Draft Minutes of Meeting

September 12, 2005Bartram Springs CDD

Regular Board Meeting

DRAFT MINUTES OF MEETING

BARTRAM SPRINGS

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT DISTRICT

The regular meeting of the Board of Supervisors of the Bartram Springs Community Development District was held Monday, September 12, 2005 at 10:30 a.m. at the BartramSpringsClubAmenityCenter, 14530 Cherry Lake Drive, Jacksonville, Florida.

Present and constituting a quorum were:

J. Thomas Gillette, IIIChairman

Thomas McMorrowVice Chairman

Martha CotterAssistant Secretary

Leo JohnsAssistant Secretary

Also present were:

James PerryDistrict Manager

Brian CrumbakerDistrict Counsel

Scott WildDistrict Engineer

Roy DearyAmenity Management Group

Matt PurvisProperty Management Systems

John GentryEngland, Thims & Miller

Jim OliverGMS

Rich WhetselGMS

Louie CowlingSouthStar Development Partners

Sarah GabelAmenity Management Group

FIRST ORDER OF BUSINESSRoll Call

Mr. Gillette called the meeting to order at 10:42 a.m. Mr. Perry called the roll.

SECOND ORDER OF BUSINESSApproval of the Minutes of the August 15, 2005 Meeting

Mr. Gillette asked are there any comments or changes from anyone?

Mr. Crumbaker responded on Page 2 there is a statement attributed to Ms. Cotter with a couple of blanks. I am not sure what that was or if she could help out with that.

Ms. Cotter stated I do not recall from last meeting what needed to be there.

Mr. Gillette asked are we leaving it as is?

Mr. Crumbaker responded I assume the District Manager's office has reviewed the tape and it was probably inaudible.

Ms. Cotter stated I think the majority of it was I was misrepresenting somebody else in the office. I do not know if it was too important.

Mr. Crumbaker stated just strike it. The substantive portion is not there.

Mr. McMorrow stated I am not sure how we should handle this, but the continuation of this meeting, at which time we actually approved the budget, is not contained in these minutes. I guess they are going to be supplemented later?

Mr. Perry responded yes, they are. The budget hearing minutes are not included in this.

Mr. Gillette asked what date did we have that meeting?

Mr. Perry responded August 29th.

Mr. Gillette stated this is all preceding that. This is the meeting prior to that.

Mr. McMorrow stated but that was a continuation of this same meeting. An adjournment and continuation was announced.

Mr. Crumbaker stated then the minutes should reflect there was a continuation to a date and time certain, as opposed to an adjournment.

In the motion box at the end of Page 22 at the end of the minutes, it says the meeting was adjourned, and it should say continued to August 29th at 7:00 p.m.

Mr. Gillette asked anything else? Hearing none, is there a motion to approve the minutes from the August 15, 2005 meeting as modified?

On MOTION by Mr. Johns, seconded by Mr. McMorrow, with all in favor, the minutes of the August 15, 2005 meeting were approved as modified.

Mr. Gillette asked we will not take up the approval of the minutes from the continued meeting until next month?

Mr. Perry responded that is correct, sir.

THIRD ORDER OF BUSINESSOther Business

Mr. Gillette stated the first item is the damaged pool gate, which is a resident request. Do we have anyone here to speak to that?

A.Damaged Pool Gate - Resident Request

Mr. Garger stated my name is Jim Garger. I am here to talk about the gate incident. There were several people involved or who witnessed the event, and we met to discuss the incident.

What happened was when the first people went out the gate, the gate was ajar. The second person was a 16-year-old man and he followed them out. The third person, on his way out, fell and grabbed the gates and the gates came off.

He was standing there holding these two gates. He dropped the gates and left. There was a report filed with the police that the gates were vandalized. They determined there was no vandalism on the gates.

I do not know if you are familiar with these gates. The construction of these gates is about an inch-and-a-half aluminum where the hinges are screwed on to the aluminum with metal screws. Over a period of time, especially a year-and-a-half, with kids shaking on the gates, people will tell you that several times kids have climbed over these gates, these gates have issues. These gates were damaged.

The kid, when he was going out grabbing onto the gates when they fell, the biggest mistake he made was not coming back here and explaining to you what happened right away. He had walked off, so we got together and talked about this.

Mr. Chairman, these gates had issues. It was not that they were vandalized. I called that made the gates. He told me anybody tripping or falling and grabbing on to the gates are going to fall down.

Any one of you here, when you come through these gates and have your wife and kids with you, and someone grabs onto the gates, I think you would have been pretty surprised to see the gates come off.

I talked with Sarah about what we can do to settle this thing. I was told to hold off because I was supposed to receive a letter from one of your attorneys, which I never received. All I received was a bill, please pay $915 or whatever regarding the gates. We did not even have a chance to really even go out and make repairs or talk about it.

I am here to ask you to consider or reconsider this. I am here to tell you, these gates have issues. These kids do not just go out and rip gates off their hinges. Any questions?

Mr. Gillette responded thank you.

Mr. Garger stated I am a responsible guy. I am not trying to get rid of my responsibilities and put it on you. I have gone to the homeowners association meetings and tried to explain it to them, I have talked to Sarah. I have not heard anything.

All I got was a bill that said, here, pay this. I do not think that is being too fair. I really do not. I really do not think it is fair for you to make that assumption and hit me with the bill. I hope that we can come to some sort of decision. I am tired of this being on our backs. This has been going on since June 1st and here we are the end of September.

Mr. Gillette stated thank you. The Board has heard of this situation starting back in June. Based on everything that was brought to the attention of the Board at previous meetings, we obviously took action with respect to repairing the gates, because we got a repair bill.

I am going to defer to District Counsel here in a minute. It seems to me that if the decision of the Board is going to be contested, and of course you have every right to contest that, first of all this Board is not sitting in the capacity or acting as a judge in a court of law. We are simply here to administer the rules and regulations of the CDD and carry out the policies set forth for the CDD to govern itself.

I am not certain that this Board should be put back in the position of making some type of legal determination with respect to who is right and who is wrong. I would defer to you, Brian, but it seems to me that if we are put into that posture, then we ought to refer this case to a court.

Mr. Crumbaker stated with respect to the liability, the facts are what we know them as of today. Previously, this Board heard some comments made by District staff with regard to the incident at hand. I think they were also in receipt of an incident report, as well, and a police report.

With regard to the liability, I think Mr. Garger is saying that the liability or the ultimate damage to that gate is associated with actions on the part of his son or his guest. Now, obviously, this is not a court of law, we are not a fact finder here. We could certainly, if there was some merit to whether the gates were damaged prior to, those are just facts I do not have.

From a liability standpoint, yes, I think that Mr. Garger is ultimately, based upon what we know today, liable for the actions of his son and/or guests. By way of his wife signing the parental release of liability, she ultimately is responsible for, or has accepted responsibility for the actions of her son or for her family and their guests.

It is going to be ultimately a court of law that decides whether the facts warrant a full payment of the invoice by the Gargers, or not. From a liability standpoint, yes, I think they are liable.

Mr. Gillette stated I think that this Board heard the complaint and we made a decision based on the recommendations that were backed up by the complaint. Now we are being asked to re-open the issue. I would assume by being asked to re-open the issue, to reconsider a prior Board decision. I am just not certain this Board wants to open that back up. We are not sitting here in judgment as to who is liable. I would rather refer it to a court.

Mr. Garger asked Mr. Chairman, when this issue was brought to the attention of the Board, why was I not given notice of that? I would have been here in person to present my side of the story.

Mr. Gillette responded there is not an answer I can give you to that.

Mr. Garger stated then I do not understand that. Because I have been inquiring all along about what was going to be happening with this gate. I was told not to worry about the gates right now, we are talking about not only putting a gate back in, but perhaps we will just go with a new one because of all the problems they were having with the gate.

On my side, I have been asking what was going to be done about it, and I have been told just wait, just wait and see what happens. You are going to get a letter, you are going to do this, you are going to do that.

All of a sudden you make a judgment, and I was not even here to be able to represent myself. I do not find that fair.

Mr. Crumbaker stated the only comment I will make regarding that is that it was a public meeting that this issue was discussed previously.

Mr. Garger stated there was no notification to me that this was going to be brought up at this meeting. Just because you have a meeting does not mean automatically this is going to be brought up. It could be at any meeting. How do I know which meeting it is going to be brought up at?

Mr. Crumbaker responded today you have had an opportunity to present your side of the case.

Mr. Garger stated I had to request to come here and talk about this. I also want tell you, I have received estimates to have this gate repaired, which I was very much willing to have done, and I never had a chance to even present it because somebody made a decision not to repair the gates, let us just go buy a new one. I do not think that is fair, either.

I was willing to come up with some kind of agreement with you. Like I said, I handle my responsibilities. I do not know why we cannot settle this. We are a community here. I do not see why we have to take such drastic measures of going to court.

Mr. Crumbaker stated the Board's option at this point in time is to either maintain status quo. You have heard Mr. Garger here at the meeting regarding his side of the story, which I think reinforces the fact that there is some liability on the part of the Gargers.

Ultimately, the District, when they made the decision, they decided to make the District whole in repairing the gate in its original condition. As such, if it is the Board's direction, then we can certainly take the direction of filing a small claims court action to collect the money.

Mr. Gillette stated it seems to me this may be the third or fourth time that this has been addressed.

Mr. Crumbaker stated this item has been on the agenda before.

Mr. Gillette stated we previously had discussion relating to this, at least two or three times previous to this Board making a decision.

Mr. Crumbaker stated the reality of it is, if we end up in a situation where if you were to settle for anything else than the full amount, then obviously the other residents of this community will be bearing some portion of that additional expense as a result of actions that are not of their own doing.

Mr. Garger stated Mr. Chairman, these are minutes from your meeting. In these minutes, Mr. Hillyer, I do not know who that is, asked if the gates functioned. Mr. Rutherford responded they did not function properly. You had some problems with the gates. There are other things here in the minutes that you were going to send out a letter to me to talk about it and I was supposed to respond. I never got a letter.

This is dated June 13th, your minutes. The immediate meeting following this June 13th meeting, I came here to discuss this and there was nothing brought up about this gate. There was nothing brought up about it in the minutes. I had asked again, and I was told, wait until you get your letter. I did not get a letter.

Mr. Crumbaker asked did you get a letter from me?

Mr. Garger responded no. What I got was a bill that began saying, please pay 900-and-some-odd dollars for a gate that was damaged. It was more like a bill than it was any kind of a letter.

Mr. Crumbaker asked but it was a letter from me, correct?

Mr. Garger responded yes.

Mr. Crumbaker asked evidencing the cost to repair the gates?

Mr. Garger responded yes.

Mr. Crumbaker stated thank you.

Mr. Garger stated that is the only letter I received. I did not receive anything else informing me about talking about it or anything. It just said, here, pay this.

Mr. Crumbaker stated well, I cannot speak to the representations of other District staff with regard to whether you were put on notice of this meeting, or not. You have been given an opportunity to address the actions of the Board. It is at the Board's discretion as to whether they wish to proceed and try to settle this or proceed in trying to collect the monies associated with this.

Those minutes that Mr. Garger has obtained have been approved, so I cannot dispute the statements made by Mr. Rutherford. It is up to the Board whether they want to take that into account.

Mr. Gillette asked any comments from members of the Board?

Mr. Garger responded I am sure in the future there are going to be a lot of things happening in the community that people are going to need to be informed to come to a Board meeting. You only want to hear what others say. You need to talk to the people directly responsible. I do not think that is very responsible.

This community needs to be informed if issues are to be brought up before this Board. Believe me, I would have been here at this particular meeting if I had known that this was going to be discussed. I had no idea.

Mr. Crumbaker asked Mr. Garger, do you recall who told you to just hold off until you got the letter?

Mr. Garger responded yes, sir.

Mr. Crumbaker stated I see Sarah raising her hand.

Mr. Garger stated Sarah, too. Both of them. I spoke to them about this, about what should I do. That is what they told me.

Mr. Crumbaker stated Mr. Chairman, I feel that personally Mr. Garger should have been given the opportunity, if that is what he was told, as admitted by the staff. If there were prior problems, he has an estimate for the repairs by Chauncey Metal, which is certainly a very reputable company.

Mr. Gillette stated the work has already been done. I do not know exactly who told what to who, or what the basis was for what you were told.

Ms. Cotter stated at the July meeting when he showed up, that is the meeting where we did not discuss anything regarding the gates. He approached me in the parking lot. After reading the minutes back to him from the June meeting stating that he would receive a letter from the attorney based on what we were going to be asking him to do in regards to the gates, I said it would probably be best to wait until you receive the letter from the attorney asking you to do something, and then approach the Board based on that. Because at that time we were not sure what the amount was going to be and what we expected the repairs were going to cost.

Mr. Gillette stated the Board took action based on what we heard. The Board took action to repair a damage gate. I am not certain of what I have heard today, with respect to what Mr. Garger is proposing in terms of payment. The gates have been repaired. I am not certain I understand what he is proposing. Is he proposing to pay all, none, half, a third?

This Board took action to repair the gate and put the burden of that to the person who had damaged it such that that burden would not extend to the rest of the homeowners who had nothing to do with damaging the gate. Sarah, can you add anything to this? Apparently you participated in some discussion with him.

Sarah stated he had asked me outside while you were still having your meeting if he should say anything.