OVA Board Meeting Notes – 2025 March

Originally published 2025-03-14, updated 2025-03-18

On Tuesday, March 18, 2025 at 1 pm, the Oakmont Village Association (OVA) Board of Directors held its regular monthly meeting in the Berger Auditorium. OVA members may view the agenda and meeting packet here and may view the video of the meeting here. The purpose of this article is to encourage OVA members to attend the meeting, either in person or via Zoom, and to call attention to a few items of interest that are in this month’s agenda. Section headings below duplicate the section headings in the meeting agenda. Information about interesting discussions and decisions made at the meeting appear after “At the meeting:” in the sections below, with approximate times during the meeting noted within brackets, e.g. [1:02 pm]. Also, the official OVA report on this meeting may be read here. (Scroll down past the Central Complex Project Progress Report to see the summary of the rest of the meeting.)

4. Consent Calendar

In addition to approval of February’s minutes, this month’s consent calendar includes the appointment of Gary Smith to the Oakmont Village Property Corporation’s (OVPC’s) board, to fill the seat recently left vacant by the death of Marianne Neufeld..

At the meeting: [1:02 pm] Approved by having no objections.

5. President’s Report

There is no written report for this item in the meeting packet.

At the meeting: [1:03] Heidi listed all of the ways in which OVA is transparent, saying that concerns about incomplete transparency are unfounded. She also talked about the necessity for re-doing the Board election ballot mailing — in addition to leaving out Tim Nelson’s bio, there was an irregularity in the ballots mailed to people living in Oakmont Gardens.

IMPORTANT: All blue ballots will be thrown away uncounted. If you want your vote to be counted, you MUST fill out and return the new, yellow ballot, which you should receive by March 27. Current OVA directors will remain in office until the new ballots are counted at the Annual Meeting, now scheduled for May 5.

7. Other Reports

Item 7. A. The Treasurer’s Report for the two months ending February 28 starts at page 8 of the Board Meeting Packet. See the Financial Summary for such key figures as net income for the year-to-date and end-of-February balances for the Operating Fund, the Asset Replacement Fund (ARF), the Capital Improvement Fund (CIF), the Oakmont Village Property Association (OVPC), and the CIF loan balance.

Item 7.C. Three pages, starting at page 29, present the Oakmont Village Property Association (which owns the golf courses) balance sheet and profit and loss statement.

At the meeting: [1:06 pm] Treasurer Tom Kendrick went over the Financial Summary that is on p. 8 of the meeting packet. He noted that OVA is a bit ahead of expected income, because the number of dues-paying OVA members, at 4,659, is somewhat higher than was forecast in the budget.

Item 7. D. General Manager’s Report: There is no written report for this item in the meeting packet.

At the meeting: [1:14 pm] Christel discussed several topics. First, OVA insurance is due to be renewed soon. The OVA staff is considering offers from other insurance brokers, in case there is a problem or the premiums go up dramatically with our current broker. She also stated that the facilities audit is underway, to identify which and when infrastructure components will need to be upgraded or replaced. Finally, she supported formation of an AV Task Force, to evaluate AV needs and assist users. She also noted that the Board approved last year the hiring of a new staff member, who will spend half their time supporting AV needs and the other half on maintenance issues. Later, Christel published a report about the facilities audit and AV issues on the OVA website.

Item 7. E. On p. 32 are two short reports, one from the Oakmont Emergency Preparedness Task Force, and the other from the Architecture Committee. Pp. 33-34 are the minutes of the January 13 meeting of the Firewise Resource Task Force, pp. 35-36 are the minutes of the February 3 meeting of the Long Range Planning Committee, and pp 37-39 are the minutes of the January 6 meeting of the Oakmont Environmental Stewardship Task Force.

At the meeting: [1:19 pm] Item 7.E.1. Jeff Neuman spoke for the Architectural Committee, noting that there are a number of applications in the works for new solar power installations. He also noted that the Committee is looking for 3 to 5 volunteers to learn and to help with their work. There are 3 voting members on the Committee.

Item 7.E.2. Jeff also reported on the Oakmont Emergency Preparedness Committee, repeating the OEPC news that you can find on p. 32 of the meeting packet.

[1:25 pm] Item 7.E.3. Steve Spillman, chair of the Governing Documents Committee (GDC), gave a slide presentation covering the progress of the Committee and plans going forward. On behalf of the Committee, he requested that the Board pass two resolutions:

1. To approve the full Multi-Phase Revision Strategy Process (as shown in the figure below), to guide the GDC as it works to revise our governing documents, and
2. To direct the Communications Task Force to develop an outreach plan, to both inform the OVA membership and to seek their inputs in the revision process.

There was considerable discussion over both of these proposals, one serious concern being that the meeting packet did not include these resolutions, so that directors had not had the opportunity to understand and consider what was being proposed. In the end, the first resolution passed with 4 members voting in favor of it. Concerning the second resolution, directors did not feel that this needed a Board vote. Christel said that she would work with the Communications Task Force to develop an outreach plan, which will be provided to the Board for their approval at some later date.

[1;57 pm] An additional report, from the Meet Your Neighbors Task Force (MYNTF) was added to the agenda and delivered by chair Matt Zwerling. Matt noted that around 55% of the homes in Oakmont are now in MYN neighborhoods, up from around 40% last year. A Community Emergency Safety Guide is being developed by the Task Force, and several OVA members will be taking Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) training from Sonoma County in April. There was discussion of these activities, and of what it will mean if OVA offers, in cooperation with the Red Cross, an emergency shelter (e.g. in Berger or East Rec) in the event of an emergency that made some homes uninhabitable.

8. Open Forum

At the meeting: [2:14 pm] The only comment or question today was from Robert Williams (a candidate for the Board), who asserted that the transparency issues that were discussed by Heidi in her Presidents Report were really about the Board’s withholding of Oakmont 2030/ArchiLOGIX cost models from the membership.

9. Unfinished Business

Item 9.A. was a Central Complex Area Update by Matt Oliver. There is no documentation of this in the meeting packet, other than the agenda item.

At the meeting: [2:16 pm] Matt’s report, although it was not included in the meeting packet, was published on the OVA website later the same day under the title, Board Update: Central Complex Project Progress Report. Matt noted that he and director Jess Marzak met with Nordby about a week ago and that they are encouraged that, working with Nordby, a comprehensive cost report will be produced and shared with the Board and the community. Matt gave no estimate of when such a report might be completed. (See, also, the next section, where Matt is considering formation of a new committee to work on the cost report.)

Brief Commentary: While I don’t want to belabor the point, Matt’s report, while more than welcome, does not eliminate the failure of transparency that was discussed in last month’s Board meeting notes and in Why Is the OVA Membership Upset With the Board for Withholding Cost Models? The “cost models” ArchiLOGIX deliverable should be made available to the OVA membership, along with an explanation for why it is inadequate and useless for guiding discussion and decisions. Matt’s report is good to explain what he is doing to remedy their inadequacy. It would have been nice if he had included some time frame for his cost report to become available (1 to 2 months, 3 to 6 months, before the April 2026 election, etc), but perhaps it is too early in the process even for such an estimate.

10. New Business

Item 10. A. will be a discussion about reestablishing two committees, led by Matt Oliver. There is no documentation of this in the meeting packet, other than the agenda item.

At the meeting: [2:23 pm] Matt discussed the establishment of one committee, and he didn’t give it a name, but its purpose would be to provide credible cost information on various options under consideration by the Board, in particular for cost requirements such as those identified under Item 9.A. above. Matt indicated that he is not making a specific proposal yet, but is thinking that the effort to come up with a cost report on the ArchiLOGIX concepts might better be served with additional knowledgeable people helping.

The second committee, a reincarnation of the Oakmont Community Development Community (OCDC), is being recommended by Jeff Neuman. As Jeff described it, the OCDC was responsible for identifying where external developments, such as plans for the El Noka property and for the property that used to be the Sonoma Development Center, might have an impact on Oakmont. Members of the OCDC would go to public meetings related to those external developments and report back to the Board. No resolution was put forth for Board action as yet.

Review

This section of the Agenda is empty this month.

As noted in the meeting agenda, next month’s regular Board meeting will take place on April 15, 2025. The OVA Annual Meeting, delayed because of the necessity for reissuing ballots after Tim Nelson’s bio was left out of the original mailing, will be held on May 5, 2025 at 10 a.m., and the organizational meeting of the new Board will take place the same day at 2 p.m.

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