2021 Annual MeetingOctober 21, 2021
6:30pm Votes will be taken to:
1. Ratify the 2022 budget 2. Dissolve the Cottages of Stockton HOA and roll those residents into the Ebenezer Village HOA (lowering the Cottages HOA dues to make them equal with the rest of Ebenezer Village) 3. Approve new Bylaws for Ebenezer Village (this contains the broad legal stuff about topics such as property, Board duties and details, Annual meeting, etc.) 4. Approve new Covenants for Ebenezer Village (this contains the specific details of yard maintenance, ARC requirements, etc.) To approve new Byalws and Covenants it's a simply majority vote of THIS QUORUM: 1. 20% of the homeowners 2. from EACH section 3. present or having signed a proxy This "super-quorum" requirement is why it will be really important for you to complete a proxy if you can not attend and vote in person. |
Yard Hack
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Community Survey Results
Total Homes = 228
Survey C from March (38 of you have responded)
Survey D from April (31 of you have responded)
(For you math nerds, wink-wink, not every homeowner answered each question...so the math doesn't always work.
Additionally, if an answer only received 1-2 votes, I have not included those here for time's sake.)
Board members term should be 2 years25
A majority Board vote should be allowed to remove a Board member.Yes = 28
No = 3 |
Board members can serve 2 Consecutive terms.17
If no one from my section runs, I want the Board to be able to appoint anyone from the neighborhood to fill the seat.Yes = 21
No= 8 Board has to appoint from the section= 5 |
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Should homeowners be responsible to maintain and make any needed repairs to the sidewalk on their lot?
No = 28
The ARC fee is reasonable and should stay.13
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Townhall ReviewThank you to our roughly 10 attendees. 19 of you registered, so to those who couldn't make it, we missed you and thanks for registering. While we were hoping that more of you would attend, we are grateful for the comments that were shared.
People expressed a desire to keep the sections, but to allow the Board to appoint residents from another section if no one from a section volunteers to serve on the Board. In the past the Board has had difficulty in getting a volunteer from each secion in order to have a full Board of 5 people. |
The consesus was that 2-year Board terms would be a good amount of time, allowing two consecutive terms to be served and then requiring one term off before running again. This will help sections to not grow overly dependent on one particular resident, but encourage the section to share the duty of serving on the Board.
Vote by Proxy: If you can't make it to the Annual Meeting in October, you can sign a proxy form and let a neighbor IN YOUR SECTION or the Board member from your section vote for you. Why does this matter? Because we need enough votes to actually pass items. This allows you to count toward the qurom without actually beng present. |
What's the big deal about new Bylaws and Covenants?
Why do these surveys and townhalls matter?
If you've ever tried to read the Ebenezer Village Bylaws and Declarations...then you are acutely aware of how antequated and difficult they are to read. You can take a gander at them on the Cusick portal under Community Information, Community Documents. (If you have not yet registered within this portal, please do so.)
The Bylaws are written like a constitution with articles and sections. They contain broad legal requirements covering topics such as common area property of the HOA, Board duties and election requirements, Annual meeting requirements, etc. There is a Declaration of Covenant for each section (Mintz - Tradition Way; Windham Hall; Notable/Foxcroft). These Declarations are often referred to as simply Covenants. These Declaration of Covenants are NOT currently the same for each section. These documents were created 20 years ago, but they were based on documents created even before that time. So, they need to be replaced with modern streamlined Bylaws and a single Covenant to cover the entire neighborhood. The Bylaws and Covenant for Cottages of Stockton were created by the lawyer working with Cusick, and the documents are straigtforward and easy to read. We have already done some work with him in getting the new documents ready, and we will be using the Cottages documents as a general template. While some details are required per South Carolina law and by the City of Rock Hill, there are some other details that are in the hands of the homeowners. For example, the State requires a certain number of Board members, but the homeowners determine how those homeowners are elected to the Board and the terms of Board members. For example, homes and yards must be kept up for the sake of property values, but the details of whether a yard must be edged or not is up to the homeowners. These are the types of details listed in the Bylaws and Covenants respectively. What will the details be for the newly proposed Bylaws and Covenants? The Board is currently working on that, but we want your input! The new documents will require you to vote on them - so now is the time for you to have some influence as to what they say. In completing the Surveys, you share your opinions with the Board about what will be in the new documents. This is important because these new documents provide the guidelines on how the entire HOA is run. Of course, your survey answer may be A and the documents may end up with B in them...but if you don't share your opinion now you will miss your chance to influence the documents that will guide life in Ebenezer Village for years to come. To change our current documents requires a lawyer, which is expensive. So, we'd like to get the documents passed the first time around in October. You can influence the documents guiding the HOA for the next 20 years! |
Please answer each survey only once.
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REMINDER - New Terminology from Cusick: Covenant Oversight
What Cusick once called a "violation" they are now calling a Covenant Oversight.
So, where Cusick would issue a violation notice after an inspection,
now they will issue a Covenant Oversight notice.
In order to stay aligned with their terminology,
we are using that same language for what we once called violations.
What Cusick once called a "violation" they are now calling a Covenant Oversight.
So, where Cusick would issue a violation notice after an inspection,
now they will issue a Covenant Oversight notice.
In order to stay aligned with their terminology,
we are using that same language for what we once called violations.