Lake Carroll News A publication of the Lake Carroll Association and its Members The Lake Carroll News is online! www.golakecarroll.com News & Events>Newspaper August 2017
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What’s Inside
Vol. 45 No. 8
SPECIAL MEETING NOTICE Lake Improvement Project Saturday, August 26, 2017 11:30am Registration – 12:30pm Meeting By Donna Beyer, Communications Director
Clark VanBuskirk retires. Page 6A
In accordance with the By-Laws, “Meetings of Members” found in Chapter 33.20-33.26, notice is hereby given of a Special Meeting of the Lake Carroll Association on August 26, 2017. The Lake Improvement Project (L.I.P.) for 2018 will be the topic of order. You will receive a Special Meeting Packet containing information on the L.I.P. and a Voting Proxy Card. Review all information and instructions carefully to ensure your proxy is properly validated. Only members in good standing are eligible to vote. Vote! Your opinion is important. This is your opportunity to be heard. REMINDERS: The Special Meeting mailing is scheduled for an approximate mailing date of August 1, 2017. The mailing will be sent in 4” x 9” black & white Lake Carroll envelopes. All delinquent dues & Association fees (mowing, marina concession charges, citations, chlorine bills, etc.) must be paid in full to exercise your voting privileges. If you were paying your dues on a quarterly basis, the third quarterly payment was due July 31, 2017. As of August 1, 2017, $100.00 late fees have been added to all unpaid quarterly accounts. Late fees were also added to unpaid 2017 mowings. Proxies for the Special Meeting regarding the 2018 L.I.P. may be returned to the Association Office any time prior to the meeting on August 26, 2017. Once again, Please read the directions included in your Special Meeting packet. Unsigned proxies will be voided.
Prez Sez
Campground Pet Parade Page 16A
Board Meeting SCHEDULE
Aug 25, Sep 22, Oct 20, Nov 17, Annual Meeting Dec 3, Tentative Dec 15 (if needed)
ATTENTION: UPDATE Staff Extensions: 3 digits; add the following to the beginning of previous 2-digit extensions. See page 3A directory Admin: 1 Clubhouse/Pro Shop: 2 Pool/Lodge: 3
• At the Dam: Do not go beyond the NO WAKE buoys by the spillway at the dam. No boats. No fishing. No swimming. • Please secure your belongings, whether you are lakefront, in the campground, or own a home. Be sure your equipment, furniture, watercraft, tarps, etc. are secure. • Please do not call the Admin Office or Security when you have an issue with one of your utilities. That is an agreement between you and that company. LCA is not equipped or informed to handle your issues. Your cooperation with the above is appreciated.
INTERESTED IN RUNNING FOR THE LCA BOARD? There are two (2) positions open on the Board this year. If you are interested in running, petition information and forms will be available at the LCA Office as of Tuesday, August 1, 2017. Candidate Petitions must be turned into the Admin Office by Thursday, August 31, 2017. Ballot name order is determined by the order in which Petitions are time stamped. Please refer to your By-Laws booklet to see what being a “Board Member” entails. NOTE: Correction to the number of candidates in article published in the July, 2017 Lake Carroll News.
THE QUESTION IS NOT DO WE NEED IT… THE QUESTION IS HOW DO WE PAY FOR IT?
There has been much talk this summer about the Lake Improvement Project (L.I.P.). There is no doubt that it is needed. It is just how do we pay for it?
There are basically three ways to pay for this project. 1. Borrow the money, raise the debt reduction portion of the dues to pay for it. Clarence Grant Board President 2. Special Assessment which will bring in a portion of the money needed up front, then borrow the balance needed and pay it back over a few years. 3. Increase the dues and put the money into a reserve fund until the money is collected to pay for the project. To borrow the money and pay it back over time would take about eight years of repayment to clear it off the books. To have a special assessment, which can be paid all in a onetime payment up front or the balance paid over five years, will get the project all done in a twelve to eighteen month period. Paying back in five years will get the loan paid off, so we can move on to option number three and start putting money in a reserve for future needs… and, there will be future needs. The dredging portion of the project is $1,325,000.00 and should last for about fifteen to twenty years. The lake was last dredged in 2001, so it has lasted seventeen years but should have been done a couple of years ago, so we are back to the fifteen years. To put money away to save for the next dredging, we should be putting $100,000.00 per year away into a reserve or roughly $50 per member per year. We also know that the dam will have to be grouted at some point in time. When we grout the dam, we do not grout the entire dam, just the portion that is needed at that time. To save for that project is another $50 per member per year. So these two projects alone will increase the dues $100 per year to be put into a reserve account for the next time these two projects need to be done. Then, there is the Fixed Asset Replacement Schedule. These are current fixed assets that will need to be replaced in years to come. Every year we have to push items back off of this schedule because there is not enough money to replace all the items needed. At the Steering Committee meeting on July 15th which was the budget meeting for fixed assets for 2018 budget, the requests were $193,039.00 over our budgeted amount for the year. So several items will need to be cut from the requests to meet budget. No amenity gets all the money they need each year to operate efficiently. That is why we need this reserve. Every
year items wear out or break that are not due for replacement and the money is not in place to fix or replace them. Until we get the Lake Improvement Project paid off we cannot start putting money away in a reserve. I am not saying that we are going to do these things; I am merely stating what it would take to put money away in a reserve account as many have suggested we should be doing right now. Quite frankly, we need more money in the fixed asset budget, we need more money in the operating budget and we need money in a reserve fund. After the special assessment is paid off, if we would start putting $200 per member per year away and nothing else changes our dues would be roughly $145 per month. On a different subject, a small number of members are saying that we need to be closing the control gate on Three Tubes during rains and leave it closed for several days after the rain. This is what we did until 2014 at which time we had two competing engineering firms inspect the retention pond and develop a method of handling rains. They both came up with the same method, leave the control gate open at all times. Lake Carroll has been running silt studies since 2011 to the present. Since we have been leaving the gate open the amount of silt coming in is less than it was when we closed it. The retention pond will hold roughly 1,000,000 gallons of water. There are 4500 acres of land feeding into the creek that feeds into the retention pond. One inch of rain over 4500 acres is equal to 122,193,000 gallons of water. So with the gate closed, after the first million gallons, the balance flows over the retention wall unfiltered. With the gate open, a controlled amount flows into the lake and extends the amount of time before the pond fills completely. The silt studies show that the amount of silt coming into the lake with the gate open is less than with the gate closed causing overflow. The very few members advocating a closed gate do not have engineering degrees or the data to support their position but they are telling other members to vote “no” on the LIP program unless the association agree to do what they say to do, close the gate. In other words it is “THEIR WAY OR THE HIGHWAY”. The retention pond will only filter out about 25% of the total silt that comes into the lake. We need to make the pond work as efficiently as we can. The Engineers, the studies and the results all say keep the gate open. I would ask that all members stay calm and under control on these issues. They are serious and need serious attention. Discern fact from fiction. Lake Carroll belongs to ALL of us. Until next month, be safe.