Call to Order
Tony Gronniger, lot 2281, called the meeting to order, held in the upper level of the clubhouse at 6:30 p.m. Board Members present were: Mark Leggett, lot 72; Celeste Armanees, lot 62; Troy Lesan, lot 576; Allan Slavin, lot 181; Marvin McNabb, lot 28; Mike Booth, lot 2380. Celeste Armanees led in prayer. Shad Mort led the Pledge of Allegiance.
Troy Lesan mentioned that Lake Viking this past week lost 2 long-time members: Norma McCaulla at age 94, and Jack Morris. Both were a part of our community for 40+ years.
Board Pres. Tony Gronniger said that before regular business of today’s meeting, the Sheriff of Daviess County will speak, whom we invited here to discuss what the County can do to help enforce state laws @ Lake Viking.
Sheriff Larry Adams
The Sheriff wanted to share what his office does, their capabilities, and what resources they provide. Daviess County has 1 Sergeant, 4 road Deputies, 1 Courthouse Security Officer, and 2 Office Administrators. Duties of the Sheriff’s Office include maintaining the Sex Offender registry, Court security and Court operations. We (Daviess Co.) have the only regional jail in the state—it has a capacity for 200 prisoners; at this time we have 126 in our jail. There are 24 sex offenders in Daviess County. The Sheriff’s Office also “serves” civil papers (to the individual charged), takes calls for service, and conducts our own investigations. Daviess County works closely with the Missouri Highway Patrol. The Sheriff commented that Lake Viking Safety does a great job–he has talked with our Safety Coordinator Jason McTheeney to let him know the Sheriff’s Office is here to help with whatever they can to keep our residents safe. His goal as Sheriff is to be available to every community in Daviess County, which covers 600 square miles. If you see anything unusual or suspicious, please call the Sheriff’s Office, which you can do anonymously—this helps us being proactive not reactive, to get out in front of these things by investigating early any potential problem situations. Next, he opened the floor for questions. Robert Walton asked if when 911 is called, is that the Sheriff’s office? The Sheriff responded that calling 911 the call goes to Daviess County Central, who will then page out the necessary aid for what the situation calls for, whether it be police, fire or EMS. Resa Wiltse asked whom to call when see underage people drinking and trespassing on Lake Viking property, especially at our beach areas? The Sheriff responded if someone is hurt or an emergency, call 911. Vs. if you see a criminal act or someone breaking the law, call the Sheriff’s Office. Vs. if you see infractions of Lake Viking rules, call the LV Safety Dept. To summarize, if someone is breaking state law (e.g. underage drinking) or acting suspicious, call the Sheriff’s Office. The next question was about the shifts the Deputies work? He answered that Deputies are on-staff 8am-midnight, vs. are merely on-call midnight-8am. Troy Lesan asked about trespassing, which is a huge problem at the lake. The Sheriff responded that if you can get a license plate without having to engage anyone, call the plate # into the Sheriff’s Office, then the Office will track that person down for a criminal interview & investigation. Troy went on to say our biggest trespassing issue is illegal dumping. Marvin McNabb commented we are putting up surveillance cameras. The Sheriff responded that recorded footage of the violation would be extremely helpful for prosecution. Mark Leggett commented we have also asked our Safety Dept. to work with the Sheriff on other challenges e.g. speeding on our roads & late-night boating. The Sheriff and his staff could be a great benefit to help solve these issues.
Tony Gronniger opened the meeting with the Vision/Mission Statement: “Lake Viking is a private lake aspiring to preserve our community and environment for future generations.” Our informed members are the strength of our community.
Approval of Minutes
Mark Leggett moved to approve the minutes of the May 9, 2021 Board meeting. Celeste Armanees seconded; motion passed.
Committee Reports:
Handbook Committee – no report
Finance Committee
In reviewing financial statements, Income line items are up from this time last year, incl. increases in collections and building permit fees. Expense items are running the same if you take away the capital gains tax (on sale of Community Areas) that we paid this year. The Capital Expense item of $20,000 for Safety Boat dock has fallen off, due to an agreement we made with Lake Viking Marine for annual rental of one of their docks, which we feel will be a much more secure area for our new Safety boat. The rental will be charged to the Safety Expense line item. This unused $20,000 Capital Expense amount will instead be absorbed by expenditures approved at last month’s meeting: 3 surveillance cameras, and other Board-approved technology improvements—e.g. a new computer & Quickbooks software to be used when we begin to outsourcing our finances/accounting. Marvin will elaborate on this later.
Also covered at the Finance Committee meeting was the recent unexpected development with the publisher of the Lake Viking News: Last month, Gallatin Publishing announced they will close operations on June 1st, which took everyone by surprise. Basically, this meant we would suddenly be without the Lake Viking News newspaper & our website LakeVikingmo.com. When Tony read part of our Mission Statement earlier, he noted that “informed members are the strength of our community”. The loss of the newspaper & website would jeopardize this goal, and it would have been a monumental task to recreate substitutes. We have a solution. At this time, I want to personally thank Mark Leggett. While most of us were ringing our hands over what to do, Mark sat down with Jill Steward, our Gallatin Publishing contact, and crafted an agreement whereby we could keep these two fundamental aspects of our communications with our members intact. Briefly, the agreement calls for a $1,000/month payment x three years as an outright purchase ($36,000) … plus a transition fee of $2,000/month fee x 3 months whereby Jill will oversee the transition. After this 3-month transition, we’ve hired a current Gallatin Publishing employee to work part-time in the LV Office, to oversee publication (she’ll do the writing, editing, and outsourced printing of LVN newspaper), and also be administrator of our LVmo.com website. This sounds like a lot of money, but please realize that the Lake Viking News takes in $50,000/year advertising income, which will now become our revenue. Even with the significant up-front costs, we are confident we will still net $1,000/month profit, with more coming in after those up-front costs fall off. Also note that when news broke of Gallatin Publishing closing their doors, the LV office received several phone calls from concerned parties–from readers, but also from advertisers who were very concerned they’d lose the “ad exposure” they receive from Lake Viking News. The Association certainly did not actively seek this publishing endeavor, but now that it has fallen in our lap, every indication is that we can make it work to our advantage while keeping the same level of information going out to members, which is a priority for us. So starting next month, there will be 2 new line items on our financial statements: Publishing expense, and Publishing income. The latter we believe will be the greater of the two.
Strategic Planning Committee
Tony Gronniger commented a meeting is being scheduled. Also, there will be a report of our 2021 Board of Directors goals for the year at next month’s Board meeting.
Activities Committee
Celeste Armanees reported that last weekend’s 5th Annual Poker Run had a record number of 325 people participating. Celeste thanked the Activities Committee for all their work planning a fun & safe event. Coming up on June 26th is a Patio Party with “Now & Then” band. On July 3rd is Boat Parade hosted by the Yacht Club, for which the Activities Committee is providing prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place.
Building Committee
Marvin McNabb reported the Committee reviewed 15 permits in May, including 2 houses.
Fire Department
Tony Gronniger said the Fire Dept will be participating in the July 3rd events. They will be set up at noon.
Campground Committee
Mike Booth reported the Committee met over Memorial weekend. They elected Officers: Mary Hibler was chosen as Chairperson, Mike Booth as Vice Chair, Flint Hibler to serve on the Finance Committee. The 15 new camp sites are up & running. The planned Internet service is being installed in Campground 1. We are looking into Internet in Campground 2 also.
Lake Committee
Lake Committee members did roadside inspections this month and noted several non-compliance issues, for which letters and e-mails have been sent. We have received several responses from members who intend on correcting shoreline rip rap and other issues.
Infraction Committee/Safety
Allan Slavin reported on May infractions: 12 infraction notices were issued & 21 warnings. The Committee meeting on Saturday reviewed 19 violations: 2 infractions were dismissed & 17 were upheld. Most of those infractions were minor for trash and dogs roaming … except 2 infractions received a $400 fine for building without a permit, and a $500 fine for an unauthorized boat on the lake.
Dredge Committee
Shawn Hepinstall reported on dredge operations.
- We are moving forward with our contract on the South End project. We have a verbal agreement with the contractor, with Board approval. The South End will be done in 2 phases: the 1st phase is cleaning out the existing silt basin & rebuilding the berms. The 2nd phase is installing the drain systems. Potential start time is the first week of July. We will have to build a temporary road off 165th
- Shawn and Shad walked the 3 tubes area to see that we need to cut & drain the existing basins there.
- Shawn has received inquiries from members wanting dredging done under their dock. We will move docks only if required from a safety/operations standpoint, but we will NOT move your dock to clean out under it. This is because dredging under a member’s dock is not in the purview of the Dredge Committee. The purpose of the Dredge Committee is to remove silt from the lake, not to dredge under members’ docks. If a member needs dredging done under their dock, he/she needs to hire a company on their own to do so. Shawn asked the Board about accepting the Committee’s policy he presented last month, as the Dredge Committee would like to have this policy on record. Mark Leggett asked about signage at the dredge ponds for members’ safety. Shawn replied they are working on this.
Lake Manager Report (Shad Mort)
- Trash contract: The new trash company will be bringing in dumpsters early, so we can have a smooth transition. Part of the agreement is that for Affordable Disposal’s convenience (based in St.Jo), a trash truck will be kept on-site in our Maintenance area.
- Road work: We will be patching with asphalt for the next few weeks. We plan to put down 500–600 tons of mix, so we will be ready for the chip and seal process. The goal is to be ready to chip and seal in early Sept.
- Tube replacement: We have 2 tube replacements to do–a very large one @ the shipyard, and the other @ Campground 1 area.
- Fireworks: We are ready for the July 3rd This will be the last year for the shooter whom we’ve hired the last 10+ years.
- A new Maintenance employee was hired last week to replace Riley Blades. His name is Shadow Phillips. We expect to hire one more employee very soon.
- The new 2021 Handbooks are available at the Office.
Financials
Troy Lesan moved to approve the financial reports. Mark Leggett, seconded; motion passed.
Guest Time
- Carolyn Leeper asked the Board about spending the $2,030 balance in the clubhouse renovation fund. They’d like to buy blinds for the downstairs, and do some painting. They’d also like to buy round tables for upstairs (for wedding clubhouse rentals). The Board approved making these purchases.
- Joe Jacobson addressed the Board requesting a variance to extend his new dock more than its current 41 feet (existing length) from shore, due to rock underneath it, that doesn’t fully cover his 24ft boat. The Building Committee said the building file shows a 38-foot long dock, so over the years someone had moved it out to 41 feet without a permit. The Building Committee recommended he try to dig out first. The Board asked him for more information before they can make a decision on letting the dock extend out farther.
Board Discussions
- Gallatin Publishing: Mark Leggett moved to go forward on the Letter of Intent with Gallatin Publishing to purchase the Lake Viking News. Troy Lesan, seconded; motion passed.
- Finance RFP: Marvin McNabb informed the Board he has purchased a computer system. A technical person is scheduled on June 18th to set the new system up.
- Surveillance cameras: Marvin McNabb reported the camera has been installed at the new Safety boat dock; the cameras at Maintenance area will be installed next week. Marvin moved to change the proposal for cameras at Beach #2: need 4 cameras instead of 2 cameras. Mark Leggett, seconded; motion passed. Marvin also said some of the cameras at Beach #2 will need to have internet access. Via internet, Safety will be able to watch live-feed from their office & it will also be recorded.
- Dumpster fence proposal: To minimize illegal dumping, Marvin McNabb proposed removing the small dumpsters at Maintenance area & build a fence around the roll-off dumpsters. This would be an 8’ tall fence w/ barbed wire across the top, and gates to be opened at controlled times. After a short discussion, the Board decided to further analyze this & other options.
- Technology: Marvin McNabb addressed the Board about the need for more upgrades in the Office, due to taking over the Lake Viking News, as well as QuickBooks software installation. Marvin has already purchased a computer for the QuickBooks outsourcing project. We will also need a computer for the Lake Viking News. Mark Leggett moved to set a $5,000 budget for these upgrades, as per the itemized proposal. Celeste Armanees, seconded; motion passed.
Adjourn: Mark Leggett moved to adjourn to Executive Session, to discuss personnel and Board organizational matters at 7:55 pm. Allan Slavin, seconded; motion passed.
Attendance: Larry Adams (Daviess County Sheriff), Flint & Mary Hibler, Mark & Stephanie Closterman, Robert & Vikki Walton, Shawn & Paula Hepinstall, Jerry Goehring, Doug & Resa Wiltse, Robert Hayes, Sue Wolfe, Randall Davidson, Don & Carolyn Leeper, Jeff & Janet Yuratovich, Levi McClure, Jim & Ramona Miller, Shad Mort (Lake Manager), Sally Zerbe (Office).
Let the record show that these minutes are a record of the business transacted at this meeting and a sampling of the discussions. Comments and discussions are not reflected in whole or as actual quotations in the minutes, nor do they reflect all comments by members.
Respectfully submitted,
Celeste Armanees, Secretary
VVA Board of Directors
