Our Thirty-Third Year of Publication

- Blue Mountain Newsletter -

Our Thirty-Third Year of Publication

Blue Mountain Property Owner’s Association------Fall 2007

President’s Corner

Roads have been a priority issue for the Board for the past three years. But we have been fortunate to have had Chairmen of our Roads Committee who have energetically pursued the challenges. Tomahawk Trail became a particularly difficult problem because of an explosion in traffic from rapid development in adjacent Shenandoah Farms subdivision. Although we own Tomahawk, Shenandoah Farms enjoys perpetual access and shares equally in its maintenance costs in accord with a legally binding 1970s agreement between the original developers. Despite increasing traffic on all our roads, increasing maintenance costs, and the limitations of our budget, our roads continue to - improve.

Turning to the Lodge, by renting the previously unused and cluttered basement in return for work on the lodge, we have been able to get rotted roof timbers and fascia repaired and repainted and previously unused space upstairs converted into a meeting room. The new meeting room will allow us to avoid renting a church hall in Linden for winter Board meetings, saving us hundreds of dollars each year.

Blue Mountain

Herald [image]

Executive Board

President

Jim McManaway 635-7630

1st VP

Jonathan Morrison 636-8349

Treasurer

Pete Plourd 636-3657

Secretary

Cathy Berger 635-1259

Directors

Nynette Rourke 635-6381

Chuck Campbell 635-3848

Jack Davis 622-2642

Tim Winfield 878-1375

Jeff Rash 703-989-9478

Email the board at:

Board meetings are held at the Lodge the 2nd Monday of each month at 6 p.m. All property owners are welcome and encouraged to attend. Check: www.bmpoa.org for updates or cancellations.

Also, at the annual meeting the membership approved the use of contingency funds to replace the Lodge roof which was badly deteriorated and has needed patching for each of the last five years. The job was completed in October.

These milestones complete our efforts to stabilize the Lodge and make it usable for decades to come. In 2008 we plan to make it accessible to those with physical handicaps. When completed, this will allow us to rent the Lodge to non-members at commercial rates. The revenue should make the Lodge financially self sufficient which will help hold down Sanitary District Taxes.

In response to concerns by members, the board is turning increasing attention to architectural control and covenants enforcement. At the August meeting, the membership supported a board initiative to improve enforcement of our covenants. A separate article below summarizes that initiative. Previous Newsletters have addressed our reasons for encouraging members to vote for amending the covenants.

Respectfully,

James McManaway, President

Highlights of the Annual Meeting

The President opened the meeting with an overview of the Tomahawk Trail situation. Jeff Rash, the Roads Chairman, provided input from meetings with his counterparts in Shenandoah Farms.

Jim McManaway and Jon Morrison then reviewed the history and condition of the Lodge roof, the need for replacement and how to fund it. The membership approved replacing the roof.

In appreciation, Jim next presented a plaque to Don Richards, a long time resident who acted for years as the peace officer for our Association.

The Treasurer, Pete Plourd, could not attend the meeting but copies of the 2006-2007 Budget were circulated to the members.

The Roads Chairman then gave a comprehensive presentation on the improvements and state of our roads and his plan and schedule for working the problems.

Jack Davis summarized developments of the Architectural Review and Covenants Enforcement Committees. A comprehensive report on the state of covenants compliance appears below. He also reported that a surprising number of abandoned and unlicensed vehicles had been removed.

The Nominating Committee encouraged members to consider nominating others to serve on the board and various committees. The deadline for nominations to the Board as provided in the Bylaws is July 1, 2008.

The Wildfire Mitigation Program got off to a very good start in 2007 thanks to members who created 85 piles of deadfall. This is just the beginning of the program and members were encouraged to start creating new piles right away to reduce the risk of a forest fire spreading.

Chuck Campbell reported that there has been no significant progress on getting high speed Internet connectivity. One member added that some of us could get high speed connectivity if we have an unimpeded view of the water tower near the county fairgrounds on 522. Chuck is going to investigate.

There was some discussion of delinquent sanitary district taxes and the board’s intent to continue publishing the names of those who have not paid. Nynette Rourke then presented new board-approved contract guidelines and a fee structure for use of the Lodge. All members are urged to attend and participate in the annual meetings.

Cathy Berger, Secretary

Roads Report

Maintaining most of our more level and least used road sections has been relatively easy and inexpensive. However, our steepest and most heavily used roads or sections of roads again proved to be more expensive in equipment time and material.

I decided to use remaining funding this year to put more emphasis on these difficult to maintain roads by putting more money into the roadbeds, ditching, and in some cases culverts, in an attempt to reduce erosion and spending.

It should be possible to increase the road maintenance budget significantly in 2008 since we recently paid off our loan for the paving experiment. My plan for 2008 is to attack remaining problem areas on Old Sawmill, May Apple, Lonesome Pine, and Pee Wee with some of the expected increased funding next year, without jeopardizing maintenance work on any other road.

Tomahawk Trail continues to be a hot and dusty issue for residents there. (The problem is not the road. The problem is that Shenandoah Farms users are driving too fast on it.) Shenandoah Farms, which shares use and maintenance of Tomahawk, has floated an idea to tar and chip the road and share the $70-80,000 expense. However, the board decided to put that idea on hold since it does not want to share equally in financing a hard surface road used overwhelmingly by Shenandoah Farms. We are currently in discussions with the County to pave High Top and Old Linden roads, the best long term solution, which would benefit both associations at no cost to us and take almost all of the Shenandoah Farms traffic off of Tomahawk. Until then, additional speed bumps or dips may have to be installed and maintained to reduce speeding and dust.

The county has made some progress in replacing missing or damaged road signs. Members are reminded to advise me of any that are down and I will try to get the county to fix them before winter.

Finally, at the October board meeting I made a case that the road damage caused by the average of 100 trucks needed for each new house was significant and made a motion to increase the impact fees for builders from $1,500 to $2,500 each. The motion carried and the board approved it. We will be asking Warren County to approve the increase at the earliest opportunity.

Jeff Rash, Roads Chairman

Covenants Enforcement:

With the death of the developer 32 years ago, covenants enforcement took a back seat to other issues. Why? For one thing, the pace of change was very slow for the first 25 of those 32 years. It took well over a decade for BMPOA to gain strength and create the Blue Mountain Sanitary District which brought the financial support, oversight, and authority of County Government. Nevertheless, successive boards have been preoccupied with competing priorities such as roads maintenance, bad weather, low budgets, liability insurance problems, a period when the Association came close to falling apart, a lack of volunteers to do committee work, and a growing lack of understanding of and support for our protective covenants. Now, rapid development and deterioration of older structures make it increasingly clear that the time has come to focus more time and effort on covenants enforcement.

After more than a year without a chairman, the board in July appointed me as Chairman of the Covenants Enforcement Committee with the understanding that the Board and the Committee will work closely together and that the Board will be supportive of its efforts.

At the August Annual Meeting, I briefed the challenges as I saw them as follows:

· The Committee has had no members for over a year and now has only one.

· I guessed that there were many dozens of significant violations of our covenants.

· Many longer-term members seem to have given up hope of enforcing our covenants while many newer members either are not aware or do not seem to care that they are legally bound to abide by them.

· There has never been any money in the budget to pursue civil action against those who refuse to abide by our covenants.

· Some builders have essentially clear cut lots for the timber and burned the stumps on site before we knew about it. This can happen because the county gives out soil disturbance and building permits without any requirement that the recipient demonstrate that BMPOA has reviewed and approved building plans.

I then asked for, and received, member support to pursue the following initiatives;

· Expand the membership of the Committee.

· Conduct a survey of all existing violations and present our findings to the board.

· Recommend to the board which violations deserve immediate attention and action.

· Petition the Warren County Board of Supervisors to pass an ordinance or policy that would require that the county require documentation that BMPOA has approved construction plans prior to issuing building or clearing permits.

· Recommend to the Board that 2% of each annual budget be set aside and fenced for potential civil action.

Findings

By October 8 the Committee, now two members, surveyed 385 structures on all 686 lots. We noted only violations which we could clearly observe from one of our roads. Photographs were taken from the roadside in cases where we believed documentation would later be useful to the Association. To our knowledge, this was the first survey of the state of covenants compliance in decades.

The above situation has already been turned over to Warren County for enforcement.

A total of 133 violations of our covenants were noted. Many of them are violations of county building ordinances. The more significant violations fall into the following categories:

· In 28 cases spark arresters were missing from chimneys and we saw clear evidence of open burning on one lot. (Cont. pg. 4)

· In 27 cases we noted violations of architectural guidelines that ranged from unpainted or unfinished primary or “accessory” structures, unpainted plywood over windows, exposed metal chimneys on exterior walls, water or propane tanks in front yards, and paint colors that clearly would not be allowed by the covenants.

· In 14 cases we noted refuse and trash in sufficient quantity to be clearly visible and objectionable from our roads.

· Nine structures, mainly older cabins, were considered deteriorated and in need of maintenance to the point of constituting a nuisance and/or reducing the value of adjacent properties

· Eight unlicensed or unusable vehicles continue to be in violation of county ordinances (fewer than we expected).

· Eight accessory buildings had been erected forward of the front of the main structure.

· Six primary structures appeared to be incomplete for a period of more than one year.

· In five cases we identified construction that would not have been allowed by the covenants.

· At least five large commercial vehicles were parked within the subdivision.

· In five other cases vehicles, trailers or material were parked or stored at the end of our platted roads essentially taking over that property and blocking its use as a turnaround especially for emergency vehicles.

The Committee has grown to three members and we will present to the Board in November a plan to begin improving this situation. Clearly, we will focus early on those that pose the greatest threat to the community, such as missing chimney spark arresters and open burning. We anticipate sending letters to property owners asking them to address problems voluntarily. Later, we anticipate asking Warren County to enforce all shortcomings that are contrary to its ordinances.

I expect that a number of members will resist the board’s efforts to enforce the covenants that we all agreed to follow at the settlement table. The support of the rest of you is vital to preserve our property values and the quality of life here on Blue Mountain.

Jack Davis,

Chairman, Covenants Enforcement Committee

Water Well Concerns and Suggestions

Over the past several years, the number of members who have experienced temporarily dry wells seems to be growing and several members have expressed serious concerns. The board discussed the issue at the October meeting and recommended that members be made aware of some things that could be helpful or reassuring to members:

· The weather is decidedly dryer now and the less water that falls, the less water that percolates down through a relatively thin layer of dirt here and into narrow cracks and crevices in Blue Mountain and ultimately into our wells.

· Obviously, voluntary conservation of water during droughts is becoming a necessity. Watering lawns, filling pools or frequent refilling of hot tubs can deprive your neighbors of vitally needed water. As more wells are drilled and more water is used, the season for conservation could well lengthen. (In the 1999 drought High Knob subdivision endured terrible water problems. A number of residents there had to move temporarily to motels.)

· If water is pumped out of a well faster than it flows in, the level ultimately will fall to the level of the pump and a pressure switch near the pressure tank should shut off all power to the pump to protect it against a very expensive burnout. (Deep well centrifugal pumps depend on water flow to cool them.) If your pump shuts off, it is best to leave it off for at least six hours to give the well time to refill. If the pump will not reset within a minute after being off a full 24 hours leave it off and call a well servicing company or a plumber with well experience.