President’s Letter to Membership – 23 September 2020 re Annual Budget Meeting

September 23, 2020

Dear friends and neighbors,

The Fall Budget and Association meeting will be held on Saturday October 3rd at 11:00am. The location will be the Vallecito Church Tent, 17576 County Road 501, Vallecito Lake, Bayfield, Colorado. We all continue to be victims of the COVID constraints so, per our state health officials we will request you bring your masks and endeavor to respect social distancing during the meeting.

This will be an informative meeting so please make every effort to attend. If you cannot attend, please complete your proxy and return it to Jeanie Widner at 815 Pine River Ranch or scan and e-mail it to liviningodscountry@me.com.  We will need to insure we have a quorum and to vote on any Association business that may arise. You may ask any association member to vote your proxy as you see fit. If you want a member of the Board to vote your proxy list their name.

There will be two items on the agenda for this meeting: presentation of the Budget for 2021 and an update on developments for our grant with FEMA and bridge replacement. Please review the attached materials.

Proposed Budget for 2021: Based upon the discussion at the Annual Meeting in July, the Board has developed and approved the proposed budget. It will be presented for your review and unless vetoed by a majority of all members will become our operating (official) budget for 2021. This process is established by our governing documents in accordance with Colorado statue. The Proposed Budget for 2021 is based upon maintaining the same annual assessments as we have had since 2016. It is a balanced budget with only small changes in the expense categories. Those changes are more in the snow removal and contingency funds and accommodations in the FEMA bridge development process.  The bridge will be re-imbursed to the Association at 75% of cost through the FEMA grant and a special assessment that we will need to vote on next year once we know the expenses for which we will be responsible.

An update on news of the FEMA grant and bridge construction plans will be presented.  Most recently, the Board is pursuing a line of credit to cover any expenses the Association will face relevant to the bridge project before the Special Assessment funds are available.  We are currently pursuing documents required by FEMA to proceed with the project; i.e. hydrology, cultural, and ecological studies, along with preliminary design.  These need to be provided to FEMA before funding can be released. Ultimately, a final design and bids for the project will be solicited.  The Special Assessment will be defined after the first of the year and after we have a firm bid for all construction costs.

Best wishes to all and please be safe and healthy!

Chip Burkett, Board President