April 3, 2008 Issue                                       

©2007 The Chestnut Hill Local

CHCA board OKs budgets, bylaws
Senior Center move approved
by PETE MAZZACCARO

The Chestnut Hill Community Association’s Board of Directors tackled a full agenda at its Thursday, March 27, meeting, managing a hefty list of action items in addition to the budgets of both the association and the Local and a number of bylaw amendments, which will go before the association’s membership for a vote.

First on the agenda was the proposal to allow the Chestnut Hill Adult Activities Center (formerly the Chestnut Hill Senior Center) to re-affiliate itself with a new organization being launched by the Chestnut Hill Presbyterian Church: The Chestnut Hill Life and Learning Center.

The proposal by the senior center and church would have the center become part of the new organization and move its operation from Chestnut Hill Village Apartments at Willow Grove Avenue and Crittenden Street to the church, where some 4,000 square feet of space is scheduled to be renovated for their use.

The church’s minister Cynthia Jarvis attended the board meeting to present the idea to the board and answer questions.

The proposal to move the senior center was introduced at the March 13 meeting of the CHCA’s Executive Committee and reported by the Local in its March 20 edition.

The senior center has been operating as a subsidiary of the Chestnut Hill Community Association with funding from the association. It has also enjoyed tax-free status under the 501(c)3 tax identification of the Chestnut Hill Community Fund.

Board member Janine Dwyer asked if the senior center move was the result of the CHCF finding that it should not allow the center to use its tax ID.

Jean Hemphill, president of the CHCF, said that while it was true that the fund had realized that the center should not be doing anything other than managing funds, the senior center’s move to another organization had been in the works for some time. It was already a plan of action when the fund’s trustees concluded it should no longer allow the center to use its tax status.

Jarvis said she wasn’t certain when the new organization could adopt the senior center, but noted that it depended on raising the funds to perform the renovations. She said she hoped the renovations could be completed by November when the senior center’s lease at Chestnut Hill Village expires.

Budget

The budgets passed for both the Local and the association were the result of numerous meetings of the Budget and Finance Committee. They are for fiscal 2009, which runs from April of this year to March 31, 2009.

The association’s budget was essentially break-even with a net operating income of $759 after expenses of $200,942.

The Local budget has a net operating income of $30,005.48 after expenses of $1,103,742.85. From that net operating income, however, the Local has an obligation to pay $14,871 in 401(k) monies owed its employees and a $36,000 line of credit that it must begin to pay down.

Both budgets were passed by the board.

In addition to the budgets, the CHCA approved $90,324 in program allocations in the form of grants from this year’s Chestnut Hill Community Fund Drive. (See sidebar for details).

Bylaws

Because a special meeting on a series of bylaws amendment proposals scheduled for the night before had drawn too few board members, the proposals were reviewed by the board at the end of Thursday’s meeting.

Five of the proposals passed. The proposals will go to a vote of the association’s membership, which can vote at the Annual Meeting on April 23 or by a ballot, which will appear in the Local in its next two issues.

 The amendments all seek to clarify or simplify various rules of the association. The most substantial change approved by the board is a change in the rules to replace vacancies. Under the new rule, a replacement board member would only fill a vacated board seat for the remainder of the year, not the director’s term, which could be as much as three years. The proposal would put the remainder of the director’s term up for election in April.

For details of the bylaw proposals approved, see page 2.

Three proposals were tabled. Those proposals would have 1) established an Ethics Committee, 2) instituted a new rule that five absences from board meetings resulted in immediate removal from the board and 3) the reduction of the board of directors by 12 (from 36 at-large directors to 24).

After discussion of each, all three proposals were tabled. The board did, however, vote to establish a committee composed of Board members Chris Padova, George Spaeth, and a third member to be appointed by them, to review the ethics committee proposal and offer a proposal to the board at a later date.

Other business

A search committee was formed to look for a new community manager. Martha Sharkey vacated the position last week. The Committee will consist of Ed Berg, Carol Cope, Janice Manzi, Patrick Moran, Jane Piotrowski and Bob Rossman.

A motion was made by board member Janine Dwyer to promote the CHCA’s administrative coordinator Noreen Spota to interim community manager. The board went into executive session to discuss the matter. The motion was not passed.

Bill McGuckin, a Chestnut Hill businessman, was approved to join the Chestnut Hill Community Fund Board of Trustees.

Former CHCF trustee William “Keen” Butcher attended the meeting and said that he took exception with suggestions made  by board member Jim Foster in an opinion piece in the Local that he had resigned his position because he was frustrated with the financial situation at the CHCA. Butcher said that couldn’t be further from the truth. In response, Foster read from a passage in the minutes of the CHCF that showed Butcher was concerned about financial matters.

A variance request was approved to allow Cricket Communications to install three wireless phone antennas to the roof of Chestnut Hill Tower, 400 East Mermaid Lane.

An Ad Hoc committee was approved to study the question of the association’s tax status and explore the pros and cons of the association becoming a 501c3 organization. The committee will be chaired by Ed Berg and include George Spaeth, Moss Disston, Kathy Jones, Bob Rossman, Steve Piotrowski and attorney Patricia Pregmon.

Election procedures and judges of election for upcoming election of the association’s board of directors was approved. The judges will be Joy Bacino, Barbara Bloom, Mary Cunningham, Carol Hausermann, Jim Hall and Katie Worrall.

Three new institutional directors will be added to the board from Our Mother of Consolation Church, the new Life and Learning Center of Chestnut Hill Presbyterian Church and the Chestnut Hill Community Center.