News from the Summit Estates Board of Directors

News from the Summit Estates Board of Directors

December 14th 2022

Hello Neighbors. I hope this newsletter finds everyone healthy, happy and prepared as we enter the
upcoming season for so many holidays.

Judging from emails and messages it’s obvious that word has spread about the results of the Dues and
Fee Increase Election at the Emergency Annual Meeting last Sunday. First a special word of thanks for
everyone who attended, spoke, and helped with the meeting. I also wish to thank everyone who
designated a proxy. We also need to thank the members and officers of the Fischer Store School
Community Center for sharing their facility with us. In the end this was the most well attended and well
supported meeting and election in the history of Summit Estates at Fischer.

The motion failed. After five recounts, there were:
51 For
75 Against
125 total votes cast

We still describe this outcome as tentative until the Board and Manager can canvass
the votes and certify the outcome. At that point we will also be able to tell you how many votes were
cast in person and how many by proxy. Stay tuned.

Since Sunday the other officers and I have received many kind words of thanks, and encouragement.
Thank you. We have also received several referrals for vendors we can contact to solicit more bids.
Though we haven’t yet, we will. We also have received many comments that $250 should be what was/
is proposed. More on that in a moment.

However, we worked very hard to get to the Emergency Annual Meeting and its results. Now, we are
taking a break to prepare for and share Christmas, and the New Year Celebrations with our family and
friends. I hope you can do the same.

What’s next? As I mentioned Sunday, we are required by our bylaws to have an Annual Meeting
between January 15 and March 1, 2023. Our bylaws and Texas Statute require that we give fifteen days’
written notice prior to the meeting. Earlier this year, the Board tentatively scheduled the Annual
meeting for February 5, 2023. Stay tuned, we will confirm that soon. However, it will still be a
monumental challenge to pull together any consideration of another proposal for fees and meet the
expectation we are hearing for more bids and information.

Keep in mind that our reality today is that there is no possible way we will have a changed dues structure
in place to implement before January 15, 2024, more than a year from now. Neither our Declarations,
Bylaws, nor state law provide for retroactive dues increases. We can increase the Road fee at any time if
that is considered and approved by the members at an annual meeting.

In the meantime, I had already begun soliciting bids for repairs for our most urgent needs; the pothole
by the stop sign at Fischer Store Road, the portion of Let’s Roll adjacent to and over the bridge. And the
most severely deteriorating portion of Stars and Stripes in the 500 and 600 blocks. It’s clear that we
likely won’t have enough funds to do all of these soon. I hope to fix the pothole before Christmas. The
rest will have to be funded and done using any carryover funds from 2022 and revenue from 2023. It’s
clear our roads will simply continue to deteriorate.

As I mentioned earlier I’ve received many comments and read many posts discussing whether $400 dues
is too ambitious, and whether $250 would have passed and who supports that. Let me reiterate what
the board has said many times; we firmly believe that we cannot address the Association’s needs with
dues set at $250 per year. We will only create an expectation with our members that the Board simply
cannot meet. Yes, we will seek more bids. Yes, we will seek more information and clarification from
Comal County. But the expectation that we will be able to get our roads repaired and done right for
significantly less than the $400k to $500k we projected is not something to be optimistic about. We can
come in significantly less than the $900k the county projected, but there are many tasks that the County
projected that we have not addressed.

Whatever the dues end up being, whether they are changed or not, don’t expect them to go down in the
future. As I’ve said before, our dues haven’t been increased since 2011. Our ability to support our
community is already lagging behind inflation. We all are experiencing inflation today that hasn’t been
seen in decades. We’ve cut out, deferred, or substituted many things in our budget to stay afloat now.
We rely heavily on volunteers and donations to meet some of our needs.

The Board’s goal with proposed dues increases is not to wait for something to break and then fix it. Our
goal is to get to a point where we take care of what we have and maintain it in first class condition.
Anything less will simply degrade our quality of life and the value of our property.

Enough difficult discussion for now. Steve and Jeannette, Nancy and Ray, Joan and I sincerely wish you
all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. May the Holidays you celebrate be blessed, uplifted by
love and peace, and shared with family and friends.

Sincerely,
Willy Conrad, President

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