So, I didn’t go to the annual home owner’s meeting for our subdivision this year. But, in my absence, I was nominated and elected to the board of directors (well, I knew I was going to be nominated, one of my neighbors called me a couple weeks before hand and said his term was ending and would I mind if he nominated me to fill his place, to which I said OK, but I would have thought not showing up for the annual meeting for the second or third year in a row would have kept me from getting elected ;-) So, last week we had our first board meeting. Then, tonight, we had an unplanned followup meeting. You see, one of the guys who lives in the neighborhood has been the person that cuts the grass in the common areas for 4 years now. Unfortunately, costs the last couple have years have gotten out of hand. So, at the last meeting, the board blindsided him and yanked the contract without giving him any chance to do anything about it. This meeting was called by him so that he could respond after having had a bit to think things through and figure out what went wrong. Well, it took almost two hours, but after much wrangling and me telling the other board members that they acted inappropriately in blindsiding this guy, and telling the guy that I agreed that he got shafted (yes, those are very close to direct quotes), we managed to work out a new deal. We are writing up a new contract. Instead of doing things on a pay per cut basis, we are doing a contract that basically says he gets a flat rate per year, no minimum cuts, no maximum cuts, but he has to keep the place looking good and if he fails to keep up with the cutting then we can terminate the contract and hire a typical lawn cutting contractor on a per cut basis. Everyone seemed to be happy after that.

When I got to my first meeting they told me that it’s normally only a 15 minute meeting about 4 times a year. In the last week I’ve spent 4 hours at Clark’s house. They lie!!!! :-)

Oh well, at least I had fun letting the people have it when they were being childish (and I’m the youngest one there!)