ANNUAL MEETING
Pursuant to the required notification of members, the annual meeting of the Water Association
was held at 1600 on 6 April 2010 at the community school.
On opening the meeting, Jerry Judson identified
three top priorities for the Board for the upcoming terms of office:
Completion of the acquisition of concessions
on the two springs supplying water to the community.
Determination
of alternate sources of water for the future, whether that might be additional springs or drilling of wells. One concern
continues to be the water outages on the Ridge Road spur of the water system, which could require either additional water
sources or increased storage for that portion of the system.
Qualifying
for reduced rates from ICE for the electricity to run the pumps during the dry season.
Upon proceeding with the nomination and election
of officers for the upcoming term, the rules as understood from the AyA administrator include the following definitions of
membership in the Water Association:
There are founding members, as identified in the original charter of the Association.
There are voting members, who are members of the Association who
own property to which a prevista has been issued and a meter installed. The voting member is the individual identified
as the legal owner of the property or the President of the corporation in the case that the property is held under a corporate
name. One exception to this rule is that if a property is owned by the spouse of a founding member or the President of
the corporation is the spouse of a founding member, the founding member is the voting member. In any case, there can only
be one voting member for a property. Should a voting member who is the President of a corporation holding property
not be able to attend the meeting, his/her vote can be delegated to another individual; to do this requires that the voting
member generate a "persona juridica", i.e., a legal document similar to a Power of Attorney, naming that individual
as his/her replacement.
Finally, there are regular
members, who are water users that do not fit into either of the above categories. All that is necessary is an application
with certification of status as an adult water user.
Any
member fulfilling at least one of the above categories (founding, voting, or regular member) can be nominated for and hold
office on the Board of the Association.
To be eligible
to be nominated for office and to vote in the elections, it is necessary that the nominee/voter be present at the meeting.
Elections were
then held on an office-by-office basis. The results were:
President Carlos
Mesen
Vice-President Jorge Herrera
Treasurer
Jerry Judson
Secretary Leslie
Rantschler
Vocal
Alexander Mesen
Fiscal (non-voting) Hugo Valverde
Following the elections, there was a discussion regarding the
shortfall between receipts and expenditures. It was approved (19-6) by the members present that the Board should approach
AyA with the concept of a tiered payment structure based on monthly water usage, specifically:
0-40 cu. m. 100
colones/cu. m.
41-100 cu. m. 200 colones/ cu. m.
>100 cu. m. 400 colones/ cu. m.
It was noted that the
figure used for community planning in the US is 250 gal. (1 cu. m.) per day, or roughly 30 cu. m. per month.
