Bylaw vote to be on May ballot

The Canyon Lake Property Owners Association membership will likely be asked to vote on revisions in the association bylaws at the upcoming May annual election. The changes include doubling the term members of the Board of Directors would serve as well as changing ceilings on board spending and debt.

In preparation for the new bylaws, the board cleaned up the existing bylaws. At its meeting last week, the board approved the Restatement of the Bylaws, as they have been randomly updated over the past 50 years.

The changes were the culmination of years of research and work by Canyon Lake POA staff and its legal team to sort through documents. They created a complete bylaws set, that includes updated language, and records the decisions that were made over the years.

While there were no significant omissions found, there were several inconsistencies between published versions that were found and corrected. This action did not modify any of the bylaw provisions that take a vote of the membership, hence the board was able to simply approve the editing by a simple majority vote. The updated document is available on the Governing Documents page of the Canyon Lake POA website.

The cleaning up of the bylaws required quite a bit of tedious work and the board issued gratitude at the meeting for the outstanding work of Lynn Jensen, Assistant General Manager, and Harmony McNaughton, PIO/Clerk of the Board.

With the document complete and reviewed, the board is now in a position to be able to confidently put forward a set of ballot initiatives in the May election aimed at modifying the bylaws.

“Our goal is to streamline our operations,” the board said, “build consistency in our governance processes and assist in the steps being taken to be a family-oriented, resort-style community for the permanent residents with a wide variety of interests.”

The changes the board is considering to place on the May ballot are the following items:

Board of Director’s Terms. Change the Board of Director’s terms from two years to four years with a two-term limit. This change would provide additional consistent leadership since each board member would have two years to carry out his or her agendas, the board said. It would also save money by requiring an election every two years instead of every year. This change was on the ballot last year and nearly passed.

General Manager. Formalize the General Manager’s position as the CEO of the association. The Board President would remain the Chairman of the Board of Directors. This is how the Canyon Lake POA currently operates now, but without the CEO title. This change would make it consistent with most other associations of the Canyon Lake POA’s size.

Spending Limits. Update the spending limits of the board, with respect to capital improvement projects and the purchase, lease or rent of real property. The current values were formalized in 1997, and appear to be based on 1990 dollars. The proposed increases will likely be based on the level of inflation that has occurred and thereby provide the membership with the same level of control.

Debt Limitation. Increase the five percent debt limitation to a value that will support the planned Capital Improvement Projects. “The change can easily be accommodated within our financial structure,” the board said. “The current limitation was established in 1990.”