Bridgewater, NJ
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MARCH 2015 Sunset Lake Board Meeting Minutes

Attending: Harshal Limaye, Bob Papp, Kari O’Connell, Pat Holoob, Patti Driscoll, Michelle Caravella, John Arcoleo, Rick Diesinger, Mike Gilmore, Mike McLaughlin

Absent: Bob Sellinger

The meeting was called to order on March 4th, 2015 at 7:35 PM.

Motions

The board reviewed the February meeting minutes and approved them for posting to the website, facebook and the email distribution list. This review, approval, and vote occurred online prior to the March meeting.

President – Mike McLaughlin

Parking Lot

  • Mike reported that membership has approved a budget of $22000 for parking lot work during the special meeting that was held on Feb 14th.
  • Mike is negotiating with contractors to include remedying the sinkhole within the approved budget.
  • Typically paving does not require a permit from the township, however Mike will contact Bridgewater township just to make sure.

Insurance claim

Mike will shortly reach out to our insurance company regarding the medical claim and will advise of their response.

Alcohol

The board has been working for several months to secure social host liability insurance to cover events where alcohol is provided with lake funds. This has proven exceedingly difficult to obtain. In light of this difficulty, and in order to limit SSL’s potential liability, the board agreed to adopt a BYOB policy for all future lake events except the Beer Tasting and the 4th of July. For those events a permit will be obtained for the Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control and a special one day rider will be obtained from our insurance carrier – similar to the permits and insurance provided at last year’s Beer Tasting. This will reduce costs and act to limit our liability for lake sponsored events.

Further, our private party rules will be updated shortly to include a “hold harmless” policy so that SSL is not liable for guests of private parties who consume alcohol.

Proxy Vote

  • Mike had distributed the Proxy Voting Committee’s report to the board via email before the March meeting. He recommended that the board should review it and then it should be sent out to the members.
  • Kari said she has reviewed the report and for most part it looks good. The content of the proposal needs to be extracted from the report so as to reposition it as a proposal to the community rather than a correspondence with the board. Mike M said he would do this, and send it out to the board for a preview, before sending it out to the membership.
  • The board decided to pick a date in May and arrange a special meeting to discuss the report with the membership. Bob Papp suggested we find out what dates are available at the Library for free.
  • Mike said he will look for a free date at the Library in the month of May.

Website update

  • Mike announced to the board that the beta version of the new Sunset Lake website should be ready by end of this week or next for testing by the board. After that testing, the site will be released to the community for further beta testing.
  • Every board member will get an official Sunset Lake email. The details about this were sent out by Mike to everyone before the meeting.

No smoking policy

Mike made a motion that the playground be designated as a non-smoking zone. The motion was seconded and voted-in by the board. It was decided there will be no signs put up, but this will be communicated to the membership in a memo via email and facebook.

Parking in front of the club house

Mike brought up the issue about parking in front of the clubhouse and also complaints from homes near the clubhouse about parking in their driveway. The board responded saying the road does not have “No Parking” signs. Parking in front of the clubhouse for a short period of time for loading/unloading is allowed. No one should park in neighboring driveways without their permission and this has be communicated to the membership. An email was sent out to the membership prior to the March board meeting to address this and one will also be sent prior to the official swim season. Mike will also contact the Mayor to see about possible no parking solutions for the area around the clubhouse.

Vice President – Pat Holoob

  • Pat stated that the township will open their yard waste program in March and suggested it was a good time to haul away all the yard debris from the parking lot prior to paving.
  • COLA has it’s first meeting of the year this Saturday in Sparta. Pat said she is going and asked if anyone else wanted to go. Any lake member can attend the meeting.  They do not have to be a board member. The next meeting will be May 2nd. If you are interested in how other NJ Lakes function, contact Pat and join her for the next meeting.  The annual fees for COLA have gone up by $10 to $90.
  • Pat stated no one went to the Evenings with Dan (The Mayor of Bridgewater) meetings and urged people to go and make our voice heard, especially board members.  The next meeting is on March 18th 7:30 – 9pm. She will be attending and urge members to join her.
  • Verizon has a bundle offer for 2 lines of phone and WiFi for approximately $70.00 a month.  We are already paying approximately $31.00 a month for our phone. The second phone would be a cordless/portable for the lifeguard’s.  Pat suggested we can offer Wifi to the membership for a small fee. The cost would be per family, per year. If a minimum of 25 families opt for the Wifi for an annual fee of $25 this program will pay for itself.  The more members who join, the lower the fee for all. Contact Pat if you are interested in WiFi for your family.
  • Pat reported that she is investigating available options for handicap accessible portable toilets for the lake. The cost is approximately $200.00 a month, would be placed in the parking lot.  It is emptied, cleaned and re-supplied once a week. Bob Papp wondered if we were required by law to provide handicap accessible toilets to comply with the American Disability Act, or do we have a waiver or are grandfathered in. This needs to be further investigated.
  • Pat has been researching options on the lock at the clubhouse in order to provide everyone access.  A keyless entry would require funds over our budget, at this time. She will research other options such as a padlock with a combination or possibly keys that “could not be duplicated” for each adult member that would like one.
  • Pat said the lake beautification committee is working very well and suggested more committees should be setup for other initiatives.   For example: fund raising, membership, communication, recreation and youth. Mike said in general he liked the idea. John A said he would like to set up one for environmental. Michelle said she has set one set up for social on Facebook.  Pat stated that these committees need to be accountable to the board prior to implementing any changes and should report to a designated board member prior to each board meeting. We will be deciding on which committees we need and post to all members to see who may be interested in joining.
  • Raritan Headwaters Assoc is looking for volunteers for their Stream Cleanup for 2015.  Pat said we should get involved and find out if our streams would qualify for cleanup. We need to learn more about this program and see how it may apply to us.

Treasurer – Bob Papp

  • Bob said he has put the 2015 budget on the P&L report for this month and asked everyone to go over their budgets and get back to him if there were any questions. He also went over the income and expenses for the month.
  • Harshal has handed over to Bob P a letter reporting on the trustee and officer elections during last year’s annual meeting.
  • Bob Papp will submit a copy of this letter at the two banks to get the authorized signatories changed from the former President John Fedors Jr. and former Vice President Tom Kern to Michael McLaughlin and Pat Holoob respectively.

Grounds – Mike Gilmore

  • Mike G reported that his plan is to just pull out muck from the lake around the swim area. This does not require DEP permit, as long as we do not scoop the sediment out. He said he’s contacting the township for advice.
  • Muck is all organic material, leaves etc. and is going to smell. Bob Papp suggested we can use lime to cut the smell out.
  • Mike G also said he is working on a plan with Jim Hart for taking some trees down, but he’s waiting for the snow to melt.
  • Mike talked about a lake management course November 9-10 and said he will send more information to the board via email. Two lake members should attend – not just Board members.
  • Mike G recommended we build a filter strip around the lake. This 10 foot buffer between the grass and the lake is basically special grasses and wildflower plants whose roots would capture bacteria and chemical before reaching the lake. One it’ll look beautiful and two it will catch stuff from just rolling into the lake from the surroundings. He suggested we can pilot this project near Bob and Cindy Welsh’s house.

Lifeguards – Kari O’Connell

Nothing to report.

Membership – Patti Driscoll

  • Patti reported a new member from Blossom street, but she’s still waiting for paperwork to come in.
  • She also said she will drop off welcome cards to new houses that have turned around recently.

Social – Michelle Caravella

  • Michelle reported the bus trip was a success, even though we were not able to sell all the seats. Michelle donated her winnings back to the lake so all in all we lost about $200.
  • The board requested to plan another trip while it’s still cold and it was suggested we do a 4pm – midnight trip instead of a day trip.
  • Michelle reported that she’s planning to move the Easter Egg Hunt originally planned for March 21st to the day before Easter Sunday.
  • Michelle has set up a social committee of FaceBook with 17 members and they are helping her along the way. She will transfer this committee to the lake’s new website when it’s ready.
  • Michelle said she was contacted by Ralph Obenauf for holding a private party on July 18th for his 70th birthday. He said he wanted to invite the entire lake to this party and make this into an adult party. Kari said this is no different than any other private party and said she’ll talk to the Obenaufs and find out more.
  • Mike suggested we should modify the private party packet to include a “hold harmless clause”.

Water Quality – Rick Diesinger

Rick reached out to Garden State to start the water testing a week early before Memorial Day so we are ready to open the lake on Memorial Day.

New business

  • Basket ball net on the parking lot – Ken Campbell is looking at options and he’s thinking of doing a fundraiser to pay for the net.
  • Kari said she is looking to do a private party / graduation party for her girls the Friday before Memorial Day.
  • Mary Hewitt is handling private parties for 2015.  Mike M recommended make her part of the private party committee and have her liaison with the Social chair – Michelle. Michelle would then report on private parties in the regular board meeting to ensure all private party rules established in the by-laws are followed.
  • Bob Papp said he spoke to Tom Kern regarding the parking lot gate and process for adding new badges. Tom said the software for the gate requires a computer with Windows 98 / XP Pro.

The meeting was closed at 9:38pm.

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