Our regular meeting of the Board of Directors of the Timber Lakes Property Owners Association will be held at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday, March 10, 2010, at the Wasatch County Senior Citizen’s Center, located at 465 East 1200 South in Heber City, UT. Owners are welcome to attend and encouraged to participate.

Several owners have inquired about the vendor PayPros LLC appearing on our monthly warrant list. I want to explain who PayPros is and why we use their services.

Professional Employer Organization
PayPros is a professional employer organization, or PEO. A PEO is a company that provides services that enable their clients to cost-effectively outsource the management of human resources, employee benefits, payroll, workers’ compensation and other related services. A PEO does this by hiring a client company’s employees, thus becoming their employer of record for tax and insurance purposes. It then leases them back under contract to the original employer. This practice is known as co-employment, employee leasing or staff leasing. The PEO is responsible for staying current with federal, state and local employment regulations and files all payroll-related tax forms, freeing their client from the need to handle all of these functions themselves. In other words, our PEO handles human resource functions so that we, the Association, do not have to hire an employee to do this for us.

PayPros
PayPros is the PEO we have used since April 2008. They were founded in 1998 and provide services to clients in Utah, Colorado, Arizona and Nevada. Using PayPros eliminates the liability from the Association of having to worry about keeping up and complying with payroll-related tax law, regulations, filings and forms. For the services they provide us, we pay a tiny fraction of what it would cost to pay an Association employee to do the same. You can learn more about PayPros by visiting their website.

Thanks
Thanks to you owners who are looking at the website, attending meetings, asking questions and making suggestions. We welcome your input.

John Blickenstaff, Treasurer

We will hold our first Salt Lake valley board meeting of the year on Wednesday, February 10, 2010 at 7:00 pm in the Whitmore Library located at 2197 East Fort Union Boulevard (in Cottonwood Heights). We welcome our owners’ attendance and participation. The following meeting will be held in Heber City on March 10.

Change is good, and in this case, the changes benefit all Timber Lakes owners.

At our meeting tonight, we announced that the Board has appointed two new directors to complete the terms of two members who resigned earlier. In addition, several board members received new assignments.

We welcome Andy Berry and Shane Olson to the board and thank everyone who applied to serve. We are glad to have a full board again, and appreciate the willingness of all the applicants to get involved in finding solutions for Timber Lakes.

The specific board assignments, effective immediately, are as follows:

Mike Durr               President, State Fire Liaison

Gary Hume             Vice President of Operations (Roads, Water Company Liaison)

Ole Smith               Vice President of Administration (Wasatch County Liaison, Heber Valley Camp Liaison,
Fire Safety Projects)

John Blickenstaff     Treasurer, Webmaster, Office

Craig Allen              Secretary, Security, Risk Management, Insurance Program

Andy Berry             Safety, Construction Compliance, CC&R Compliance, Annual Meeting

Rondo Fehlberg       Legal Issues

Shane Olson           Construction Compliance, CC&R Compliance, Common Area Improvements

Rob Roueche’          Cabin Plan Approval, CC&Rs, Newsletter

I have served on the Board for two years and as the president of the Association for the past 18 months. I appreciate the support I received from most of you. Although everything that I said or did as President drew criticism from a few owners, many of you expressed your approval of how we are trying to resolve issues. I want to thank those of you who follow the issues and express your opinions. We always make better decisions when we hear from our fellow property owners.

I also want to thank the members of our Board, who work tirelessly to improve the quality of life on the mountain. I appreciate all their hard work and anticipate working with them and our new President to make additional improvements.

I look forward to working with our accountant to complete the process of straightening out our financial records. Our goal is to have sound, appropriate controls for how we purchase goods and services. We also want to provide owners with accurate, timely and relevant information about how our money is spent. This is a crucial, and long-neglected area on which I will now focus.

Thank you,

John Blickenstaff
Treasurer, Webmaster, Office

At the request of many property owners, we have made the necessary changes to be able to accept your payments to Timber Lakes Property Owners Association by credit card. This service is available, effective immediately.

Because we are a non-profit organization, and every penny counts, we have determined that the cost to the Association for processing credit card transactions needs to pass to the owner who is using the card. After consulting with our bank, and at their recommendation, we will add a processing fee to the amount you are paying by credit card. That fee will be $15 or 3% of the total, whichever is greater.

For example, if you were paying this year’s annual assessment, and you did not owe a late fee or interest, the amount would be $558. The processing fee is $16.74 (because 3% of $558 is greater than $15).

If you were purchasing two snowmobile/ATV stickers and two gate remotes, the total would be $90. The processing fee is $15 (because $15 is greater than 3% of $90).

We can take Visa, MasterCard and Discover Card. We cannot accept American Express or any other credit cards.

To pay by credit card, please call the office during its regular hours (currently 9 am-1 pm Monday through Friday) and Connie will assist you.

Property owners in the Timber Lakes Estates subdivision must pay an annual assessment. We use the assessment primarily to build and maintain roads and to remove snow during the winter. It also funds our operating expenses, such as the employee payroll, security and common area maintenance. By covenant, the annual assessment fee may not be increased from year to year by more than 10% without approval of a 2/3 vote of members present in person or by ballot at a special meeting called to consider such an increase.

Although we send out an invoice as a courtesy to owners, the assessment is due and payable even if you do not receive the invoice. Our CC&Rs and Bylaws require the collection of late fees if you do not pay your assessment on time, regardless of the reason.

As a property owner, you are responsible for notifying the Association of any change in your mailing address and/or telephone number(s). There is a $100 fee, payable to the Association, for transferring ownership of each lot. In a normal real estate transaction, the title company will make sure the transfer fee is paid. If you do not use a title company, or if your title company missed this fee, you are still required to pay the fee before you can access your property through the main gate.

The annual assessment fee for 2008 is $508, was due in January 2008 and was late after March 31. All accounts with an outstanding balance have been turned over to our attorney for collection.

The annual assessment fee for 2009 is $558, is due in January 2009 and will be late after March 31.

We have posted our Our Accounts Receivable Policy, which governs what happens if you pay late.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Charlie Richards