Silver Springs Op-Eds & Editorials

The first thing to go was the bunny, never to be seen again. Then, over a short period of time, the population of birds dropped dramatically. No more robins eating worms as a spectator event. My morning ritual has changed, too. Now 4am-5am is spent seeing the cat hunt my yard and 5am-6am, total silence… no more songbirds. Instead of the sound of songbirds at dawn, now my dog wakes us up several times per night chasing the cat away. I could put the bark collar on him (the kind that sprays citronella and is surprisingly effective), but his barking is really my only defense against this cat hunting my yard.

I’ve looked at the Summit County website and I see lots of laws addressing “dogs at large”, but don’t see anything about “cats at large”. I’m not sure what my rights are in this situation and am glad to see SilverSprings.Life take interest in the subject.

My request to all of my cat-owning neighbors is this: please show consideration for your neighbors and keep your cats in your house at night. Although nighttime marauding is fun for them, otherwise it only serves to piss off your neighbors and decimate the songbird and bunny population.

Harry Adelson, N.D.
www.docereclinics.com
www.stemcellsolutionfilm.com

Paul Reddy sent emails bushwhacking Homeowners for support of his attempt at a comeback of the failed November 14, 1994 CCRs "with just a few changes" made by him. On Friday, September 6, 2019 Reddy emailed his request along with a link to his altered CCRs and a promise to send a ballot on Monday, September 9, 2019 to facilitate our Homeowners immediate vote for or against his CCRs.
Unfortunately, his hasty ballot failed to include the list of candidates who wanted to be on the HOA 2019 Election ballot.
Find the Silver Springs SF November 10,1994 CCRs at the Summit County Recorder website: Entry 00419440, Book 000851 Pages 00334-00339. They are recorded as an "Amendment to Declaration of Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions for Silver Springs Development Subdivisions." This is part of the name identification problem explained in my 9/9/2019 email Response to Reddy from Lucy Archer. This is only the beginning of the errors and over-reach Reddy wants to rush the Homeowners to pass without enough notice to read and study them.  
I have read all the 1994 Board Minutes. The November 9, 1994 Annual Replacement Meeting includes Announcement of the mailed out CCRs Proposed Modifications results, however, none of the Minutes indicate a vote on a final document by the Homeowners to approve them, much less to move ahead to record a modified version of six pages whittled down from the parent CCRs containing 35 pages. The 1994 document was recorded on November 17, 2019, includes only the board president's signature. There is no record of the board members or that the document received voted ratification by the Homeowners.
HIDDEN AGENDA MOTIVE: The 1994 CCRs are a direct line to the parent Silver Springs Developer's 1982 CCRs written for use to manage the entire Silver Springs Community of twelve subdivisions. In 1982 Silver Springs had approval mostly for condominiums and townhouses. Single-family homes do not fit into the 1982 and 1994 management and organization rules. Notice Reddy's CCRs carry forward the name "Silver Springs DEVELOPMENT SUBDIVISIONS. Why are we, the Single Family Homeowners being maneuvered into voting for outdated and unsuitable CCRs?    [I hate to even mention this, but if you have been keeping up with the debate in our neighborhood, Reddy's 1994 CCRs string leads to the underdrains 1982 documents.  Also unratified by Owners because it is a Developer's Association and he had full control of it.]
As far as I can see, the Homeowners votes to Ignore the Underdrains have each been disenfranchised.  A small group is very persistent to get their way regardless of what the County Commissioners, County Attorney, County Planners, Water company professionals, Weber Basin, USGS, etc. advise to the contrary.
Make your comments here or use Messenger or email to me.
Lucy Archer

Editor Comments:
(Disclosure - SSL Editor, Chris Bachman, is one of the candidates for election in 2019)

1) In the opinion of SSL, by means of 1) creating a “nomination committee” and 2) having it chaired by a board member and 3) selecting the other committee members, the board would appear to be in a position to exert some degree of influence over the selection process conducted by the "independent" committee when recommending candidates.

2) SSL supports full disclosure and transparency regarding ALL the candidates. A short bio for preferred candidates in the past was better than "nothing", true, but falls far short of full transparency. The short bio for ALL candidates as being offered by the board this year is a step in the right direction.

3) SSL stands corrected, the discussion is over and the voting BEGINS on Sept 9th.

The SSL survey, independent of the HOA, which was run directly after the voting ended resulted in a flood of owner comments, the majority of those comments indicating a growing concern with a specific handful of issues as well as a feeling that they lack adequate representation at the board level.

So now that the proposed CC&Rs were voted down…what happens next? Here is what we at SSL think should happen next and we hope the BoT agrees.

Step 1 – Conduct a more detailed survey
At the February 11th BoT meeting it was proposed by many that a survey be taken to discover how people felt about the CC&Rs and why they voted the way they did, this despite the fact a survey had already been taken.

Step 2 – Involve Owners from outside the BoT circle to participate on the committees.

It was also brought up at the meeting that the BoT needed to include more owners in the committees, not just a few handpicked by the board. It was noted that some “committees” only had one person on them. Paul Reddy, President of the HOA, opened the floor to volunteers to be on a number of committees and some new faces now are part of several committees. The CC&R rewrite committee was not included in the volunteering process with Paul opting to “pause” that process.

Step 3 – Form a NEW CC&Rs Rewrite committee with more non-BoT affiliated owners.

The CC&R Rewrite committee until now typically consisted of just one or two people. The same people who served as the Underdrain committee. Several people at the February meeting pointed out that not only did that number barely constitute a “committee” at all but that the fact that these people were so enmeshed in the HOA that maintaining an unbiased perspective would be difficult at best. It was strongly and repeatedly suggested that the BoT make sure that going forward the CC&Rs rewrite committee embrace a wider spectrum of the owners at large.

*Note: SSL hopes and expects that at the March 11 BoT meeting that the board will establish a non-partisan Survey committee, along with a new non-partisan CC&R rewrite committee, embracing a range of owners from both sides of the fence.

New Nominating Committee Rules

This one is a solid win for everyone. Gone is the old process where the Nominating Committee selects the people it wants to support, and those people get pushed to the top of the list of candidates. That resulted in a perpetuation of a certain ideology within the BoT. The new definition of the Nominating Committee is one where the role is to encourage and support anyone and everyone who wishes to submit their name.

Underdrain I give the Underdrains a draw. Here’s why.



The Good. Paul Reddy was instrumental in getting language placed in the documents affording the owners a much higher degree of protection against unwarranted HOA intrusion onto their property. Thanks, Paul!

Now, the Bad. Here is the long and the short of it. Responsibility is different than Ownership.

Responsibility: The HOA has been maintaining the underdrain for several years now, which seems to be the accepted norm. This carries with it an assumption of at least some level of responsibility. It seems the dust has settled on this part of the issue and the prevailing feeling is that “fine, go ahead and maintain them”. Note that even just maintaining them is at odds with virtually every outside source from County to non-involved attorneys.

Ownership: Let me ask you this: If you were buying a home wouldn’t you insist on knowing the condition of the home first? How about how much the taxes and insurance were going to be? What about the mortgage? You would want to know all of those things before agreeing to take ownership, wouldn’t you?

Well, we have a similar situation with the underdrains. You are being asked to take ownership by way of including them in the CC&Rs, yet you aren’t being given any details about costs. And, the cost is NOT $11/lot/year. That is just what the HOA has been spending recently on some minor annual maintenance.

I posed a list of Unanswered Underdrain Questions to the HOA and the Underdrain Committee back on January 6th expecting they would provide answers in a timely fashion. They have, however, declined to answer these questions. The best I can get from them is that these questions can only be answered once we take ownership. Huh? Why? And, no, the information on the official SSSFHOA website does not answer these questions.

To summarize:

• We have been handling the Responsibility outside of the CC&Rs just fine.
• Despite the unquestionably large amount of work done by Bill Noland (thank you Bill!), there remain some very important unanswered questions which I feel should be answered before asking us all to take on Ownership.

Home Rentals Lease Term – 12 months minimum

Whoa! Hold the presses…apparently, this requirement does not exist!

At this week’s BoT meeting, neighbor Richard Callahan brought to the board’s attention that there is no minimum 12-month lease requirement in the CC&Rs. In fact, the only recording pertaining to rentals clearly   indicates that the minimum lease term is one (1) month. This was confirmed at the Wed. Q&A session, where the actual document was produced and Paul Reddy conceded that there was no 12-month lease requirement they could produce to substantiate their repeated claims of same. The fact is that we have this right already and the proposed CC&Rs take it away!

That this restriction has been touted as the existing standard when Richard and Hunt both claim to have shared this fact with Brian Zilvitis (i.e., the BoT) back in the fall of 2018, makes it an UNQUESTIONABLE DEAL BREAKER.

• This should stay as is with a minimum 1 month lease period.

100% Vote required to dissolve HOA

While it would be a unique situation requiring the HOA to be dissolved, we have the right to do so. This clause would try to take that right away. Here is the problem…It isn’t legal.

Utah Community Association Act Section 57-8a-104(1)(a)(i)(A) of the Utah Code expressly states: “To amend the governing documents, the governing documents may not require . . . the vote or approval of lot owners with more than 67% of the voting interests.”

We are currently at 51% vote required to pass something like this and the way voting goes around here, that seems like more than reasonable. Trying to change this to 100% is simply insulting, not to mention unenforceable.

• This one needs to go away entirely. The proper language is already at the State level where it belongs.

Voting access

Lastly, and sadly, is an issue which came up a week ago when I learned that the board had availed itself of voting records and then used those records to send a targeted message to those who hadn’t voted. 

Prior to the voting there was concern amongst residents that the voting for a matter as important as this be handled in a fair and impartial manner; i.e., that neither the board nor anyone in the association should have access to voting records or be allowed to use those records to sway the vote. In order to facilitate this, the board retained the John Richards Law Office to oversee the voting. We even had John Richards himself assuring owners that the board has not had access to the voting records.

So, what happens? The board accesses the records and then sends out a targeted email to non-voters attempting to sway them to vote in favor of the proposed CC&Rs. Ethics, anybody?

What they should have done was send a blanket (blind) email to ALL owners encouraging them to review the proposed docs and to cast their vote either way.  HUGE thumbs down.

• Shouldn’t have happened…plain and simple.

Chris Bachman
Silver Springs Owner & Editor of Silver Springs Life

 

 
The #7 Pink line used to, and still does, run through Silver Springs. Unfortunately, it now terminates around the Canyons base, meaning we have to transfer to the White bus to make it to Main Street. While this is not detrimental, it is an inconvenience and adds at least 10-15 minutes to the trip from Silver Springs to Main Street. When you can drive to Main Street in 10 minutes or so, adding 10-15 minutes to an already 10-15 minute trip is mind-boggling. 

Despite this, the true problem lies with the fact that I, nor the hundreds of residential units around me, can now not get a bus from the Canyons station to Silver Springs past 11:08pm. It seems the only option is the Electric Express, which stops no where near the hundreds of residential units in Silver Springs. I now can not take the bus to night-shifts at work or to Main Street for late night entertainment.

A very simple solution to this would be requiring the #10 White bus to come through Silver Springs on the same route as the #7 Pink. This way, Silver Springs residents would have a direct option to the Main Street transit center, with very little change to current transit lines.

Silver Springs is one of our largest, full-time, year-round resident neighborhoods. Please help bring back an option for us to take public transportation from Silver Springs to Main Street, with late night routes and no transfers.

Others are raising their voices as well, I have attached an image showing a recent letter to the editor in the Park Record that raises similar points. Thanks, Brian Mehregan