HSVPOA CMPAC Meeting 6-14-19

The Comprehensive Master Plan Advisory Committee (CMPAC) met June 14, 2019, at 1:00 p.m.

Click here to listen to the audio recording

The following is not a true transcript but contains all the main points from the meeting.  Some of the material was paraphrased. (Please forgive any typos.)

The committee members in attendance were, ” Chairman Keith Keck, Vice Chair Nikki Choyce, Patricia McCarthy,  Murray Claasen, Pam Avila, Clint Blackman III, and Tom Heau. Also, in attendance was Buddy Dixon, Board of Director Liaison.

The staff liaison in attendance was Renee Haugen, HSVPOA Director of Real Estate Acquisitions, who stood in for Stephanie Heffer, (HSVPOA Director of Placemaking and Development).

Absent from the meeting were Jody Latham (President of Cooper Land Development), Stephanie Heffer and Rolland White.

Also, in the audience was Jason Temple, Chief Operating Officer and Liz Mathis, Chief Financial Officer.  Board Director, Nancy Luehring was also in the audience. Nicky Sherman from the Village Voice sat at the table

Keith Keck: “Okay folks, it’s one o’clock.  We’ll go ahead and get started here.  We have two committee members; Jody is out of town and Rolland is taking care of his wife who just returned from knee surgery.”

Keith Keck: “I call this meeting to order, the CMP Advisory Committee meeting for June 14, 2019.  We have the agenda.  Do I have a motion to approve the agenda?”

Member: “Move to approve”

Member: “Second”

Keith Keck: “Any changes?  Any comments?  Okay, all in favor of the agenda, please say aye.”

Members: “Aye”

Keith Keck: “Everybody should have gotten three or four versions of the minutes.  Version four is the final one.”

Pat McCarthy: “But it doesn’t say on there it is number four.”

Nikki Choyce: “I was thinking a footer with page numbers would probably be a good idea in the future.”

McCarthy: “Or just second draft or something.”

Keck: “Or just do it right the first time – how’s that?”

Choyce: “That would be a good deal.”

McCarthy: “I was so confused about where to go because one said this, one said something else.  Okay, where am I?”

Keck: “Okay, as far as the minutes, do I have a motion to approve the minutes?”

Murray Claussen: “Motion to approve”

Member: “Second”

Keck: “Any discussion or comment on here?  So, I’ll bring up a few things I just want to highlight.  We’ll talk about in the minutes; we do have the mission statement there.  We’ll talk about that in a little bit.  If you do have any other comments as we do these minutes, just feed them to Tom and we’ll get them put in there – out there.  So, I think we’re good on that and the other thing was the action assignments that we put in the minutes.  So hopefully that will work for everybody to know what’s going on.  Anybody else have any comments about the minutes.  I thought Tom did a very good job.  I am getting these minutes there and they will go to the Board.  For the audience, we don’t post the minutes until they go to the Board and the Board approves the minutes and then they get posted.  Just so you know, we’re not holding back on minutes.  It’s the procedure.  We put these in the way of (unintelligible).  We didn’t make May 10^th and didn’t make the May Board.”

Keck: “All those in favor of the minutes, please say aye.”

Members: “Aye”

Keck: “Good.  Director Dixon, you’re up.”

Buddy Dixon: “My big deal here was the subcommittee for the marketing under you folks in the charter and the charter has been finalized.  I want to read you a little statement here.  It says per the bylaws, article 12, section 4:  appointment of standing committee members.  Committees may appoint subcommittees, consisting of their own members or others as appropriate, provided the purpose of the subcommittee is within the scope of the chartered purpose.  The Board has a copy of this charter and it will be in the consent agenda at the Board meeting. They do not have to be voted on, just approved.” 

Keck: “We are using the term, ‘ratified’.  They need to be ratified.”

Dixon: “Ratified”

Keck: “They will be ratified by next Wednesday and this kind of caused a little challenge, in that we couldn’t go out and do the interviews, yet.”

Dixon: “Soon as we do this, then we can do the interviews.”

Keck: “Okay, as soon as the Board does their action.”

Dixon: “Right”

Keck: “That puts us a little behind the power groove there for Pam’s group to try to produce what was requested by us by August.  We’ll just have to…the Board may have to be flexible with what you requested.  Anything else.”

Dixon: “That’s it.”

Keck: “Okay, Renee, anything from staff?  Did Stephanie leave you anything?”

Haugen: “Yes, she did.  She just wanted to let everybody know that there is a new application form and user-friendly set of rules and regulations now available in P and I [Permitting and Inspections].  As one of the suggestions, I think, I don’t know if it came out of here or came from the community, to split the builder portion and the resident portion into something that they could easily understand for Protective Covenants or Rules for building or permits.”

Dixon: “Can I address that a minute?”

Haugen: “Sure”

Dixon:  “All the permits now, when you go in, anything to do with a home, whether it is to build a new home or you want to put in heating and air or plumbing, whatever you have to do…When you go get the permit, included with that permit, when you fill it out, you will get a copy of the procedures and the Protective Covenants that apply to that particular situation.  So, it makes it real easy to…if you want to replace your hot water heater, you go get a permit.  It tells you what you have to do and it tells you the Protective Covenants that cover that.  Very simplified now.  Easy to do.”

Haugen: “And those are available in the boxes outside the P and I office.”

Dixon: “Right”

Haugen: “She has asked public works and the police department to begin a traffic study at the gates as well as the major intersections in the Village.  She’ll have a complete report once that study is complete.” 

Keck: “And I’ll follow up on that.  I’ll change hats.  Take my CMP hat off and put my Justice of the Peace hat on.  Yeah, we’re trying to work with the Department of Transportation, especially Jason [Temple].  I have been working with Jason here at the east gate especially.  The situation there with the new building and what that may potentially do for us.  So, the county is looking at it, too, with the state.”

Haugen: “Stephanie has indicated that her and Stacy Hoover and the Recreation Committee are going to begin a public engagement session sometime before the end of this year for the Coronado Center and surrounding commercial area.  So around here and down the street to the two commercial areas as you go out Ponderosa.  And that will be a public engagement session, but the goals are to better understand the wants and the needs of the community for this area.  And to what revitalization might look like.”

Keck: “I think you have at least one or two recommendations in the CMP about this area.  So, we’ll have to lash up to make sure that is tied in, that in consideration.” 

Haugen: “She’ll report to this committee on the dates when that session is to begin.”

Keck: “Okay, just so we can track that that’s being done and how we tie it into that recommendation.”

Haugen: “Well, I am sure she will have people from this committee invited to sit on that engagement session, as well.”

Keck: “Good”

Haugen: “The urban deer hunt, she is working with the GIS team to update that map.  New technologies in the GIS system will allow, this year, tighter mapping for providing better directions to the hunters who are participating in the hunt and it will be a much more detailed area that ensures the barriers and the boundaries from residences.  And everybody knows she is attending a conference.  I’m not really Stephanie. (laughter) But she is attending a conference.  She said that she will bring back information, some of the topics from some of the sessions she was attending.  Had to do with form-based codes, small-scale development strategies for communities, moving current market positions and current market demand in a community that’s already in place and how to work with divided communities with conflicting visions.  So obviously it is not just a local issue.  They had an entire presentation at the conference about it.”

Keck: “That means, Pam, you probably need to send Stephanie a quick note because definitely a [subcommittee way off the bat]. Okay, any questions of Renee?”

Keck: “Okay, item six, action items.  I’ll go through these briefly to see how…to see if there are any updates there.  We’ll review the SWOT analysis here in a little bit.  We’ll also review the Mission Statement.  The Marketing Subcommittee Charter has made it’s way through the next three.  Three, four and five.  Our action there was completed.  Six has made it to Governance.  Wow.”

Keck: “The review of the marketing has been all done so we took that action item.  Done.  Stephanie has provided Nikki and Roland and Tom, you got the Excel spread sheets and that action item was taken care of.” 

Keck: “Buddy, we’ll talk about action nine there, which is the revenue and growth portion.  We have an agenda item about that.  We’ll talk about that.” 

Keck: “And then today we will reflect on deferred maintenance.  Everybody’s provided their inputs and we’ll have a good discussion on what Murray has put together and we will talk about deferred maintenance.” 

Keck: “Any question on any other action items?  I think we’ll cover them all today and finish off those action items and we’ll get some new ones out there.  Tom, did you get all that?”

Keck: “Okay, as far as old business, we’ll start off with property owner education.  I’ll take a few minutes there.  I handed out a thing that says, “Dear Keith” type of stuff.” 

Keck: “Had a chance to talk with an individual about our market and our marketing strategy and overall the CMP type of stuff.  I said it’s one of those things to have a good engagement, back and forth.”  

Keck: “I really like this because I am a retired air force guy.  He put it air force base vernacular…talked about building an air force base, out there.  But I want to use this as an example, and we will talk about a few other examples as we get to a couple of different agenda items.  It is a two-way street on education.  I put out to people on the side there, it is a two-way street.”

Keck: “It is for us to kind of take in what you guys are thinking as well as us, if you are thinking something that, “hey, here’s what it really means”.  Let’s have that dialogue back and forth.  Not afraid.  We have the CMP Advisory email, just send it there.  It comes over to me and if it needs to be sent to someone else, we will send it to…if it is a deferred maintenance type of thing, I will send it to Murray.  But I only use it because I like to encourage, let’s have these discussions.  I mean if we want to have face-to-face, it is great to have stuff like that face-to-face, but at the same time some of us like to bounce stuff back and forth over email.” 

Keck: “I just want to use this an example because this is an ongoing discussion about how someone felt about the CMP.  And there are good things and there are bad things.  We got to hear from the folks there.  I mean, we’re not going to make everybody happy, but as a committee need to be exposed to all this stuff, too.  Sometimes, it’s not going to be sugar-coated and sometimes it is sugar-coated.  We just have to see what it is.” 

Keck is forwarding the different emails from the Villagers to the appropriate committee member, which is decided based on their expertise.  “Pam, if I get one on marketing, it is going to be bounced down to you.” 

Keck: “If it is on infrastructure, it will be bounced to Murray.”

Keck wants the committee members to be able to talk with the people in the community.  “Don’t be afraid to talk to them.  We can agree to disagree because that is what’s going to be out there.  If we don’t talk back and forth, I see it as wasting some expertise because the people on the committee have expertise, too.”

 Heau:  How much traffic do you get on that website? (POA website)

Keck: “Not a lot.”  “I will be very honest with you; I will be proactive.” There are other websites out there in the Village where questions are asked.  “I would rather give people the facts.”

Choyce:  She and Keith had a recent meeting with Stephanie.  Stephanie reads part of an email, “yes, I have owned property for many years, but I have only lived here for two weeks.  So, I am still learning a lot of the different things and they educate me on things.  Is this public information or is this something that everybody knows or should know?”

Choyce:  Stephanie, Keith and I talked about a five-minute education moment where we focus on different topics.  “One of the things we talked about as an action item for everyone who is sitting in the room, if there is something in particular that you would like more information on, we can use that as an educational moment.  So, when we get to the end of the agenda and open up the comments to the floor, if you have something” let us know so we can “incorporate those (questions/ideas) as we move forward”.

Keck: “Nikki, you’re up on SWOT analysis.  We’ll turn that over to you.”

Choyce:  One of the things that we did last time was the SWOT analysis.  A copy of it is with the minutes of the last meeting.  We covered strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for the CMP.  “However, what we want to do this time is review it.”  Are there any additions or changes before we finalize it?  “As part of our charter, we have to do a SWOT analysis, quarterly.” 

Keck:  The SWOT analysis goes to both the Board and staff.

Choyce:  The strengths of the SWOT, “in terms of the CMP document itself, that is what we are focusing on in this SWOT.  Hey, good news!  We have a plan.  It is documented and it is comprehensive.

Note:  At this point in the meeting, it was decided to use the projector to put up the SWOT analysis and they stop to set it up.

Someone asked Keck what SWOT means. 

Keck: “SWOT is strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.  It is what businesses do when they are looking at where they want to take their business.  In this case we did the SWOT analysis on the CMP, itself.”

Keck:  While the projector is being set up, Keck goes to Old Business, Item E.  “Revenue Growth Subcommittee.  We talked last time about a potential Revenue Growth Subcommittee.  If you look at the Finance Committee Charter, which is going forward to the Board next week, Buddy?  For approval.

Dixon:  Yes

Keck: “The actual revenue growth portion is in their charter.  So, the CMP Advisory Committee will not have a separate subcommittee right now because it is going to be handled by the Finance Committee.”

Keck: “We will be monitoring it and see how it reports out”.

Dixon: “Let me read a statement from Stephanie.  And this has to do with one of your emails. She said, ‘I see the CMPAC plugging in is at a much more strategic level in terms of maximizing existing revenue sources and recommending new opportunities for revenue growth.’”

Keck: We may have someone plugged into the committee, but we will not have our own subcommittee.  This is a change from what was thought/said last month.

Choyce:  Uses the slide projector and goes over the strengths (see above) again.  She adds that the CMP was “written by someone outside the Village so we have that perspective versus just people who are in the Village.”  Choyce asked for additional strengths.

Keck: Highlights the point about the CMP being written by those outside the Village with a different perspective from those living here. “In 2000, 2005 and 2010 we drafted our own Strategic Plans.  The problem you have is if the plans are drafted internally, it doesn’t sell very well in the outside world.”  The strength of our CMP is that it comes from a perspective outside the Village.

Choyce:  Weaknesses – not a lot of infrastructure detail, somethings may require additional steps that “involve other parties.”  “Dependencies between recommendations are not very clear.”  Additional weakness is fear regarding this plan, which is a fear of change.  We need a more user-friendly version that is more easily understood.  The audience needs to be educated.

SWOT Analysis Presentation (Click to enlarge)

Choyce:  Opportunities – external and positive opportunities – “it is a plan for economic development.  It is helpful in recruiting contractors.  The plan increases contractor/developer confidence in our direction and identifies trends in housing markets and development.”

Keck: We want to change that point about helpful in recruiting contractors.  “When I think of a contractor, I think of the plumber.”

Keck: “If you put developers there, that is more than CCI.  I mean you hope that someone else come in here that wants to build.”

McCarthy: Suggested that the words, ‘developers and builders’ be used.

Choyce: “The final category is threats – things that are external to us and on the negative side.”  The threats are the CMP is challenging to explain to others.

Keck: “The dynamics of our community is a challenge, too.  Because we are so diverse.  When you work your way west to east or north to south, we are very diverse.  That is a challenge to us right now because it is not ‘one item fits all’.  That is a threat to us.

Keck:  What the CMP recommends doing in one section of the Village may not always work in another section.

Choyce: The large size of the Village is a challenge.

Blackman: “How about this?  How about diverse opinions are causing misunderstanding and impediments to the development of the CMP.

Keck:  I would just leave it as a threat and not say what it is doing. 

Haugen: “Maybe add, Nikki, ‘of the community’ because there may not be diverse and conflicting opinions of small developers that it is being presented to or partners, regional Metroplan partners or things like that.  The conflicting opinions are within our own community.”

Choyce: “I think it is common to use terminology that resonates with someone and doesn’t resonate with others.  For example, I hear the words, ‘there are good parts and there are bad parts.  I think the terms ‘good’ and ‘bad’ is not really reflective of what we are trying to do.  There are parts that I agree with and parts that I don’t agree with.  But that doesn’t necessarily make them good or bad because you have five people that could look at one area and half the people may say ‘that’s a good part’ and the other half may say, ‘that’s a bad part’.”

Choyce: “The terminology we are using compounds that diversity.”

McCarthy: “it makes it more than what it really is.  It blows it up.  Like for instance if you look at some of the things in the CMP and you’re just a regular person, page 203 to 231, they are just suggestions of the way the houses should be built, and the roads should be built.  But when you live here, east, west or in between you do not look at a housing area with four lanes.  You just don’t.  And that’s in here and that scares people.  They don’t realize it is just a concept.”

Keck:  People think they are going to be out there with the tractors tomorrow.

McCarthy: “It is blown up too much for people to digest.”

Choyce: “I was just thinking of this as an action item for us to be more thoughtful in our own use of terminology as we discuss with other people.  For right now I see that as a threat because we could literally escalate something that shouldn’t be escalated, simply because of poor word choice.”

McCarthy: “We’re going too far.”

Keck: “Why don’t we take that as an action item.  We need to go back and develop our own lexicon to kind of say, ‘here’s how we want to talk about certain things’.”

Heau: “What outcome do we expect?

Keck: The outcome of the SWOT analysis is a learning tool for the committee, as we are delving into the CMP, on what we feel the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the CMP.  We are reporting the results of the SWOT analysis to the BOD and staff.

Blackman: “This is our given understanding at this period of time.”

Keck: “The key to this committee, on the education side of the house, is to take some of those weaknesses and turn them into strengths.  That is the key to any business.  Take your weaknesses and turn them into strengths.  Any of those threats, let’s make an opportunity out of them.”

Choyce: We have to conduct the SWOT, we have to review it, final thoughts and if there are a lot, we may actually have to go for a second iteration.  Since we only meet once a month, that could easily drag this out three months.  I think we are actually going to get this one done in two months.”  We need to identify the next topic, so we can move forward with it in the next agenda.

Keck:  Asks Avila is she wants them to do a SWOT on marketing.

Avila: “Now might be a good time since the Marketing Committee is just beginning.  So, it is appropriate to do the SWOT now.”

Choyce:  Asked what the marketing SWOT would be?  General marketing or do “you want to say something specific?”

Keck: It is a SWOT on general marketing right now. 

Choyce: “Marketing efforts of the Village?”

Keck: “Yes”

Avila: There are two different elements to the marketing.  One is the external and the other is internal.

Keck: Do both.

Keck: “The next thing on the agenda is the Mission Statement Goals and Objectives.”  If you look at the minutes, ‘the mission of the CMP Advisory Committee is to advise the POA on the successful implementation of the CMP for the benefit of Hot Springs Village property owners.’”

Keck: “We report to three different masters: the board, the staff and property owners.  Ultimately, this committee has that mission.

Choyce:  We want to keep the mission statement as short as possible.  “Some of the things I had put as possible mission statements are:

1. Ensure the needs and concerns of the CMP stakeholders are heard

2.  Identify CMP stakeholders and their interests regarding the aspects of the CMP implementation.

3.  Promote understanding of the CMP and provide insights regarding stated priorities.”

Choyce:  Those are different samples of things.  I was trying to think of key points.

Keck: “Do we want to use those as our goals and objectives?”

Keck: Right now, we have as goals and objectives:

1.  Understand the CMP,
2. Communicate,
3. Educate,
4. Gain trust,
5. Support, prioritize (indecipherable).

What were the goals listed when we did this last time?

Avila:  Asked Choyce to reread her goals.

Nikki reread her goals.

McCarthy: “We have to define the word ‘stakeholders.” The CMP defines stakeholders as property owners, staff, the Board of Directors, etc.  “The staff are not all property owners, which limits that from what we decided stakeholder meant.  Somehow we have to get that across.”

Avila:  The word ‘stakeholder’ is challenging for people who have not been in the business world.

Choyce:  We need to define the word ‘stakeholder’ or find a replacement word that is basic so that everyone can understand.

Haugen: “The staff members who are not property owners are still subject to the success of the CMP for their own jobs.  So they have a stake in the Village succeeding.”

Blackman: “It is not only that.  It is the businesses that provide services to us, the county…”

Keck:  Let’s take this as an action item.  Combine all these together.

Blackman: “It is important because we don’t need misunderstandings and we found the use of the word, ‘stakeholder’ causes some misunderstanding.”

Heau: Doesn’t have a problem with the mission statement and it seems as if we are discussing goals and objectives.  “I don’t hear any strong suggestions that the mission statement, as drafted, is really under strong consideration for change.”

Keck: The one issue we need to talk about is ‘stakeholder’.

Keck:  Right now, it is not in the mission statement.  We have to discuss how to potentially put the word, ‘stakeholder’ in the mission statement.

Keck rereads the mission statement.

Keck turns the floor over to Avila to discuss to discuss marketing.

Avila:  We already discussed the charter needs to be ratified at next week’s meeting before we can start interviewing for marketing subcommittee members.  We don’t have many applications at this point.

Keck:  We have three.

Avila: “For as many people as have been vocal about their interest in marketing.  Step up.  Step up.  This is your opportunity if you want to have a part in it, if you have some ideas, if you want to be part of the plan, step up.  Talk is cheap.  So step up.”

Keck:  Going back to property owner education and communication.  There was a gentleman who was very concerned about what happened to our marketing program.  We have emailed back and forth.  Keck reads an email: “How I would classify our marketing program, having lived through the 2010 to 2015 years on the Board…2015 was a reality event.  Our marketing was limited to nonexistent or limited to almost nonexistent funds to market a community headed towards financial bankruptcy.”

Keck:  Wants people to understand that there is a reason we weren’t doing a good marketing campaign.  First of all, we did not have the money.  Secondly, how do you market to someone when your community is not exactly doing very well.  That is what we went through from 2010 to 2015.  “You can only put so much lipstick on a pig.  We were putting a lot of lipstick on that pig for five years.”  This Village has a lot to sell.

McCarthy: We are so unique compared to other places to retire.  We are a gated community.  We are the largest gated community.  We are in the mountains, not the ocean.  We have so much.  “I think the gated community aspect is extremely important, especially if you are targeting retirees” or if you want to attract families with little children.

Keck: “I think gated communities are attractive to all ages.” There are problems outside the gates.

Blackman “It is national.  We are an island, so to speak.  When I tell people about this place in Dallas, they are just like, ‘wow’.

Blackman agrees that we were not in a good financial spot before and “marketing takes money.  It takes people.  It doesn’t change overnight.”

Avila: The other challenge was that people have lived here in the Village for a long time were used to a lot of “heavy-duty marketing that was done by Cooper.  He spent millions and millions on marketing the Village.  Once Cooper stopped that and pulled out, there were no millions.  So when they think of the marketing that happened and then it didn’t happen anymore, there are sound, solid reasons why.  The situation has changed again, so we’re going to be going forward with whole new strategies.”

Keck: “That is the key.  Starting with a strategy.  Our strategy back in 2012 was putting a sign on Interstate 35 outside Austin. How many people in this room knew we did that?  That we had a big billboard outside Austin, Texas that said, ‘Here’s Hot Springs Village.  Come join us!’ We spent marketing dollars to put a billboard out there because we couldn’t go any farther.”

Avila:  The way marketing is done today has changed.  Digital marketing is important.  The internet is very important.  “Also, on the other side of it, the recipient, the viewer of the marketing is very different today.  All that has to be taken into account as we are coming up with a marketing strategy.  People are willing to give you 15 seconds today.  If you can get 30, you are doing really well.  So that changes marketing strategy, tactics, the whole thing, all the way down.  We’ll be looking at all of that and doing research on all of that as well as what has worked in the past, given what today looks like.  We have our work cut out for us.”

Haugen: “We can’t forget the power of ourselves.  In studies, in talking to your own circle of friends, not one of them learned about the Village from a piece of marketing.  Most everyone here, probably didn’t learn about this from a postcard or a flyer.  Friends and family are our number one marketing tool.”

Blackman: “Which brings up another thing that I think we are all concerned about.  Yes, we got here.  My cross the street neighbor told me about Hot Springs Village.  That’s how we’re here.  Another thing that we need to try and do is educate these people because there are some people in the community that are so negative about everything that they need to be encouraged to see the optimism and see how wonderful this place is.  There are some people that simply don’t want change.  It’s a fact of life.”

McCarthy: “This is radical change.”

Keck: “Patricia, we are so big.  That is a challenge we have.”

McCarthy, “We have 4 distinct seasons.”  Some places don’t.

Keck: “I tell my friends that it is 15 miles before you hit a stoplight.”

Keck: “We are looking for folks that want to be a part of this marketing subcommittee effort.  There are a lot of people that like to raise their hand and say this is how to do it.  But you have to be part of it.”  We are looking for marketing committee members.

Avila: “We are looking for people that are open minded; that are willing to look at the what the world is like today, not 5 years ago, 10 years ago and people that are willing to come in with ideas.

Keck: Does anyone remember when Cooper marketed us in the 1970’s?  What his expectation was as to how long people would live there.  They retire at 65 and they die at 70.  

Keck: We can’t market the same way that Cooper marketed in the 70’s.

Keck turns the floor to Claasen on deferred maintenance.

Claasen:  Last month we decided we would come back with a definition for deferred maintenance this month.  The reason is so we will have some guidance to provide the POA staff to quantify the amount of deferred maintenance that is identified in the CMP.  Section 5 and 6 of the CMP identifies how many different tasks and the associated dollars for those tasks.  So, in order to prioritize those tasks, we need to know which of those maintenance items have been carried in to current years and which are new maintenance.”  Claasen pointed out that Jason Temple was at the meeting.  Most of that effort will fall with Temple or his staff. 

Claasen: “Via email, after last month’s meeting, there was a proposed definition and a very healthy response from all our members, which is greatly appreciated.  I’ll just paraphrase some of the responses here a bit and if I get that wrong, please feel free to help me out.

Claasen: One consideration was that the initial proposal would be seen as being negative by staff.  Claasen made it clear that he would be the last person to ever criticize the POA and Public Works and Utilities.  They have his profound support.  Claasen reviewed the initial proposal at a Public Services meeting where Temple is the staff liaison.  The members him to keep it simple.   The current definition probably will be changed in the future as we become more sophisticated in our maintenance management approach and programs.  The updated definition is that “deferred maintenance is scheduled maintenance, repairs or replacements that were postponed to defer expenses into a future budget.”

We can defer due to lack of money or resources in terms of people or equipment.  It could be because it makes more sense to do something later after something else has already been done from a sequence point of view.   Should we limit the definition to only include deferred expenses when it might be other things such as time, money and people?

Claasen:  Doesn’t know if we will have the information to do this.

Jason Temple: We could evolve or break our deferred maintenance items into categories with basic types of deferred maintenance.  There are different reasons why things are deferred.  We can identify those things so we can store it for the purpose of understanding.

Keck:  Do we want to put that in Caveats, underneath?  And say how do we tie resources in?

Liz Mathis:  I know that our public utilities, public works infrastructure is where the majority of it falls.  But to the committee, are you including our amenities in this definition?

Keck:  It is not just the roads, it is the buildings, the Coronado Center.

Blackman: “This is one of those things you can either expand into something down to the subparagraphs or we can go with this and if we need to adjust it later, we can do that.  I think we ought to go with this updated proposal.  It has support of the administration and let’s see what…and implementation on how they break it out will be helpful to us to see if we need to make a change at a later date.  I think we ought to adopt this proposal.”

Mathis:  “The other piece to this from the financial standpoint is that we have some work to do on developing some better definitions internally and externally as well as what qualifies as a maintenance expense and what qualifies as capital.  There’s probably things we’ve been expensing as a maintenance expense that we really should be capitalizing some repairs and replacement.  So I would think the finance committee could take something like this and start to develop some better definitions, policies on capitalization and things like that.

Choyce:  I don’t know if it is so much as definitions as criteria, that if it meets a certain criterion then…

Keck: “I think that is key.”  The next step is to produce some tables.  “In the past the books weren’t run properly.”

Mathis:  We didn’t have software systems to get to the data that we needed to make better decisions.

Keck asks for a motion

Blackman makes a motion that we accept this definition of the updated proposal of deferred maintenance.

Second and all in favor

 5-minute break

A few photographs from the meeting (Click to enlarge)

Keck:  The first item in new business is project management.

Heau: “Can I back this up?  What is the next step with deferred maintenance, now that we have defined it?”

Keck:  It’s going to be handed to them and it’s going to be handed to the infrastructure committee to use as work.  We’ll talk about future subcommittees.

Keck:  We are very fortunate on CMP Advisory Committee to have two certified project managers.  One property owner sent Keck an email about how they needed to hire a project manager.  Keck told this individual how fortunate the committee is to already have project managers on board, Nikki Choyce and Rolland White.  The CMP is a huge project with 271 items to track.   The CMP is going to take us forward into the next two decades.  This is a 20- year plan.  They will use their strengths to tell us how we are going to lay out all these recommendations.

Keck gives the floor to Choyce to discuss Project Management.

Choyce: presents slides that define Project Management.

Project Management Introduction

Project-Management-presentation-20190614

Choyce: “Project Management is the application of the knowledge of Project Management and the skills to plan and execute projects effectively and efficiently.  Trying to get it done right the first time.”

Choyce: “What is the definition of a project?  A project has specific characteristics.  It is temporary in nature versus operations, which tend to be ongoing.  It has a planned start date and a a planned completion date.  So we have something in mind as far as what we are trying to do and we know from the beginning what is the expected outcome or result.  It is our goal to come up with a plan and action and achieve that end result.  The gotcha is that it will require resources.”

Choyce:  “Resources is a generic term for time, money and people and that’s where we get into some trouble.  Why do we want to use Project Management here?  Project Management has been around since the pyramids, if you want to go back that far.  But they had expendable labor at that time.  (laughter)  It is proven and it’s systematic.  At its core, it is incredibly practical in its approach.  When we do it right, everybody that is involved and touches a project has increased confidence that we are going to achieve the objective.  That is one of the things that project management definitely brings to the table and at the end of the day because we have a systematic approach we will save time, we will save money and we’ll reduce the effort because we are taking a look at the risks and we’re finding ways to mitigate those from the get go.”

Choyce: “How does it relate to the CMP?  The CMP has tons and tons of projects and I gave some examples here.  It is not just one marketing project.  There are going to be dozens of marketing projects; infrastructure projects.  We can talk about the website, social media, legal, finance.  These are just some of the areas that we could potentially touch as we go.  And when we take a look at those, each and every one of them has a defined start, a defined end and there is an outcome expected objective that we want to get.”

Keck: “I highlight here, it is the interdependencies across some of our subcommittees that is going to be important.  Because if we have someone coming out and advising, ‘let’s do X’, but we haven’t done Y or Z in another subcommittee, then it doesn’t make sense.  So, we have to lash up that way, so we are getting everything done in the proper sequence.”

Choyce: “I am very concerned about the interdependences that have not been developed and we may run into some of those.  The reason why we are worried about interdependencies is there could be a logical sequence that we have not taken into consideration.  We are using resources and we are sharing resources and not everybody is available to do everything all at the same time.  We want to minimize the wasted effort and thoughtfully think through what we should be doing first and what we should be doing next.”

Choyce: “I’ve identified four projects or recommendations.  One is the developer marketing package.   Create one of those.  One is we need to get the ACC construction standards revised and doing some work there and also, we wanted to get some of this stuff related to the people who are developers or builders or whatever, get that on a website for them.  There is also another one that says, ‘developer recruitment’, but we can’t do developer recruitment until all those other things are in place.  That is just one example of dependencies that we have to think through in order to be effective in how we are approaching it.” 

Choyce:  The end goal is that Rolland and I are going to be able to put this into a schedule where we can actually start tracking some of this.  A schedule is nice because it is date sensitive, so we can keep track of it.  There is terminology associated with it.  I don’t want to get everybody too bogged down in it, but bars represent the various different work effort.  The length indicates the duration.  Arrows tell us what those dependencies or relationships are and then we put it to accounting then we can say what are we planning on doing this year?  What are we planning on doing next year?” 

Choyce: “The cool thing about this software is that if one thing slips, we can see the cascading impact of all the other things.  So we can start taking some proactive measures now, rather than wait until later.  Based on that, I have come up with some recommendations, well some concerns.”

Choyce:  “The first concern I have is that when you read the CMP, some of those are incredibly vague or not defined.  I have some examples here:

1. “ ‘The POA should develop a cost benefit model that incorporates inputs.’  Okay, what inputs?
2. ’Consolidate marketing efforts and streamline the marketing message as recommended elsewhere.’  Okay, show me.  Where is that?
3. ‘Other alternative options may be available upon further research.’  How am I supposed to figure out what this recommendation is, if I don’t even understand it or I have to refer back to, as is the last one, ‘go back to Observation 7’ to see what I am talking about here.  That is the entire recommendation.  ‘Refer to the Observation.’  I don’t know what to do with that.  So these are some of the concerns that I have because I can’t deal with fuzzy, personally.  I need more detail.”

Choyce: The next concern Choyce has is that when you look at the book, it was reprinted last year and there were things that were planned for last year and we don’t have an update on what happened.  “We know you planned to do it in 2018.  Did it, in fact, get done?  So to me, that means the status is not current.  We are in 2019 and I want to see where we are right now as of 2019.  Seventy-eight recommendations are planned for 2018, which represents 29 percent of the whole.  I want to know how many of those have been completed.  I want to know if they weren’t completed, are they going to roll over into 2019 and if so what are we taking off the plate for 2019?  There is only so much we can do.”

Choyce: “And then finally, of those that were not done, was it because they couldn’t be done because of some interdependency that we didn’t identify or basically just holding it up.  So, let’s figure out what those are and if we need to take a different plan of action.”

Choyce: “The third concern that I have is that there are 17, six percent of the recommendations that are indicated complete.  But in the Project Management world, we don’t do ‘trust me’ very well.  Because you get bitten by that.  ‘You told me you’re done, but has it been verified done?  Objectively, measurably by some third party or whatever, has this been done?  I want it measurable and clearly defined on what done looks like.” 

Choyce: “The last one about how much money did it actually take and is that more or less than what was estimated?  That’s going to help us with budgeting.  Because if we are not doing well in budgeting and everything costs twice as much as what we thought it was, then obviously that has impacts on what we can do because we have to spend money here, which means we can’t spend money there.”

Choyce: “The fourth concern that I have looking at the CMP is that when you look specifically at the implementation tables, there is a whole bunch of them, literally a third of them, 97, have their status as ongoing.  Well to me this is a real challenge because how do we budget for something this year if all I know is that it is ongoing?  I need to know what you plan to do and that what’s your using to justify your budget.  I give just a pure example from my head.”

Choyce: “I took a look at 3.6.6, which is the ‘Recommendations: Continue to Enhance the HSV Golf Amenity Resources and Status Ongoing.’  Again, what are you doing last year, next year, the year after that?”

Keck: “These are specific tasks we’ll have to go in…

Choyce: “But these are my ideas.  These are not the actual ones that are getting done.”  But if I was going to put it on the schedule or a budget to it, in 2018 I need to know how much the different items will cost.  “I really think we should tighten that up in terms of the ongoing to say, ‘okay, tell me what you are doing this year, and this is why you are putting that much in the budget’. 

Keck: “As we break out into subcommittees, these subcommittees are going to get certain recommendations.  It’s going to behoove the subcommittees to go and make sure the details are out there on the recommendations.  So, if you are on the amenity subcommittee, golf has to tell us.”  They need to tell us the steps and what is going on.  “Do we need a new roof, or this or that?  The staff has a lot of this stuff.  IT is buried in the pages.”

Keck then talks about the cart path at Balboa Golf Course.  They were going to fix it 2003 or 2004.  It is still not fixed and it is dangerous.  This is a situation that could be tracked with Project Management.

Choyce: “From a Project Management perspective, the first thing I would like to do is work with the staff and whoever is assigned to the things that were assigned and scheduled for 2018 and really determine what the current status is.  If they are done, let’s call it done.  If it was not done, how much was done?  How much is moving forward?” 

Choyce: Secondly, “once we know where we are and know what we want to do, then Rolland and I can take a look at it and create a viable schedule for both 2019 and as we get more information, 2020, 2021, etc.  We can put that into a schedule, so we really have a methodology of gathering the information and tracking it.”

Choyce: “The third recommendation is I really think we need to apply Project Management principles specifically around scheduling so that we have a better handle and grip on what should be happening, and we can look at the schedule and get updates, accordingly.  That could also be something we could use for reporting to both the staff and to the Board.”

Keck: “This is more than just the staff.  This is going to the Public Services Committee because I know Murray is going to be supporting Jason on a lot of this stuff.  Or the Golf Committee.”

Keck: “We have some of the pieces (information) out there.”  This all ties back into the budget.  “That is where we don’t have the linkages and where Project Management comes into.  We have all the ideas and are trying to provide something to the CEO and the Board.  Here’s your linkages.”

Choyce: “And the beauty of using these scheduling tools is that I can put resources in it and I can slice and dice and I can create a report from…”

Keck: “But that is where the Finance Committee comes in.”

Keck:  Hopefully this ties everything together.

Keck: “This is what the plan tells us, all these things we need to be looking at.  We are trying to implement this plan, but we have to put all these pieces together.”

Choyce: “This is where we can bring some value as a committee to  help guide and provide information so that good decisions can be made.  Because if you don’t now where you are, any road will get you there.”

Blackman: “This will help us educate our membership, the property owners, that we all have a job to do, that we can talk to them.  I didn’t know about this cart path problem.  It gives us the details, the data, the visibility, and checking off.  Yes, we did something, folks. We did this.  We did this.  This has been done.  That is very important.”

Choyce: “Not only doing it, but communicating it in a way that…”

Keck: “The outside group that came here and walked our golf courses and did all this stuff that was part of this development’s plan, they told us what our warts were.  They weren’t afraid to tell us where some of are warts were. That one guy, he is the Canadian guy, he was brutal a couple of times.”

Choyce: “The fourth recommendation is let’s take a closer look at those ongoing things and have realistic annual objectives so that we can really estimate budget and track those.”

Choyce: “The final thought I have is utilize the Project Management expertise that are available.  Rolland and I are here.  We can help and we are more than willing to help.  Let’s go ahead and do it.”

Choyce: “The next one is applying Project Management practices so that we can get better estimating and forecasting capabilities.”

Choyce: “And then finally, let’s size those planning efforts so we can really see if it matches what our current resource capacity is.  There will always be more work than what we have hands to do it.  So let’s be realistic.  We can’t do everything today so we have to prioritize what we are going to do today and what is going to have to shift. And sizing it, we could use T shirt sizing.  Small, medium and large.  That’s is all we are looking at.  It gives us a start.”

Choyce stated she has the software for this and can export it to an Excel spread sheet or PDF it.  The scheduling software costs a thousand dollars and we don’t want everybody to get it.

Heau:  On the 271-line-item recommendations, “I am not a big fan of it and I think you looked at every problem I have with it.  Let’s just start with, the line items, many of them are simply vague.  I would assume that is a huge barrier to ultimate implementation of Project Management.”

Choyce: “Because it is open to interpretation.”

Heau: “Right”

Choyce: “But that is also the benefit of it because we can apply our cultural Hot Springs Village Hat on and say ‘okay, here is the recommendation, but how does it apply to us and how do we want to implement it?’.  That gives us the flexibility to define it.  But we need to define it.  But the time to do it, if we are going to do it, we need to define it for what makes sense for us.”

Heau: “My bottom line is, I don’t see how we can go forward without that whole section 5 being reworked, significantly.”

Keck: “Well, I think it is not so much reworked but clarified.”

Choyce: “So as an action item going out of this, we want to sit down with the various different people, especially those in 2018” and receive an understanding of what has happened with some of the line items that were supposed to be accomplished in 2018.

Avila:  “Whether you are for the CMP or against the CMP, whatever, I think that the very positive thing that is coming out of it, it is going to make the Village as a whole, a stronger, better organized, more thoughtful community.  Because of things like taking things and actually organizing them, setting parameters, setting priorities.  So, I think the CMP has done us a huge favor.”

Choyce: “And it’s not to say that what we’ve been doing so far and all the work that has been done before, we’ve got some hard-working people and their intent is excellent.  It is not demeaning them in any way.  But I think there’s another value-add layer that we can add that can make it even (indecipherable). We have to work smarter.  We have to work more effectively and efficiently.”

Keck: “Let me go back in the history of Hot Springs Village.  I don’t have the paragraph.”  “In the strategic plan of 2010, it says the Village needs to hire a full-time project manager.  That’s our history.  That was recognized in 2010.  We didn’t act on that recommendation.”

Keck gives the floor back to Choyce to discuss Stakeholder information exchange.

Choyce: “This actually came from our very first meeting, from Buddy.  He was saying, ‘what do we as a committee owe to other parties and what do other parties have for us?’.  I thought, being a visual person, we need to map this in a way.  We’ve talked about how important it is to identify stakeholders.  There are expectations, communication and information and I was try to map that.  This committee, we have 3 primary areas that we have to focus on, which is the Board, the staff and the property owners.  So, from the Board’s perspective, blue arrows are information we give to them.  Orange arrows are information that they give to us.  From the Board, they give us priority guidance and clarification of the governance documents.  To the Board, stakeholder feedback, and identified gaps in the annual report that we owe them.”

Choyce: “From the staff, we’re going to get support that they can give us by providing us data and resources.  To the staff, we’re going to provide them with the SWOT analyses and budget recommendations based on the things that we have identified.”

Keck: “When it is budget recommendations, it is based on the 271 recommendations.  It is more than just budget.  I would just say ‘strategy recommendations’.”

Choyce: “The third area is the property owners.  From them we get feedback and inputs into the process.  To them we want to do process transparency and of course our communications.”

Keck: “Do we want to put the word ‘education’ in that bottom one?”

Choyce: “I can do that.”

Blackman: “It is an excellent start.”

Choyce: “I think it is just something to keep in mind that as we go forward, communication is happening of just one intent to make sure that we are meeting expectations and establishing expectations in terms of ‘what information do we need from and what information will we give to our varied stakeholders.”

Keck: “Item 9c – Land Use Subcommittee.  Rolland is not here today but Rolland is going to be the person tagged with the Land Use Subcommittee.”  “What we are talking about here on land use, I use as an example.  Steve (Rust) had a question out there about access to lakes, trails and neighborhoods and neighborhood parks.”  “Let’s get to the basics.  Strategic Land Acquisition.  This is something that as we look in the future; think about the areas we want to take out of development or infrastructure use.  We have some areas that have no houses and very little road infrastructure.  How do you pull out?  Half of them, the lots may be owned by the state.  We own a quarter of the lots and the other quarter lots are owned by individuals.  That is part of strategic land acquisition is maybe to pull those out of development.”  Let them become a natural area.  We don’t need to build any houses in there.  We have to run pipes and everything else.”  “It is not cheap running stuff.” “We had to do that with one house in the central part of the Village and it cost us $50,000 to get the utilities run.  That was to one house.”

Keck: Regarding trails and parks, etc., I use an example of my neighborhood.  The neighbors like to get together.  There is a POA lot in the neighborhood that is already a strategic land acquisition that if you ever wanted to develop a neighborhood park for the neighbors to get together, you could ask the POA for permission to do this.  “We don’t have very many neighborhood parks in our community.”

Keck: Strategic land acquisitions could also be used to develop more trail systems.  Rolland, as we stand up a land-use subcommittee, these are the types of items he would be dealing with.  Right now the POA doesn’t have the money to purchase a lot of land.

Keck:  “Jody’s not here today.  I sent an email out just looking at things that are potentially blocking – what Jody talked about the legal restrictions on some of our recommendations.  We have 14 of them, I counted off the bat.  When she is able to be here, we will start working our way through those.”

Some people did not receive this email so Keck will resend.

Keck: “This email had some of these recommendations.”

Blackman: “Just to add to that, some of these servers block multiple sending items, even before we get it in our email.”  It doesn’t go to the spam file and is blocked from coming.

Keck: Some of these items are easements, zoning setback, replatting, roadway rightaway, ground lease agreements, diverse housing, higher density housing, unbuilding lot consolidation, outside developers, (undecipherable) developers, developer work force, pocket neighborhoods, replatting policies, transfer development rights, development rights cluster development.  “Those are recommendations that are out there that we need to work with Jody and see what is truly legal and what isn’t legal.”

Keck: “She said they are all not legal. I will tell you there are two sides to the story right now.”

Avila: “By legal, you mean that we can’t do them based on the Covenants?”

Keck: “Yes, the Declaration and Covenants”

Choyce: “Not because the state of Arkansas.”

Keck: “I just wanted to make a list so we had a starting point.  When Jody said that last time, I said, ‘okay’, let’s go through and see which ones we need to start having a conversation on.

Keck: “Clint, I know you are not an Arkansas lawyer, you are a Texas lawyer.”

Blackman: “I will be happy to look at it .  The old saying, her company’s ox is the one getting gored, so maybe it is not getting gored.  Maybe that is just their fear.  Or maybe it is allowed or not. We need to look at it independently.”

Keck: “I think it is good that we have the conversation.  When we did this, I had probably a 15 minute conversation with Jody two weeks ago about this.  I said ‘we need to sit down and say what is doable and what isn’t doable,’ from each side.  We don’t’ know.  Just coming out with a blanket statement, ‘these are recommendations that are going to be dead in the water, probably not going to be that type stuff.  That’s why we have Jody on the committee, that we can have this conversation.”

Blackman: “And there may be some things on there that they don’t care about, that we can negotiate and achieve a mutual goal.”

Keck: “I think those are key to when they start documenting, here is what we can and can’t do.”

Choyce: “You have to understand that this has been modified in the past but it was originally created multiple years ago and just the situation changes that it would be beneficial for all sides to get together.”

Blackman: “Like parks and things.  That’s something…help us out, meet us halfway.  It’s to their benefit as well as ours.  I think if we are all working toward that, that is good.  But just to hear one side of it.  ‘No you can’t do that.’ Naah. 

Keck: “That is why I brought it up.  Jody couldn’t be here to start the conversation.  These are recommendations that are on the books.  Let’s find out what can be done.  It comes back to what you talked about, Clint. ‘All right let’s have the discussion.  I hate to say this but maybe there wasn’t some of that same discussion on certain other things because of everybody just digging in their feet.  Well, we’re to the point, let’s talk about this.”

Keck: “We will carry that over as an action item.”

Keck: “Item E – Enterprise Goals – we had those in our original book.  Still marching to them.  We will continue to try to support our advice to the best possible to meet the enterprise goals.  But some of them we won’t make.” Marketing is one that will not be met.  We do our best to support those enterprise goals.

Keck: “The last item is item F – our End Goal.”  Murray what do you think the end goal of the CMP Advisory Committee is?

Claasen: “Our end goal is to achieve our mission.” “Which is to implement the best parts of the CMP to the satisfaction of the stakeholders.”

Heau: “I got lost with the terminology of ‘end’ because there is no end, but the overarching goal is for us to continuously fulfil the mission statement.  As he said, when you say, ‘best parts’, that presumably implies prioritization because there are a million parts.”

Keck: “Part of our end goal is to identify, too, what wasn’t done in the CMP.”  I think we are going to find some things that recommendations should have been made.

Heau: “Three or five years from now the world is going to change. We have to adapt as the world changes.  There is just no way that five years from now if you are to repeat the CMP exercise you will end up with the same stuff.  There will be new stuff.”

Choyce: “It is a living, breathing document.”

Keck: Maybe an overarching goal is a better term than end goal.

Blackman: “It’s not like a moonshot that we’re going to arrive on the moon.  We are looking toward a continuum of creating a very happy, wonderful place to live with lots of amenities in a financially secure state.”

Keck: “You hit it on the head with the financial side.  “We were living in a dream world ten years ago.”

Blackman: “It bothers me.  I see a lot of people making criticisms and comments and they send letters.  Wait a minute.  Roll up your sleeves.  If you’ve only got 3 people on the marketing committee… Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.  We see too many of these people.  Everybody here on this committee is working hard and going through some significant financial, timewise commitments to be here and we can’t get some, you know.  There’s got to be great marketing people here and nobody wants to roll up their sleeves.  That’s bad.”

Keck: “We need to keep twisting some arms and say, “we are hiring for marketing.  We are going to be hiring for land use.”

Avilla: “The talent is there but the will has to be there, too.”  You have to be willing to put in the energy.”

Blackman: “It’s a lot of fun.”  You can’t sit back and say you don’t care because you are going to die in a few years.

Keck: Another challenge we have is that we are a mobile community.  We have talented people that are here for a month and then they are gone for a month.

Choyce: “But that is no excuse.  One of the things I have been trying to do for years and I finally achieved it, was, I wanted to be geographically independent.  Because technology today allows us to do that.”  Being in another state is no excuse for not being “on a conference call for one hour”.  “I have done my emails for work in the middle of a cruise in the Caribbean.  They can do it.”

Blackman: “So we need to alter it.  Ask not what your Village is doing for you, but what you are going to do for your Village.”

Keck:  This is not a group to sit back and relax. We have work to do.  “We have a Comprehensive Master Plan.  Where can we move this Village forward?”

Blackman: “And we are moving forward.  Look at what we’ve done already.”

Avila: “It is not just this committee that is having trouble pulling people in.  The Governmental Affairs Committee, the same thing.  Few applicants.”

Choyce: “As far as an overarching goal, we talked about education.  The topic of the CMP has been divisive in many aspects.  Is one of our goals to try to heal?”

Keck: “I think it is.  I think that is one of the key things that we need to saying that this monster, that people saw this as a monster and they still think… Some people still are fearful of the CMP.  How do we say, ‘here’s where we’re going forward?’ as we make our presentations, as we provide our voice to get it out there…to say this is not this overarching monster that is going to devour Hot Springs Village.    It is scary.  I wish I could just pull out section 4 and put that aside right now.  Because that created more consternation than we need.  Because there is so much other stuff around that.  It’s the infrastructure, it’s the golf courses, it’s the water system, it’s all the other stuff that we have recommendations.  It’s all the things we need to be doing in marketing and where we need to take this Village so it can be marketed.  There are different ways of marketing to different demographics and also different ways to market different areas of the Village.

Haugen: There are 274 subdivisions in the Village.

McCarthy: “I don’t think too many people look at the little hamlets as being subdivisions.”

Haugen:  They are subdivisions and that is how Cooper marketed them. He built one at a time.  We might have some new pictures with the new businesses coming in such as Xplore Lakeside, TJ’s Market and the new bakery. 

Keck: “What needs to be done in Coronado Center area?  You have the fitness center, etc.  The only Catholic church in the Village is there.  It is an important area.

Heau:  “Two issues.  I am not really strongly suggesting anything.  Meeting frequency.  Theoretically, we have a lot on our plates and I know that given the month between the last meeting and this meeting.  I just felt that maybe we could have done more.  There is no doubt, we did a lot of stuff” between the two meetings.  “I am not really pushing for more frequent meetings, however, that dovetails into high level goals.  That is really important.  I am starting to wonder.  This committee is where we are today.  Where do we expect to be in 12/31/19 and maybe looking at 12/31/20?  I am thinking in terms of a six month and an eighteen month, where do we want to be?  Which would then be specific goals.  We’re starting to have a lot of stuff that is taking shape.  You really can’t say where you want to be with the marketing subcommittee, other than they are up and running.  It looks like we are committing for a land use subcommittee and the Project Management thing will start to take up bandwidth, but I am just wondering at what point we would start to focus on that.  Which then, may or may not drive meeting frequency.  I don’t know.”

Keck: “You have a good point.  Where do we want to be in December?  I think one of the things, once we get the subcommittees up and running, they are going to be picking up (indecipherable) type of stuff.”

Heau: Doesn’t have any concrete suggestions at this point.  But this was on his mind.

Heau:  “Two very specific things are, in terms of what I call ‘owner engagement’, which is the bottom part of your triangle and do we envision anything on really getting the ownership involved, other than putting out a YouTube and the open door and having 20 seats around the table. Are we thinking about doing anything far more aggressive than that?  Because if, ultimately if we want to educate people on the CMP, my feeling is you have to be pretty aggressive.” 

Heau: The other is, I am personally still not comfortable that if I want to educate people on the CMP, what I would educate them on.  Because it is such a complex document.”

Keck: “Do we want to look say, September time frame as doing a Town Hall?”

Heau: “That would be fine.”

Blackman: “I think if we have a Town Hall, we’ve got to be able to go to the membership and say, not only we’ve had committee meetings, but we’ve done these things.  Because if we say we’ve had another committee meeting, well, I wasn’t aware of the previous, what was it, 2005, 2015 where they had the first CMP, was what?  Fifteen pages long?”

Keck:  2000 Strategic Plan was 15 pages, 2005 was about 7 pages, 2010 was about 60 pages.

Blackman: “I think where I am going with this is maybe December, if it takes December.  But let’s be able to go in and show, we’ve go the Project Management Plan working.  We’ve done these things.  I think that would go a long way to the people that have talked to me.”  People have asked Blackman what the committee is doing. “Let’s show them what we’ve done.”

Heau: “A really key input if we want to communicate and educate is ‘what does the CMP say?’  I find it difficult to believe that today, among the 9 committee members, that we agree on what the CMP says.”

Heau: “My guess is that all of the people sitting around the table and not around the table, agree that there are many things in the CMP that are very beneficial to the Village and probably many things that we would not agree with.  What is it that the CMP says?”

Keck: “Is that something we need to go and say, like a monthly topic?”

Avila: “Why don’t we have a website?”

McCarthy: Or at least a little blurb in the Friday Village Digest?

Blackman: “You are going the right way.  Who we’re trying to answer to is that group of people that have fears about what the CMP is going to do.  I think the best way to combat that is for us to show them what the CMP..  If I tell you what something is and you haven’t seen it, you haven’t seen what it’s done.  You are probably going to have some doubt about whether I’ve got the right impression of it.”  “Show them what we’ve done.  Show them it is not a monster.”  “By showing them that the CMP means this instead of their fears, then we build that support.”

Choyce: “I think that is definitely one of the elements.  I think that fear is generally because of something that is unknown.  And it could be that we can’t know it right now.  There are some things we can’t know.”  “With knowledge, that helps.”

Blackman: People are afraid of their dues being raised. “We don’t know that and if we show them that there is a plan, that there is a structure, that things are being done and their dues haven’t been raised.  We can’t forecast those things but by showing them what’s happening and what is being done, I think that is the best education we can give.”

Keck: “We are back to that word, ‘education’. That is one of our challenges is getting the education out there.”

Haugen: “I think a good starting point was Nikki’s monthly five-minute educational subject. How do we get it out to the appropriate…?”

Blackman: “And then remember how many seconds we have of their attention.”

Keck: “Some people read the Village Digest and some..”

Avila: It takes more than 15 seconds to read it.

Choyce: If I am interested, you can have more than 15 seconds.

Keck: Our website is daunting to navigate to a lot of folks.

Avila: “Why don’t we have a website?  The GAC’s website is not difficult to navigate.”

Keck: “Pam, is that something you want to take on?”

Avila: “I will consider it.”

Heau: “Does this committee need a working group, just focused on education or owner engagement (indecipherable)?”

Keck: “I think we may have to do that.  Take that as an action item.”

Blackman: “As long as we remember, we have to have something to say.  Look at what we’ve done.”

Keck: “That’s true.”

Haugen: “I think there can’t be a separate website, in the bylaws.”

Choyce: “But we could have a webpage.”

Keck: “Governmental Affairs has their own website.”

Keck asks goes around the room and asks for audience input.  (I do not know the names of everyone, so some comments will not be attributed to an individual.

Melinda Alvord: Is it possible to have these meetings in a bigger room?

Keck:  Today we were limited because of the ‘slide’ presentation.  Next time we are back to the OUACHITA ROOM, PONCE DE LEON CENTER.   In August, we come back here.  Then after that we go back to the Ouachita Room, hopefully for good.

Some notable comments from the audience:

Melinda Alvord:  Maybe we can video the meeting if it is in a bigger venue.

Chuck Alvord: Thought it was a great meeting and wants to see the marketing subcommittee charter.

Cherie Nelson:  Appreciates hearing how the committee is looking at the CMP.  Once you educate the community, you will see the fears alievated.

Man in audience:  The CMP is too big.  If we had implemented the 50-page document when it came out, we would be better off as a community.  It needs to be cut down to a reasonable size and focus on the things that will benefit the Villagers.  If we can show the Villagers, we are creating value for their properties then there will be more support.

Lady in audience:  If this was recorded, many more people could see what is happening. 

Lady in audience:  Does the staff use Project Management software?

Jason Temple: Says he has different Project Management software.

Haugen: We have templates we use for some projects that are not quite that detailed and elaborate.

Lady in audience:  Wants staff to be empowered to handle all the Project Management so we don’t have to rely on volunteers.

Keck:  We don’t have the staff numbers to do all of this.

Blackman: “By us being involved, we are you and we listen to you.”

Jan Ewersmann: She can’t speak enough about needing a phenomenal relationship with CCI.

Keck: “I wish Jody was here today.”

Ewersmann: “They are not the enemy.  I didn’t come for the committee.  I came because of what Cooper built. And we have to get along with them and strive to have a great, great relationship.  We’re really dependent on Cooper.”

Keck: “And Cooper is dependent on us.”  “He just sold Arvest bank this week.  It closed.  His property values are based on how well our community is doing, too.  So it’s a two-way street.”

Ewersmann: “So what happened there?  What’s wrong about it?  You have a property sitting there that is empty and not being taken care of and now it has somebody that is going to.”

Keck: “Well, I am saying, but his property value, what he could get for that building… If the Village goes in a bad direction, he can’t get as much for his property.  So it is a two-way street.  It has always been a two-way street with Cooper because if the Village is going great, his property is worth more.  If the Village is not going great, his property value goes down.  I agree with you, we need to have the relationship.  That is why I am glad Jody is on the committee, to have that discussion.  When she talked about, here’s the recommendations that…  We need to have those conversations.”

Ewersmann: “It is not ‘we the committee educating the property owners’.  You had better be talking to them and there had better be dialogue.  Not just at the end of the meeting.  Let us participate along the process of Nikki giving a presentation.”

Keck: That is a challenge because it affects the control ability of our meeting, too.  I am being very honest with you.”

Stephen Rust: He and his wife love the Village and live here to help his wife’s parents.  Just because Steve has a different viewpoint, doesn’t mean it is negative.  It is just a different view.  The name calling and strong arming needs to stop. Steve then refers to Blackman’s comment about neighbors being negative and said he is not negative just because he has a different viewpoint.  “If you call me negative because I see things differently, then automatically I am not fixing to listen to you.  I am saying that, hopefully, constructively.”

Keck: It is a challenge in the Village.

Blackman: “Sir, I don’t know you and I’ve heard what you said.”

Rust: “I am not trying to be critical of you.”

Blackman: “It is not directed toward you.”

Marcy Marmel: “Four things.  The challenge of the deferred maintenance and the definition of all that is going to be, a number came out of the two-tired future funding task committee and the CMP.  So people are going to wonder why are we questioning again what that number is.  So we have to be really careful with that.  And then also you use those as resources as well. 

Marmel: The second thing is that when Nikki was giving her phenomenal presentation, the question anyone would have is the affects on the organizational chart.  It is going to question the budgeting process as well as the new budget policy that just came about in March.  There is stuff in our bylaws and in our whole organization that you are going to come up against.

Keck: “We are an advisory committee.”

Marmel: “Understood”

Keck: If we come up with something like that, then we provide the advice to the board, the staff, the property owners.”

Marmel: “They are going to be duplicating services or don’t be afraid of actually advising on those things.  Nothing is ever written in stone.”

Marmel: “The third thing is, as far as the CMP is concerned, the actual document, I agree it is too big and it may be a marketing tool as well for the property owners but it can always be reorganized as a plan with an addendum.  Just like the zoning codes were always a secondary source.  That wasn’t meant to be put inside that thing.  That would have made it even worse.  It could become an advised plan with an addendum and more people would actually read it.”

Marmel: “The last thing is, I totally agreed with Tom when he said the property owners’ engagement.  The first thing I wrote down was ‘new subcommittee’ because it shouldn’t burden the actual marketing committee, but you always have to be selling to the people that are here or going to be here.  We want to educate them.  Which is a good word, but we want to gain their trust and ultimately gain their support and that’s only going to show up through transparency and just getting it out there.  It would not hurt to have an additional subcommittee.”

Keck: “There’s a lot of work to be done.  Just trying to get the first subcommittee launched and it has been a little more challenging than we thought.  I was hoping we would already have them launched.”

Ewersmann: “Keith, what happened?  It seems that between this meeting and then the board meeting and the fiasco board meeting of the follow up that was better and now, there seems to have been some kind of compromise on ‘you get marketing’ and ‘you get finance’ that wasn’t transpiring.”

Keck: “No, we’ve always had marketing.  And Liz did the finance one and it was decided.”

Mathis: “The Finance Committee is an action in the CMP, period as a standing committee.  And there was a lot of community feedback about having a finance committee as a standing committee and not a subcommittee.  It was a conversation that was almost happening before this committee even got (indecipherable).

Ewersmann: “At the last meeting you were like, well, we’re going to do marketing unless the Board tells us they are going to do it.”

Keck: The Board said marketing stays with the CMP. 

Ewersmann:  Why is something getting ratified on the agenda, versus getting voted on?

Keck:  Subcommittees do not have to be voted on.  Subcommittees usually don’t have charters like this.  This was because of the sensitivity of the situation.

Blackman: “I make a motion to adjourn.”

Keck: “Anything else?”

Motion to adjourn was seconded.

Transcribed and Formatted by Cheryl Dowden