Minutes of Headwaters Landlord Association Board of Directors Meeting

Date: December 13, 2012

Call to order: A Board of Directors meeting of the Headwaters Landlord Association, was held in The Cabin Coffeehouse and Café, Bemidji, Minnesota in December 13, 2012. The meeting convened at 3:10 pm, President Duane Sea, presiding, and Jessica Sarauer, note taker.
Members in attendance: Andrew Erholtz, Terry Duy, Kathy Guess, Duane Sea, Lorrie Richardson, Harry Aylesworth
Members not in attendance: Jeff Janiksela, Jeff Grabowski
Secretary report: Approved via email.
Treasurer report: Harry provided a copy of the Treasurer’s report. He passed around a copy of the invoice he will be sending out to previous members who have not yet renewed their dues. He is still waiting on the letter to include with the invoice. Andrew will send the letter to Kathy and she will edit as soon as possible and send it to Harry so he can get the invoices out this weekend. It was also suggested that Harry would add something in the memo line about paying before the end of the year to get a 2012 tax deduction. Motion: Moved by Kathy to approve the treasurer report. Seconded by Duane. Motion carried.

New business:

Evergreen Conference

Harry and Duane went to the conference. The main speaker was a tenant attorney from the Twin Cities. Harry found it interesting and well worth going to the seminar. The attorney brought up issues that were unknown to the attendants. For example, they learned that you can’t have a carpet cleaning fee taken from the security deposit, but you can charge it as a separate fee. Another issue they learned about was snow removal and lawn care. If a landlord requires a tenant to do snow removal and lawn care they must compensate the tenant at fair market value and it is recommended that the landlord have a worker’s compensation policy if the tenant were injured while doing snow removal and lawn care activities. Kathy then explained worker’s compensation policy and said that most insurance brokers can set you up with that. They also learned about 60 day leases and requirements for notices and terms. The attorney recommended a lease that he from the Minnesota Bar Association. This lease lays out specific rules that are important (i.e. if the landlord pays utilities and collects money from tenant for the utilities, they have to show new tenants the last year’s utilities costs). Duane thought the membership of the Headwater’s Landlord Association should be informed of the information learned at this conference and a lot of the topics will be covered at the next general meeting. The attorney sold a book, How to be the Smartest Tenant on the Block, and Harry bought a copy and will let others borrow it. Kathy and Duane will use the book as a reference for the information covered at the next general meeting. Lorrie suggested having a link to this book on the webpage as well as possibly having copies available to purchase at the next general meeting.

Crime Free/Drug Free

Harry went to the Crime Free/Drug Free training offered by the city. He thought the training was okay, but was not impressed with the answers given to questions asked. The Fire Chief did give some good information about fire extinguishers. Fire extinguishers need to be inspected every year and the inspection needs to be documented. The Chief gave tips on inspecting them yourself (this is for a single family home, Harry was not sure if self-inspection was applicable for multiplexes).

Old business:

Next General Meeting Date

The next meeting date was set for Thursday January 24, 2013 at Beltrami Electric at 7:00 pm. If this date is unavailable, January 31, 2013 will be the backup date.

General Meeting Agenda Topics

Leases and leasing will be the main topics of the next general meeting. The book from the Evergreen Conference will be used to come up with a handout of what will be discussed. Kathy and Duane will get the handout together.
Other potential topics to bring up during the meeting were crp reminders (if not sent out there is a $100 penalty), certified mail information, reminder about crime free/drug free addendum, and reasonable charges.
The format of the meeting will be a discussion with a mediator and panel of speakers. Andrew will be the mediator.
The membership will also get a chance to write down what they would like to learn more about
Terry brought up a scamming situation that he had heard about (people pretending to be landlords to get security deposits by having a key and giving tours, but not actually being a landlord). Andrew knows how to recognize scams on Craigslist and will give a presentation about that as well as advertising rentals (Craigslist, BSU website, Northwoods LLC., etc.) at a general meeting. Tenant marketing, screening, and applications will not be the focus of the next general meeting, but will be in the future.
Harry went to the committee meeting with the landlord group and the city and learned that the city had a great deal of interest in coordinating with the HLA. They would like to do some shorter seminars on different topics. Laura Straw would like to do a meeting about Section 8 Housing because there is a lot of misunderstood information about Section 8. The Board members thought this would be a good general meeting topic for the future.
Agenda will be finalized at next Board of Directors Meeting.

Emails

Kathy suggested including the Associate Member list to every email that is sent out.

Project Reports

Andrew made up a certificate and membership card. Everyone liked the design and the only request was that the picture in the background be made a shade or two darker.
Terry got the letter to be included with the invoices to Andrew, but it did not get to Harry. Kathy will be forwarded the letter and will get it to Harry this weekend.
No report from the Preferred Vendor Committee.
No report on the handbook/brochure.

Miscellaneous

Andrew mentioned that fire extinguishers needed tags to be on there and the seal cannot be broken. Kathy wondered if the Fire Chief would write up something about this. Harry mentioned that the Fire Chief was very proactive and would write letters to tenants about taking batteries out of smoke detectors and would probably write something up about fire extinguishers.
Andrew was wondering if fellow board members were getting emails about people looking for places to rent. Everyone said they were getting the emails.
Andrew had someone call him about an issue he was having and Andrew wanted to know if anyone knew the solution. The situation was from a person who was renting from someone else. The landlord has a propane tank, but refuses to pay for it and the renter has all of his utilities included with the rent. The renter was told to use electric space heaters and he is having trouble heating with only space heaters and was wondering if this is legal. No one on the board knew for sure if this situation is okay.

New Rental Permit Registrations

Harry brought up the fact that the city of Bemidji has had over 100 more new rental registrations and will continue to have more as the annexed area will have to be registered. He thought if we network with the city we could potentially have the city hand out our (in the works) pamphlet/brochure about becoming a member.

Membership Drive

Kathy suggested having a membership drive in March to include the new registrations.

Announcements:
Next BOD meeting: January 17, 2013, Cabin Coffeehouse and Café, 3:00 pm

Next general meeting: January 24, 2013, Beltrami Electric, 7:00 pm
Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 4:39 pm.

Minutes submitted by Jessica Sarauer.