Annual Meeting - Jan 12, 2019
Thank you to everyone that made the meeting this year. It was a nice group and I think we accomplished several important tasks and are on the right path to get some great things done this year.
We posted a summary of the meeting to the Documents page on the website, however, we want to provide some of the information here.
Elections
Yay, elections are completed with a minimal amount of fuss. We have restructured the board a bit, and added a new member. The current members and their terms are as follows:
President – Russ Kaufmann was elected to the President role. This is a new term and runs until January 2021.
Treasurer – Annabelle Kaufmann was elected to complete the current term of the treasurer, which was an open position. The current term expires January 2020, so we will have another election next year.
Secretary – Amy Hileman was elected to the Secretary role. This is a new term and runs until January 2021.
Cattle Manager – John Randazzo continues to fill this role. There is no change. John’s term will expire January 2020.
Member at Large – Celeste Jain was elected to fill this open position that was vacated when Amy Hileman took on the Secretary role. Celeste will complete the term that runs until January 2020. The owners at the meeting were very excited to have Celeste join the board.
President’s Report
Board Turnover – The past history of high turnover was addressed. The biggest issues are the time commitments and complaints from owners that cause interruptions of the personal lives of board members. Several owners expressed that they do not expect board members to devote so much time to the BDOA.
Communication Plan – With time commitments in mind, it has been decided that all communication to the board will take place in one of three ways, and direct phone calls should not be made unless there is an emergency like sick cattle:
- Email: bardownersassociation@gmail.com
- Website Form: https://bardranch.co/contact/
- US Mail: Bar D Owners Association, P.O. Box 259, Como, CO 80432
A Communication Plan document was sent as part of the annual mailer.
Road Report
- Less road base was applied this year and less money was spent on road maintenance.
- A decision needs to be made about the grader and how we want to continue to maintain our roads.
- Culverts all need to be identified, marked, and their condition noted so that they can be either cleaned out or possibly replaced as needed.
- Rainbow Drive and Eagle Court are washed out. We need to identify options for fixing these roads so that they are passable and safe.
- Road conditions have been impacted by:
- Construction Traffic – We ask that anyone doing construction inform contractors to slow down. We have identified some individuals that are outside of the ranch are abusing our roads, and they have been issued Cease and Desist demands.
-Driving too Fast – It is important that everyone on the Bar D reduce their speeds which will reduce the amount of road base that is thrown into the side ditches and the dust that is generated.
- Construction Traffic – We ask that anyone doing construction inform contractors to slow down. We have identified some individuals that are outside of the ranch are abusing our roads, and they have been issued Cease and Desist demands.
Treasurer’s Report
Financial information was shared with the owners and we discussed the planned budget for 2019, which is higher than normal because of some past work that was put off and the need to start addressing issues with Rainbow Drive and Eagle Court.
The financial statement is in the documents section on the new website.
Cattle Manager’s Report
John Randazzo, our Cattle Manager, worked hard to negotiate a new contract with Terry Beckner. In general, the owners agreed that continuing to work with Terry Beckner was a good idea and even though we might not receive as much money as we could from another rancher, we all feel loyalty to Terry Beckner and appreciate how responsive he is when there are issues.
This Spring, we will need to evaluate the wells and springs used for the cattle and make sure everything is in good working order.
Road Committee
It was proposed and agreed on by the attending membership that the board would reconstitute the road committee, and the new committee will be led by Celeste Jain. Several people volunteered to participate on the road committee. Membership will be assigned by the board from the list of volunteers. A new charter/agenda will be developed for this new committee, and they will be taking on several very challenging tasks this coming year.