Tower Shores Annual Meeting Minutes for 5/30/2021
Meeting, held via Zoom, called to order at 9:00 am by Karen Castle.
Attendees (Board): Chuck Ott, Karen Castle, Carey Horchler, Tony Nerlinger, Tom Seamon, Pierce Bates, Brad Newcomer, Owen Kirby, Mike Stang
Attendees (Community): See attached list
President’s Update – Karen
Karen reviewed agenda. Karen thanked the members of the board. Specifically thanked Brad Newcomer and Carey Horchler for numerous extra hours spent outside of board meetings. Brad was responsible for landscaping and Carey took on the treasurer role. Karen ran through the committees and the people on them and thanked them for their contribution. All records to be stored in Miles Weigold’s garage (about 8-9 boxes).
Accomplishments
- Extended summer manager contract to include September weekends.
- Upgraded power in the community, went smoothly due to communications.
- Communications regarding oil spill off shore.
- Installed new ground lighting due to darkness.
- Installed new voting app on website and fully tested.
- Approved a Dune study by Duffield associates.
- Installed dog waste bag stations.
- Voted on upgraded Restrictive Covenants.
Ongoing projects
- Coalition for safer North Bethany – reduction of route 1 speed limits.
- Bethany HOA
- Matt’s Fish camp traffic
- Trying to extend Comcast into our area.
Financial Update – Carey/Dennis
- No annual dues increase for current fiscal year ending 5/31/2021.
- Dog waste stations funded.
- Website improvement funded.
- Finishing year 1 of 3-year trash and recycle contract
- Funded Dune Study.
- Planted additional Dune grass.
- Offseason security continued.
- Summer manager continued
- Forecast year end reserve balance around $210k.
2022 Fiscal year
- No annual dues increase
- Trash and recycle remains over ½ of operating expenses, about ½ of incoming annual revenue.
- $9000 budgeted for beach maintenance, same as last year.
- $4000 to be used from reserves for additional mailboxes.
- Will have about $225k in reserves at end of FY 2022.
- Dennis reviewed budget line items (please see budget online)
- Carey showed the detailed breakdown of the expenses for 2021.
- 1/3 of FY’22 dues payments received so far.
- Reminded people that we spent a fair amount of money on new Dune grass and not to trample it.
Committee Reports
Communications Committee – Dan Cohen
Dan reviewed highlights from year.
- Monthly newsletter to the community
- Talked about how the website is the “community center”.
- Website – 2 sections:
- Public section
- Covid news added this year for our community and Sussex County.
- Tower Shores history including 4 videos. Looking for more content.
- Helpful links
- Homeowners section behind password. Need to logon to see private content.
- Tower shores news
- Forum
- Board and annual meeting links
- Voting including election
- Board meeting minutes and video archives
- Noise moratorium exceptions
- Tower Shores documents
- Wind farm developments
- Route 1 speed limit coalition
- Public section
Dan played the history of Tower Shore Video.
Question asked about rental postings by Kristen. Pointed out that the website is not an advertising platform.
Landscaping Review – Brad Newcomer
A lot of work done this spring for cleanup. Streets cleaned this year. A lot of planting, flowers being done by community members. Mulch done this year.
Adam will take over dog stations for the summer.
Question asked by Kristen about having ongoing landscaping discussions. Wanted to know who we use and if we recommend them.
Dune Update – Tony Nerlinger & Tom Seamon
Tony reviewed questions about why we did the study. He said, “we don’t know what we don’t know” so that the community is aware of potential issues down the road. The draft that was provided by Duffield, had 8 recommendations. Some of the key points mentioned as recommendations:
- Additional fencing
- Sand pushing not only after storms
- Less beach access control
Tony welcomed new members to the Dune committee.
Dune study was for ocean flooding, not bay flooding.
Mailbox – Steven Gades
Not enough mailboxes, all existing boxes assigned. Board has approved to add more mailboxes (doubling capacity).
2 challenges:
- Where do we place additional boxes?
- In conversations with post office, they request that a mailbox is installed for every unit in community. There isn’t that much demand.
If you need mail service for summer, go to post office. Work with post office to determine reasonable number of boxes for our community.
Brief Candidate Introductions
4 open seats: 4 people named on ballots are existing board members.
Pierce Bates
Karen Castle
Tony Nerlinger
Tom Seamon
No write in candidates identified.
Call For Committee Participation
Karen asked for members to volunteer for committees:
- Noise moratorium
- Dunes
- Restrictive Convenants
- Mailbox
- Matt’s
- Traffic Safety
- Disaster Plan ?
- What else ?
Reminders
- No smoking on beach
- No fires on beach
- No fireworks on beach
- No glass containers
- No items left overnight
- No dogs on beach in summer
- Noise moratorium in affect after Memorial Day.
- Breakwater beach is a private beach
- Atlantic Watergate tennis courts are for Atlantic Watergates residents (or tenants)
Community Q&A
Kristen Shiveley – Volunteered for Matt’s Fish Camp committee. Mike Stang is the lead from the board. She also heard from regional manager that they are attempting to wrap the white fence around to the Bay Road side to conceal the dumpster.
Dan Cohen – Discussed Matt’s and appealed the entire community to get involved, not just the neighbors.
Barb Goyette – Wanted to know if fence between property and route 1 is her responsibility or someone else’s. Brad Newcomer volunteered to go look at the fence. Also, questioned if she can trim buses growing over fence. Brad will also take a look at it.
Kristen Shiveley – Asked Karen to remind folks of any annual community festivities. Karen said, haven’t discussed it due to Covid.
Blair Calton – Volunteered for Matt’s committee. Also mentioned that the lights there are bothersome.
Tony Nerlinger – Asked how to get involved in committee. Karen said email the leader directly or put a post on the forum or contact us.
Nancy Rashidi – Motioned (seconded by Pierce) that the board is required to get a majority vote by the owners to spend any more money on legal fees. Karen said the vote isn’t possible on the zoom call. Discussion ensued regarding if this is possible. Current Bylaws don’t restrict board from spending legal fees. Basically, in order to restrict board, the Bylaws have to be changed (meaning legal fees need to be used at some point). To have a vote in the meeting, there needs to be a quorum. There is only 24% of voters in meeting.
Matt Krafft – mentioned that the budget approval would limit the spending for the legal fees.
Elizabeth Frazee volunteered to serve on the RC committee and lead it.
Amanda Toone mentioned that the RC’s have been brought up 3 times, it has been voted down 3 times. She asked why are we forming another committee? Karen mentioned although we did not pass the changes, the majority wanted the changes.
Adam Rashidi – a lot of turtle eggs washed up, keep an eye out to help out.
Meeting adjourned at 10:48 am.
Sincerely,
Chuck Ott
VP, Secretary