Greenbrae Property Owners’ Association (GPOA)
Board of Directors Meeting

Date: July 26, 2000
Time: 7:10 PM to 9:05 PM

Meeting was called to order at 7:10 PM
The meeting was held at the office of Frank Howard Allen. President Mark Litwin called the meeting to order. In attendance were board members Patty Oxman, Colin Lynch, Chalayne Gallinatti, Mary Lindsay and Dennis Ryan.

Introduction of Guests
First order of business was introduction of guests. The first guests were Monsignor Otellini of Marin Catholic High School, Dr. Milton Werner, the Principal of the school, and their architect. The architect made a brief presentation of the planned improvements at the Marin Catholic High School campus, which included a storage building, a student union/cafeteria building, a bell tower and a chapel. The project will be submitted to the City of Larkspur soon for design review and assessment. They hope to start the project early next year. There were various questions directed to the architect. Any future questions are to be direct to the Monsignor.

Other guests included members of the community. There was an unusual number of community members at this meeting, owing largely to their concerns about the oak tree issue and oak tree spraying. One member of the community, Ms. Habercamp, raised the issue of auto vandalism that seems to be occurring on her street, Via La Cumbre, and the barren look of the median strip in front of her home.

The next guest to speak was Susan Van Liere of Almenar. She discussed the graffiti that seems to be appearing on the walls of the pathway from the park to Almenar. There was some speculation whether Marin Catholic students were responsible for this graffiti.

The next guest to raise an issue was also a resident of Via La Cumbre, also talking about vandalism and raising concerns about the general degradation of private homes, private lots and other aesthetic issues. He expressed concern that people were not maintaining their properties properly and other matters such as taking their garbage cans off the curb in a timely manner.

Another member of the community stood up to complain about noise on Parkside, particularly kids playing ball late at night backing onto their property. They asked if they should call the police or is there any community action that could taken. It was advised that we would put a reminder of this type of action in the next newsletter.

Another person stood and questioned what was going on with 20 Manor Drive, a burned-out house. Mary said she would address that issue in her Community Report

Approval of Minutes of Meeting of January 6, 2000
Mark Litwin moved that the minutes be approved and Mary seconded the motion. The minutes were unanimously approved.

Treasurer's Report
Dennis Ryan presented the Treasurer's Report. A member of the community asked if the Treasurer's Report could be on our website and it was acknowledged that that was a good idea and that we would make every effort to put the Treasurer's Report and/or Budget items on the website in the future.

Community Relations Report
Mary presented the Community Relations Report. The first item mentioned was the burned-out Manor Road house. Mary stated that she had called Hal Brown's office and that they were trying to get some kind of action on the County's part to condemn the house and that the Fire Chief for the County had place a notice of condemnation on the house. Also, there was an effort to get the Public Guardian involved in trying to approach the woman who owns the house, or at least to take some action on behalf of that woman.

There was another matter of letters disappearing on Eliseo Drive and the lights being out on Eliseo Drive. Mary also reported that the 101 HOV lane in the wall project was proceeding well after three years of planning and that CalTrans was quite responsive to the needs of the community.

Newsletter Report
Patty reported the purpose of the mailing, i.e., the collection of dues, the dissemination of community information and an attempt to get more community participation. It was suggested by a person in attendance that perhaps we could eliminate some of the print and mail cost by starting to email our newsletter to person who supply their email addresses. The Board generally agreed that we would make an effort to collect email addresses via the next newsletter and certainly any future mailings that go out after the first of the year. We concurred that this would be a prudent use of the technology available.

Nomination and Election of New Members
Mark nominated Mark Hillman, a resident. Mary Lindsay nominated Paul Shwartz. Both were deemed to have excellent credentials for the type of work of the Board. On a motion and second, both individuals were unanimously approved as members to fill existing vacancies.

Landscaping Report
Scott was unavailable to make a presentation of the new contract with Gardeners Guild, which we were told involved approximately an 11% increase. On a motion by Dennis, it was moved that the Executive Committee have the authority to further negotiate and/or execute a one-year new agreement with Gardeners Guild. Colin seconded the motion. On the vote it was unanimously approved.

New Matters
There was an additional question raised by a member in attendance about the wall repair on Bretano. Mark explained that we were told by the county it would be repaired this summer, and we would make inquiry as to when work was likely to start. All recognized that the retaining wall on Bretano is a threat and a risk for the coming winter.

The next issue raised was the spraying of oak trees. Both pros and cons were widely discussed. The pros being that it appears to have some beneficial effect for the trees and certainly no harm for the trees. The cons being do we want to universally spray and add additional chemicals into out local environment. There was some discussion of the toxicity of the chemical used in spraying oak trees and it was generally concluded that it is low toxicity and should not be a deterrent at this point in time. It was also generally suggested that we approve the spraying only for this coming spray season, i.e., August, but that we not give blanket approval for future spraying and that we continue to monitor the evolving science about the oak infestation as it becomes known.

It was moved by Mike Hillman and seconded by Paul to once again spray all oak trees in the common areas of Greenbrae. One of the members in attendance asked that the community be notified of the dates of spraying. It was agreed that we would put up signs in advance of known dates for spraying.

The next item was a general meeting to be held to discuss future landscape improvements. The date of October 19, 2000 was picked for the general community landscape meeting, place to be announced. Mike Hillman volunteered to be the clearing party to receive any emails directed to our website and disseminate those emails to the appropriate members of the Board for action. Mary also indicated that a member of the community, Sheryl Bry, has volunteered to monitor our Association telephone and to distribute those telephone calls to the appropriate party, thereby alleviating some of Mary's burden in the process. Sheryl was not interested in being a member of the Board, however.

The meeting was adjourned at 9:05 PM.