Meeting Minutes May 5, 2020

Another Annual Meeting- with no other open meetings between it and the last one. I was stepping down from the board, and had really pushed my neighbor to run, as it was clear to me that the other 2 trustees were ignorant of road repair, and straight up I felt couldn’t be trusted. On the very occasional times when I tried to discuss costs or alternative ideas, I was met with thinly veiled annoyance.

However, I didn’t really try hard to be heard. I never really wanted to be on the board, and it had become clear I was not a good fit for it. I didn’t revel in the position and enjoy the power and ability to make decisions as to where the work would be done. Possibly because a) it never occurred to me to use my position for self gain and b) we were keeping up with our road on our own.

There is a long email thread leading up to this meeting. There was some concern about Covid, and Crystal had suggested a zoom meeting, and I just thought that would be a bigger mistake than to have her counting votes at all.

Leading up to this election, I had heard enough snide gossip from her to make me question her honor. I didn’t trust her. And I knew she had picked out and was grooming a candidate to run against my neighbor. Her candidate didn’t even live in the state. There is still some question as to whether this is legal or not,(even though the law says it is, the other laws imply it is not) but even if it were, IMHO it is stupid to vote for a person to represent your needs and wants, when they have no idea who you are nor what those needs or wants could possibly be.

As it turned out, I was correct in this assessment.

The email thread leading up to this election is interesting on several counts, so if you’ve not read that.. take a look.

Let’s get into this one.

Page 1- Meeting was at my house. I offered my yard, because I just thought a zoom meeting was begging for trouble and election interference. It’s my opinion that there was still interference.

It seems to me that the treasurer’s report is not as detailed as it ha been in the past. We don’t know where this gravel was used.

Luke has concerns about dust control and wanted to know if anyone around him would want to go in on it and would benefit as well. Steve Charnes discussed the road districts prior attempt to see the benefits of Magnesium Chloride and because of the problems it caused when the road was just wet, the road district would not be paying for that again. He and other residents though are welcome to have it done in front of their property at their own cost. Dachia Arritola suggested residents should do research on the effects of the chemicals on your cars prior to having it done.

It is now my belief that the purchase of mag water may not have been a legal use of district funds. I get into this in more detail later… or elsewhere here, but a road district is for road construction, repair and maintenance. To me, mag water is a grey area (pun unintended), as it CAN be used to help keep the road holding together, but I think it is most often used for dust control and for us, we did not see the benefit of the holding together.

From my research, from what I’ve seen and heard, many road districts are using their funds on activity that do not fall within the accepted parameters of a road district.

More on that in that other post, which I will try to link to when I remember which one it is.

Scott Schroeder brought up the fact we had excess money in the treasury this year and because of that we didn’t need to be charging as much.

Scott made a good point (in that email thread) and was squashed by Amundsens, who own several lots on the area of road that needs, and has received, the most work.

Crystal Farrokhi said that the trustees would be sitting down and discussing what would be done with the fees this year.

Take note that it is the Board sitting down. Nobody else. No other input. There will be no notification to other members.

Page 2-

There was further discussion on fixing the holes on Concho Trail. Steve Charnes said he fixed them and then found out that he wasn’t supposed to because Concho and Litigo are not maintained by the road district. Further research will need to be done to figure out if they are included or not.

Ok, this is the first and last time we will see any mention of work on Concho Trail. Steve says he filled in some potholes. Those of us who live on Concho think it was a small divot that Joel or Shaun just wasn’t worried about yet. Because we don’t remember (nor did we at that time) ANY change to the road.

But something to notice here is that there was actually a discussion as to whether Concho Trail was included in the maintenance responsibility of Saddleback Road District. Of course it is. Seriously? This is a question?

What this clarifies is that nobody but us, the residents on that road, ever did anything on it. And we are pretty sure nobody did anything at this time, either.

And something else to notice is that the Board implies they’ll discuss whether our road is to be maintained by the road district. There will be no notice to any of us.

We actually never wanted them to ‘maintain’ our road, because they suck at it. So, if we kept up on it, which we did, nobody ever thought about it. Election of Trustee: Each board position is for 3 years and one position rotates out every year. The board can determine responsibilities each year. This year Dachia Arritola’s position was open.

Joel Bingen and Dale Ruzicka both volunteered for the open position. Information about both candidates was distributed by email prior to the meeting and after counting the votes of those present along with the absentee votes, it was an 11/10 decision in Dale Ruzicka’s favor.

Gosh- after Crystal counted the votes (including absentee votes, which are not legal), it turns out Dale (her candidate) won. Imagine my surprise.