PPOA Board Meeting 4/24/2025 Minutes

Call To Order

A meeting of the Potawatomi Property Owner Association Board of Directors was called to order by Shaun Waggoner at 11:04am. Also in attendance were Bob DeMeyer and Chrissy Johnson. There were no Potawatomi community members in attendance.

A quorum was present.

Minutes were taken.

 

Approval of Minutes

The minutes from the 3/31/2025 PPOA board meeting were posted on the PPOA Website and copies were made available to any community members in attendance. Those minutes were approved unanimously by voice vote.

 

Approval of Agenda

The agenda for this meeting was posted on the PPOA Website and copies have been made available for any community members in attendance. The agenda was unanimously approved by voice vote.

 

Announcements

Shaun opened the meeting by thanking his fellow board members for stepping up with their time, resourcefulness and knowledge in getting us prepared for the upcoming summer season. He also thanked Wade Juntunen, Rick Tello and Dennis Johnson for all of their voluntary time and effort.

Shaun went on to talk about the difficult position we are currently in with only three board members trying to complete tasks usually distributed between at least five board members and volunteers. He mentioned that specific tasks and accomplishments would be addressed throughout the meeting.

 

Status of PPOA Board

Simply put, there is more work to be done than three people can successfully accomplish. We are three volunteers with no previous PPOA board experience. Rick Tello, Rob Lynch and Vern Wilcox are the only previous board members to offer help. We need a new board member with Bookkeeping and/or Quickbooks experience and at least one additional volunteer to join the board. Those with previous PPOA board experience are encouraged to step up. Shaun is currently doing the treasurer job in addition to duties as President. Because of that he is unable to complete less urgent tasks. Unfortunately, those “less urgent” tasks are piling up and will soon become urgent. Please, if you are interested, or know of other community members willing to volunteer, up to ten hours a week, we would love to talk with you about joining the board. In the meantime, we are doing our best.

 

Common Facilities

The water and gas will be turned on, 4/30, by the plumber. We determined that both the Wanigan and the Island Shower/bathroom house need deep cleaning. That will take place 5/6, 5/12, 5/13. Those buildings will be open for community use starting Friday 5/16. The Campground Shower/Bathroom house will be unlocked when campsites are rented. The first campsite rental is scheduled for 7/2. We assume other campsites will be rented sooner and we assure the community that that building will be thoroughly clean and totally functional for our first renters. We will be getting a visit from the Health Department in early June. We are certain there will be modifications needed and better cleaning required (than has been done in the past) in all our common buildings and rental cabins. We will do our best to establish a reasonable timeline to complete those tasks and do everything we can to keep the cabins open for rental. An Island Clean up Day is tentatively set for 5/7 and/or 5/8.

 

Administrative Report

The WooCommerce Business software is now fully integrated into our PPOA website. Customers have successfully booked cabins and campsites. Yes, there have been some glitches and there is definitely an administrative learning curve for all of us, but we are all in agreement that this will make booking and paying for rentals easier, and eventually allow us to send out statements and collect annual dues via email and/or direct deposit. Shaun added that we now know of at least 45 PPOA dues letters that were either lost, returned or destroyed through the process of mailing via USPS. Dealing with that and re-issuing invoices has taken up time and money that could have been spent on other things.

We have booked more than 55 nights in our three available cabins. That is almost exactly on pace with last year at this time. The cabins wintered well but are much too dirty to pass even a basic Health Department inspection.

We are also dealing with some booking conflicts. These cabins must be cleaned after each rental and/or before the next rental. To maximize weekend rental revenue, we made the choice to have Mondays and Tuesdays be cleaning days and there will be no same day check out/check in. These are three large cabins, and they take time to thoroughly clean. Chrissy is working on ways to make this system work for all involved.

 

Annual Assessment and Financials

We are disappointed that annual dues collections are pacing behind last year. We are certain this is directly due to assessment statements going out later than usual. However, we have received dozens of messages saying people didn’t get statements at all. We assure the community that all statements were generated in Quickbooks, stuffed in envelopes and mailed. We encourage the community to let us know if an invoice was not received. Feel Free to send the check without an invoice as the dues are the same as last year. In the next few weeks, we will be sending out a second invoice to those who have not paid. We currently have approximately $5,500 in uncollected dues. We are hoping that a future paperless system that eliminates the USPS can be adopted.

 

Because Quickbooks was not kept up to date and many payments and deposits were not entered into the correct revenue categories we felt it necessary to file an IRS extension for 2024 taxes. We also chose to pay half of the property tax, rather than the entire annual amount. In the last ten days Shaun has been able to make corrections and was able to generate both the 2024 Annual and 2025 1ST Quarter P&L reports and balance the checking and savings accounts. We will now pay second half property tax and create a current operating budget. It is apparent that we will need to generate revenue by increasing the annual dues starting in 2026. Even though our property taxes went up nearly $5,000 this year, we will not have the $5,000 legal expense we paid in 2024.

 

 

Current funds. Checking – $35,209 Saving – $104,280

Almost exactly the same as last year at this time.

 

Discuss Special Consideration Request from 2024 Land Sale

At a special board meeting in August 2024 it was discussed and a motion passed to cancel all the sales agreements. Buyers were notified. All but one of those buyers agreed to terminate the sale. One of the buyers retained legal representation. First demanding that we follow through with the sale. Now asking that we offer them first right of refusal at the agreed price of $85,000. Although the board agrees in principle (and could even explore the idea of selling them this property) it is likely that we will propose a community wide motion where first right to purchase would be offered to those owning adjacent lots. There are way too many legal loopholes in this offer that don’t benefit the entire community. Bob made a motion not to accept their offer. Chrissy seconded that motion. All agreed and the motion passed. It was decided that we seek real estate advice and readdress this issue prior to the next board meeting.

 

Firewise

This board agrees that the Firewise chipping program is an important asset in our community. The trouble is that the State funding has gotten smaller while the cost has gone up. In the beginning it was an almost free service. In 2024 it cost us $12,000 for two chipping events. Wisconsin Forestry reimbursed us $8,000. In 2025 we will get $7,000 in Forestry Service grant money. We discussed the possibility of eliminating one of the two chipping events but decided that we were able to pay for two events in 2024 so we should continue two chipping events in 2025. Chrissy made a motion that we continue with two chipping events and approve the community funds necessary to pay the difference. Bob second the motion, all agreed and the motion passed.

 

 

Public Comment

No public comment

 

 

Adjournment (Action Required)

Shaun made a motion to adjourn at 1:46pm, Chrissy seconded the motion. Voice vote was taken; motion carried.