Board Meeting, March 15, 2017

• March 15, 2017

San Antonio Village Owner’s Association Minutes for March 15, 2017 Meeting

The meeting was called to order by Dawn Lucian at 7PM. In attendance were: Dawn Lucian, Bettina Johnson, Peter Sunken and Lynn Nichols.

The Board discussed luncheon tomorrow at the Beach for Tim.

Bettina Johnson’s Treasurer’s Report:

At the end of February, the eighth month of our fiscal year, our Total Income is at 99.3% or $485,105 while Total Expenses are at 96.2% or $410,900.

Last month I described specifics of SAV finances: Holiday party costs; Capital funds spending on an extensive pool solar heating/plumbing update, drought tolerant landscaping replacement progress; and salaries. These expenditures are ongoing and you can find the current numbers in the February and July-February statements, except that pool work costs have been entered in the Maintenance 470 – Pool category and will be moved to the Capital Fund 705 Capital Maintenance category.

This month I have good news and bad news about Utilities 504 – Water expenditures. This month’s bill was $7,904 or 79% of the budgeted $10,000 of which $2,000-$2,500 is the ongoing Goleta Water District drought surcharge.

The first good news is that Goleta has received 23.63 inches of rain in this water year which runs from September 2016 to August 2017. This is 155% of normal/average rainfall received to this date and 123% normal/average rainfall for the whole water year: but our water sources are more complex than rainfall numbers, and include the Sierra snowpack, dams/reservoirs, aqueducts, and aquifers and wells known as groundwater.

The next good news is that the Sierra snowpack, which is used in the summer months is at 185% of long term averages, up from last year’s 83%. The snowpack provides 1/3 of the water used by California’s citizens, farmers and businesses. Specifically the Northern Sierra snowpack is at 159%, the Central snowpack is 193% and the Southern snowpack is at a whopping 201%. One of the oldest measurement sites near Lake Tahoe is at 45 snow-water equivalent inches which is the highest since 1983 compared to last year’s 24 inches and 6.5 inches the year before.

The bad news is that the five coastal aquifers (large underground water basins) which also provide another 1/3 of our water have been so depleted by the years of drought that last year water was borrowed from the Antelope Valley Water District and needs to be paid back. These aquifers will take 5-10 years to be replenished because most of the rain water we’ve received has not yet seeped down because instead it has flowed down creeks to the ocean. It is expected that the Desalinization Plant will compensate for the unavailable groundwater.

This is why even though most of the state has had the drought designation lifted, Santa Barbara County is one of only two regions for which the designation continues. For SAV this means that in spite our community’s historic low usage rate we will likely continue to pay the surcharge which comes to $20,000 – $30,000 annually.

LANDSCAPING: We discussed the ongoing landscaping project. So far it has had great success. We are pretty much done for now, as the gardeners will have to spend full time on maintenance through the summer. The hardest part of the landscaping is the prep of getting out the old lawns.

We were just inspected by Goleta Water; we submitted bills for landscaping and we will get a rebate check for $4,000.00 from the District.

LIGHTING: Regarding new lights on the entrance posts, Karel asked that we go to the website: 1stoplighting.com to look at lighting fixtures. Next lighting project could be for entrance lighting on each unit.

POOL: We are upgrading the pumps. They should be more water efficient and energy efficient with the solar heating.

41A RENTAL UNIT: We have started the process; Abel is painting; all new carpets; replace the floor in upstairs bathroom. The project will take a couple of weeks, then show and rent early part of April hopefully for $3,000.00.

Submitted by Lynn Nichols, Secretary