SNA General Membership Meeting Minutes - March 12, 2024

/

Sedgefield Neighborhood Association General Membership Meeting
Date: Tuesday, March 12, 2024
Location: Sedgefield United Methodist Church
Time: 7:00 p.m.

Attendance: 49 adults

Pastor Tom kicked off the meeting, welcoming all in attendance

Current SNA Board Secretary, Laurie Hofer - kicks off the meeting, gives an overview of the agenda, then begins the introductions of the board election candidates.

Managing board, candidate introductions - each candidate took a brief moment to introduce themselves to the neighbors in attendance:

  • Dan Kapfhammer

  • Duncan Robinson

  • Neil Boss

  • Jeremy Whelan

  • Kevin Hofer

  • Steve Lonnen

  • Brian McHugh

  • Jamie Reis

Four candidates were not present at the meeting and therefore did not speak: Brad Bissell, Nicole Frambach, Chris Spencer and Jen Virion.

Note: for those that may not have seen the announcement on social media, two candidates (Beth Johns and Will Johns) withdrew their names from consideration, and therefore did not address the membership.

Moment of recognition of previous board members / volunteers - Laurie Hofer requested that any and all previous members of the SNA board please stand, so those in attendance could recognize their service with a round of applause.

Proposed bylaw discussion - existing SNA board officer, Duncan Robinson, ran neighbors through some of the proposed changes and the rationale behind why they were being made.

The floor was then opened up to membership for comments. A brief synopsis of their feedback is outlined below:

  • Maureen Krueger

    • Indicated that there may have been some confusion about which version of the bylaws was up for consideration / vote.

  • Kyle and Lisa Kallander

    • Expressed their feelings of discomfort with the overall transparency of the process (namely that the discussion and vote on the bylaws updates happened on the same night), and that the process overall felt a bit rushed.

    • Regarding memberships for renters, the terminology needs to be more specific as "long-term" could mean different things to different people.

    • While not necessarily opposed to offering hardship memberships, this type of approval should require a full board vote, and not the approval of just the President and Treasurer. This would limit the potential of any sort of impropriety among the executive committee.

  • Will Johns

    • Noted that the last set of bylaws passed before those up for the vote at the meeting, took 1 and 1/2 years to implement. Highlighting the concern that feedback from the membership should be accounted for in a more expedient manner. In response, Dan Kapfhammer committed to providing another draft of amendments in 45 days or less.

  • Ann King

    • Shared her feelings that voting in an election after the bylaws seemed illogical and maybe even a bit suspicious.

    • As a resident of the neighborhood of 20+ years, of primary concern to her, is ensuring that control of the association remains "with the people" (i.e. is representative of the neighborhood overall).

    • Noted that Marsh Rd. was misspelled in bylaws.

  • Janelle Travis

    • Advocated that the association use the fellowship hall at the church for membership meeting, so everyone can see and interact with each other more easily.

    • Commented that she'd love to see more women in positions of leadership.

    • Noted that she saw and spoke with a developer who indicated that the city council is not a fan of the UDO, and encouraged the membership to engage civic leaders to let their feelings on the UDO be known.

Announcement of vote / election results

  • All ballots were completed and corrected

  • Two volunteers were solicited from the membership to assist in the count. Thank you to Maureen Krueger and LG Hillebrand for their help in managing the vote tallying process.

Bylaw vote results - the updated bylaws were accepted with ~87% of the votes cast in favor of the changes.

  In-person Absentee Total
Accept 23 74 97
Reject 8 1 9
Abstain 1 5 6

Board election results - because the new bylaws were adopted, the new board election was officially triggered. The five executive committee position candidates were all running unopposed, which meant that the only contested positions were the at-large seats. The vote totals of the four candidates receiving the most votes follow below:

Candidate In-person Absentee Total
Jen Virion 22 63 85
Nicole Frambach 22 56 78
Brian McHugh 27 50 77
Steve Lonnen 25 40 65

Congratulations to the newly elected board of directors:

President: Dan Kapfhammer
Vice President: Duncan Robinson
Treasurer: Neil Boss
Secretary: Jeremy Whelan
Communications Officer: Kevin Hofer
Member at large: Nicole Frambach
Member at large: Steve Lonnen
Member at large: Brian McHugh
Member at large: Jen Virion