August 2007 Board Meeting Minutes

Present: Vice President Art Morgenstern called the meeting to order and took roll call. Present were Vice President Art Morgenstern, Board members Ron Ritchie and Laurie Burpee, and President Diane Lehder (by phone).

Absent: Treasurer Ben Farabee, Secretary Sandra Williams, and board member Katie Kotz.

Approval of Minutes: The minutes of the June 2007 Board Meeting were approved as written.

Treasurer’s Report: Art Morgenstern gave the report in the absence of Treasurer Ben Farabee. As of August 6^th, KPOG had $13,437.23 in the checking account, $64,512.62 in savings and $104,469.02 in a CD. The CD was renewed on 26 July for 90 days at a rate of 5.15%.

Membership Report: Our current membership is 1895.

OLD BUSINESS

Directory: Barbara Winslow, TALK editor and the person who has taken over sheparding this publication, reported that hopefully the new directory will be out by the end of this month. Thus far we have paid approximately 1/3 of the printing costs with another $10-12 thousand to go (excluding postage). On a motion by Laurie Burpee, seconded by Ron Ritchie, Barbara was given the authority to decide whether the directory will be mailed priority or first class. Barbara will make this decision using her best discretion after talking with postal authorities.

Directory Purchase Request: A request was received from a non-resident KRA agent to purchase a copy of the upcoming directory. The Board decided this request would be denied. Earlier this year a former property owner, who also had been a KPOG member, asked to purchase this publication and this request was also denied. The Board reaffirmed their position that the directory would only be made available for purchase by current property owners who were KPOG members.

Data Base: President Diane Lehder suggested that we consider hiring a consultant to review what we currently have and what could be done in the way of improving it. Given the number of board members absent this matter was deferred until the next meeting.

Safety & Security: The traffic count at both gates witnessed a sharp decline (10-18%) vs. the same period in 2006.

Traffic Counts:

Main Gate			V Gate
	2006:	2007:	2006:	2007:
June	203,292	182,415 (-10.3%)	111,297	96,952 (-12.9%)
July	213,715	194,024 (-9.2%)	119,982	98,542 (-17.9%)

The traffic decrease was accompanied by a corresponding decline in the number of reported incidents – 91 in June ’06 vs. 76 in the same month this year; and, 100 in July last year vs. 88 this past month.

Insurance: The KPOG director’s Liability and Media Insurance was renewed last month. The premiums experienced a very minor change upward. The Board agreed it would be prudent to start talking to our agent well in advance (May) of our 2008 policy renewal date.

Development Agreement: President Diane Lehder reported that discussions on the new agreement between the Town and the Resort had been put on hold until September.

Beach Patrol: The vendor who had been providing this service to the Town was replaced. The contract has been assumed by KICA for the balance of this year.

Johns Islands Roads: The Charleston County Council voted to allocate $75M to update the 2001 Study on this issue. Trans Systems, the vendor who did the study six years ago, will perform the work.

NEW BUSINESS

KICA Special Meeting: KICA has scheduled a special meeting and vote for all members on September 25^th. KRA has opted to not renew the lease that KICA has on certain properties on Sora Rail Road that are currently being used for boat storage. KRA, however, is continuing to provide this service on this site into the foreseeable future. Since no other suitable and affordable property is available on Kiawah, KICA is exploring the purchase of land on Johns Island for this purpose. In addition, this off island site could be used as a facility to issue commercial passes, and possibly for other, undefined, purposes. Since KICA already has the authority to purchase land off island, without soliciting membership approval, the purpose of the special meeting would be for members to vote on granting KICA the right to impose their covenants on such property and to deem such real estate as a common property under the covenants.

After some discussion the Board decided it would not take a formal position on the issue. However, President Diane Lehder plans to talk to either Russ Warren or Joe Bunting over the next few days to get further clarification on the matter. Diane also asked the Board members present to provide her by that evening, pertinent questions that she should pose to either Russ or Joe. She will also speak to the issue in the next President’s Column of the TALK. The next issue will “hit the street” on or about 25 August.

ADJOURNMENT

Upon motion duly made and seconded, the meeting was adjourned to Executive Session at approximately 10:40 am.

Respectfully submitted,

Ron Ritchie

(acting secretary)

Kiawah Island Property Owners Group

August 8, 2007 Board Meeting Minutes

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