Lord Road Association

Meeting minutes

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Lord Road Association
2024 Annual Meeting
9:30 AM, July 20, 2024
Location - Ellis Residence, 1031 Lord Road, Sanbornville, NH

Paul Romano, President, opened the meeting at 9:30 AM with the Pledge of Allegiance and a moment of silence for our troops.

Paul Romano, President - Noted that we had a legal quorum. 33 households were in attendance.

Jill Mailhoit, Secretary report has been posted on our website for ample time to review.

2024-2025 Budget & Balance Sheet presented by Elizabeth Conner, Treasurer

New budget to include Robbie’s new contract which is for 2 years. Robbie’s contract includes the addition of Grenier & Lake Rd, that is why the budget on that line item increased. The budget also includes the money spent on the special assessment from the April snowstorm damage cleanup. The profit & loss shows a prior year loss from the storm cleanup and the paving that was done last year is also in those numbers. The balance sheet is showing a loss of $20,000 of uncollected dues that have not been paid. The cash basic is more accurate to include tree removal/cleanup & paving and includes the misc cleaning out of the drainage cut outs. The 2 new roads added to the plow contract are Grenier & Lake Rd which is plowing only.

Cindy Pfeiffer: When Grenier has maintenance needs does the LRA provide the materials?

Paul Romano: Grenier was collecting money for their own maintenance; he will look into that and get back to the members on this.

Donnie Morrill: The paving money collected from donations, is that part of the $15,000 on the P&L?

Answer is Yes

Lou Sciortino: What is Robbie’s current contract?

Answered by Paul Romano current contract is $17,400 and new contract with the additions will be $27,120.

Wayne Savini: Why the big increase in dues this year?

Answered by Paul Romano that the current dues amount is $400 and the rest was for the special assessment from the April storm. The annual dues amount are based on the previous years expenses.

Donnie Morrill: What is the $100?

Answered by Paul Romano that amount was from the year that we purchased the “dustless” material.

Sam Crowley: The dust control wasn’t put down the year it was purchased because it was to late in the season to apply it. The next year we had so much rain we couldn’t apply, or it would have been washed away. It was put down recently and it seems to be working well, these is enough remaining to do a second coat. The purchase of the “dustless” was $11,000. 

Road Contract

Lou Sciortino: What is covered under the road contract?

Sam Crowley: Robbie’s contract includes, grading 3 times per year, sanding & plowing, cleaning out the cleanouts once per year.

Elizabeth Conner: Robbie hasn’t charged us for gravel yet in this fiscal year, this is not on the financials for this year.

Jay Anderson: Did we put this out to bid?

The answer from Paul Romano was no.

Paul Romano: The extra in his new contract is an additional $9,720.

   This is the breakdown:

   Extra $100 per month = $1,200

   Grenier Rd added = $ $5,000

   Lake Rd added = $3,520

This contract was accepted and there was a unanimous Yes vote by the members.

Dustless

Sam Crowley: We are not planning on going forward with the purchase of Dustless, it’s become too expensive.

Jay Anderson: He has concerns for the lake.

Sam Crowley: Did due diligence on the safety of the Dustless, the cost is very expensive, and it takes 2 applications. We have enough to do a 2nd application. They say it stays in the gravel and the 2nd application will be put down in the spring of 2025. Paving future: all the big hills are paved and would like to see the paving continued with a “capital improvement fund” for additional paving. He would like to see money put aside each year for more paving down the road and start with the area’s of were houses are close to the road.

Rick Anderson: The new hot top section is being undermined by the heavy rains, Sam Crowley saw that and is looking at a fix for this.

Speed Bumps

Sam Crowley: All other associations have these to slow down traffic speeding and dust.

Jay Anderson: People aren’t slowing down until after they hit them, the color of them isn’t dark enough.

Sam Crowley: there is signage for the speed bumps, the fastest section of roadway is the hill section by the Savini’s.

Paul Romano: The police won’t enforce speed on a private road, the only choice we have are speed bumps. It’s been noted that people walking the roads have had close calls with speeding vehicles.

Donnie Morrill: Speed bumps only make people mad.

There was a motion to vote on removing all speed bumps. The vote was only 4 to remove. The vote to remove speed bumps failed.

Boat Ramp Project presented by Crystale Lapham LRA member

This is an insert of the presentation by Crystale Lapham on the Boat Ramp Project:

    Good morning, my name is Crystale Dunn Lapham. My husband Sam and I live at 1142 Lord Road, the log cabin owned by the Kraft family for many years. My parents, Tim and Deborah Dunn proudly bought the smallest piece of waterfront on the lake, which happened to be on Camp Road, in 1991. I am incredibly fortunate to have grown up on Pine River Pond and it’s one of my greatest joys to see my children, now 4 and 7, having the same magical experience.

     I am here today to share information about an exciting water quality preservation project that I have had the great fortune to be a part of. As many of you may know, the boat ramp on Lord Road has been a consistent source of stormwater runoff, carrying sediment and harmful nutrients into our pristine water. In fact, according to AWWA’s watershed report, the boat ramp is the single largest contributor of soil loss and phosphorus load.

     Since this meeting last year, there has been tremendous progress made in the development and execution of a multi-phased plan to prevent stormwater erosion at the boat ramp from carrying harmful nutrient load into our lake. This plan has been a wonderful collaboration amongst concerned community members and multiple organizations including:

          ● Pine River Association

          ● the Pine River Pond Lake Association

          ● AWWA

          ● State Department of Environmental Services

    ​The first phase of the project involves installing a concrete soaker system at the intersection of the boat ramp and Lord Road. The purpose of this system is to trap the stormwater runoff before it flows into the boat ramp. This system will then filter the stormwater pollutants and slowly release clean water at a controlled rate. We are pleased to announce this phase of the project is fully funded by a State Grant and donations from the concerned local community members. The concrete soaker system is scheduled to be installed in the coming weeks but it will NOT be functional until we complete phase 2 of the project.

     The second phase of the project is to pave the immediate area around the concrete soaker system to ensure the concrete soaker system functions properly. This phase of the project will cost $14,469 which includes paving the immediate area around the concrete soaker system. Earlier this year, we launched a fundraising campaign called Preserve Pine River Pond…you may have noticed garden flags around the lake. So far, we have raised $6,500 from lake community members and Melvin Village. We need another $8,000 to finish the project WHICH MAKES the concrete soaker system functional.

     We bring this topic here today

          1. to raise awareness of the project - we also have project info sheets available for members to take with them

          2. answer questions Lord Road Association members may have

          3. ask members if they would be supportive of contributing LRA funds to this project

END OF INSERT

Donnie Morrill: The root cause is further up the road from the launch.

Sam Crowley: This phase paving will be from partially up Wilderness Loop, and both ways up Lord Rd, to collect all the runoff, it will hold 3,000 gallons of water. If it exceeds regular rainwater it will collect the sediment. $14,500 for the paving of the intersection, raised so far from donations is $6,000 and will need another $8,000 for the balance. The soakers get cleaned out by a vacuum truck when needed which depends on how much rain we get. We need all the funds for paving before the soakers will be working, in the meantime they will be capped off. The funds to pay for the vacuum truck will come from the donations collected from the boat launch annually, that is collected by the Pine River Association. The soakers do not have filter bags, they are not needed.

Jay Anderson: Who controls the boat launch. The answer is the Pine River Association.

Crystal Lapham: We can make mandatory fee for the ramp, but based on past years of ramp collections we should be able to cover the cost of the vacuum truck going forward, the maintenance is covered in their plan. The ramp collects over $3,000 per year from ramp donations.

Construction timing for Phase 1 is fully funded and will start soaker installations in a few weeks.

Sam Crowley: Soakers are designed like a catch basin and will support heavy trucks. They will have locking grates of cast iron, grates are 24x24. The paving consists of 4452 square feet and of that 2730 SF is on Lord Rd. Paving will be from the intersection of launch up Lord Rd 32 feet to Savini’s and 32 feet up to Mailhoit’s and up Wilderness Loop in front of Engel’s house. The contract is with MBG Paving. The total cost of paving on LRA roads is $8,872/50 and PRA roads is $5,500.

Cindy Pfeiffer: This paving represents the minimum amount of paving that has to be done. The DES recommends paving up both hills on Lord Rd, this is the best option for minimizing the erosion. The work will take place the first or second week of August and will take 2 days to complete and the intersection will be blocked off. Residents from Engels to the gate will need to exit through the gate to get out. This will be arranged with Denny Miller to have the gate open for resident and emergency vehicles use. This work needs to be done so we can apply for the next Grant, we have to have this done first.

Crystale Lapham: ½ dozen other spots on the lake is holding up the state from releasing more funds. All people will be notified before this work starts. All associations are involved with this as a Lake Community and are looking at all the hot spots.

Sam Crowley: We’ve looked at this project for years with the DES and the Thompson School (UNH). We never could have doe this without their help & grant money.

Lori Carriere: If there is extra money for paving will the paving area be extended?

Crystale Lapham: The money will be put to more paving down the road.

Motion to vote on the LRA donation of $5,000 to the paving project by Deb Dunn, 2nd by Don Morrill

Paving donation vote: Only 4 no votes of 33 households. The vote has passed.

Bylaws

Paul Romano: After an unsuccessful first go around on updating the bylaws last year, Andy Baranowski revised the bylaws that have been presented to the members by email notification.

Donnie Morrill: Why redo the bylaws. Paul- they are very old and not up to today’s standard.

Dar Ellis: Why is “date of annual meeting” as on or about. Paul- this allows some flexibility with the date. Jay Anderson: Is there a limit on special assessments? Paul- No limit, only voted by the board of directors as needed.

Sam Crowley: We can’t do a member vote on special assessments; how would we contact all members for a vote when immediate action is needed.

Paul Romano: The board voted it as a special assessment, there were to many hazards, and it was an immediate need.

Louis Scirotino wanted to discuss Robert’s Rules of Order, he felt that RR was against proxy voting. Paul Romano stated that RR felt that proxy voting could be a problem if not administered properly but the manner that the LRA used proxy voting was not a problem. Lou made a motion to remove proxy voting from the proposed bylaws. Motions was seconded by Mark McRobbie. After some further discussion from a number of members supporting proxy voting, a hand vote was made on the motion. There were two votes in favor of removing proxy voting, the no vote was vast majority. The motion failed.

Vote to accept the revised Bylaws Yes 26, No 4. Revised Bylaws have passed.

Additional Director

Paul Romano: Nancy Clifford recently stepped down from her director’s position and we thank her for all her work and input over the years. We have a nomination to add Glenn Bloom of 1176 Lord Rd to fill Nancys spot the remainder of the term which is 1 year. This vote was passed unanimously. Welcome to the board Glenn Bloom. \

Dustless – this was already address in the road report

Correspondenc

Paul Romano: Conrad Baranowski sent the board a letter regarding the Gate at the end of Lord Rd, asking to have it open from June 1st until the first week of December. Per town property map the gate location is owned by the Virgina Lane Association. Someone mentioned that the LRA should put up our own gate, however we don’t own the property and can’t put in a gate.

Paul Romano: Denny Miller is a friend and has been very cooperative regarding the gate.

Conrad Baranowski: There is to much use of the gate currently, and it’s supposed to be locked at all times.

Paul Romano: There are too many keys handed out, Paul will speak with Denny Miller to find a better way to control the gate.

Paul Romano asked if there was any other business, and nothing was brought up.

Motion to adjourn the meeting, this was seconded and voted.

Paul Romano adjourned the meeting at 10:45am.

Meeting minutes submitted by Jill Mailhoit, LRA Secretary and approved by the Board of Directors