer side” leaks and we lose the system for everyone, including water for fire fighting. While we
can now detect problems early, we still have to literally go section by section, house by house to find the
problem. This is difficult in summer and a horrible task in winter. In the snow, the leak in December took
two days to find, the one in February took 3 days to find along with outside contractor support.
With our improved processes, we knew the leaks were occurring before they impacted our supply. With the
meters, we can remotely detect a “customer side leak” where consumption is occurring in an hour and turn it off
to protect the rest of the community. We estimate that 70% of the problems are on the residence side of the
community shutoffs. This first step, along with the other measures, should help us survive while we wait
another year to do the mains and the tank supply line. It should be noted that we had two or three main line
breaches in 2008 and one tank supply break as well. Again, it is not a matter of if we will have another
failure, it is a matter of how many and when and where. A main break in the middle of winter, while we should
be able to isolate it, could take a section of the community down for days, weeks, or until after the snow is
gone. A break like we had in October on the pump house to tank took the whole community down for days. If
that were to break in the winter, it could have taken weeks to find and repair.
Should the bids for the project come in below the plan numbers, we would reduce the year 3 and 4 assessment.
The Water Committee strongly believes the community should support this proposal and vote yes to the
replacement proposal over the 4 year time frame. We are confident that is in the whole community’s best
interest.
Best regards,
Kachess Water Committee
10:45 Sign In, Validation of Proxies
11:00 Call to Order, Establishment of Quorum, Proof of Notice
11:05 Approval of Minutes of Last Association Meeting (unless dispensed with by motion)
11:10 Officer and Director Reports (unless dispensed with by motion)
12:00 Financial Report
12:15 Elections and VOTE
- Select volunteers to count ballots and verify results
- Solicit nominations
- Provide candidates with opportunity to address the meeting and answer questions
- Close nominations
- Questions concerning ballot
- Conduct vote by secret written ballot
- Tally votes and announce results
12:45 Open Discussion
1:00 Adjournment
What: Annual Association Meeting
When: 11:00 AM on Saturday, May 16, 2009
Where: Kachess Community Association Clubhouse
Business:
(1) Collection of Proxies and Distribution of Ballots
(2) Committee Reports
(3) VOTE to elect two directors
(4) VOTE for Special Assessment for water system replacement
(5) VOTE to waive audit requirement
Dear Community Members:
An agenda for the meeting is enclosed, along with a proxy form to use if you cannot attend the meeting in
person. There are 3 items that will be voted on during the meeting:
- Electing directors. We have 2 vacancies on the Board and will fill those vacancies through a majority vote
of the members present at the meeting in person or by proxy. We’ve heard from three owners that they would be
willing to serve on the Board. Their names are Roger Foster, Scott Hilbun and Dan Menser. Additional
nominations for the 2 positions will be made from the floor during the meeting. If you are interested in
serving, please come to the meeting so that you can be nominated and run for election
- Special Assessment. Our Water Committee has put together a plan and a time line and all that’s left is the
funding. Please read their message that is enclosed in this mailing.
- Whether to waive the requirement that our annual financial statement be audited by a CPA. State law
requires financial statements of associations with annual assessments of fifty thousand dollars or more to be
audited at least annually by an independent certified public accountant.
In addition to conducting these votes, we will also present officer and directors’ reports, including a
financial summary, and a detailed update on the water system project.
To conduct the meeting, we will need to establish a quorum. This requires at least 33 votes to be present at
the meeting, either in person or via proxy. If you are not able to attend in person, please fill out the
enclosed proxy form and return it to Marisa Angrisano at least 1 hour before the meeting starts, or give it to
the person you are naming as your proxy and make sure the proxy is turned in to the Secretary before the
meeting. Under our Bylaws, proxies must be received before the meeting begins in order to be valid. Please
note that you must turn in an original signature – emailed, scanned or faxed proxy forms are not valid and
cannot be counted or voted.
We look forward to seeing you at this important meeting. The agenda is on the reverse side of this notice.
Your Board of Directors
Proxy Form
Roger Foster
Roger and his wife Kelsey completed construction on their "Dream Cabin" on Crestview Ct in 2006. Their daughter
Avery, is a junior at Woodinville High School who is also in the Running Start program at Cascadia Community
College as well as on the WHS Varsity Tennis Team.
They enjoy all the seasons up at Kachess but especially enjoy summer "wave runnering" and snowmobiling in the
winter. Most weekends you can see Roger giving Jake his daily walks down Via Kachess.
Roger has a BS in business from Long Beach State and he has participated in post graduate industry specific
programs at The University of Southern California. Roger has been working in the beverage industry over the
past 40 years. He spent 32 years on the retail side of the business and the past 8 years has been working with
the largest beverage distributor in the Northwest. He has been a member of boards of directors for both not for
profit organizations as well as for a federal credit union during his career.
"I look forward to the opportunity to serve the community as a member of the Board. Having spent a number of
years working on boards during my professional career, I would appreciate the opportunity to serve on the
Kachess Board in my personal life. This community has so much to offer all of us and I would like to help see
this incredible lifestyle continue to grow and prosper."
Scott Hilbun
Scott moved to Washington in 1990 with Julia and were married in 1992. He has a daughter, Ellen (9) and a son
Jack (7). Scott holds a BA in Finance from Northern Arizona University 1990.
Scott is semi retired. He spent the last 15 years in the residential mortgage business. His last position was
a Sales Trainer at Wells Fargo Home Mortgage.
Their primary residence is Woodinville. Scott has been a volunteer Firefighter on KCFD district # 8 Fire
Department (Kachess) for the last 3 years and has been a part time resident at Kachess -111 alpine lane since
2004.
His interests are commercial and residential real estate, investments/stock market, travel, and coaching
baseball, football, soccer, basketball. His hobbies are golf, skiing, fishing and boating.
Dan Menser
Dan and Maria Menser have owned a cabin since 2007, when they discovered the Village after years of searching
for properties elsewhere in central Washington.
Their family, which includes Maddie (6 years), Mason (4) and Daniella (2), have since taken an ownership
interest in another Village property. Dan has a finance degree from WSU and works as in-house counsel at
T-Mobile. His practice focuses on negotiating deals with vendors and problem-solving legal and business
issues. He serves as Treasurer of a section of the state Bar association. Dan believes that his legal and
finance background could help the Board navigate current challenges facing the community.
Important Notices Archives
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