Annual Meeting
The 2024 Annual Meeting is March 12th this year and hopefully many of you can attend. We will go over the final 2023 financials and review many of the key objectives for 2024. Like always this meeting along with the Fall Budget meeting is a great chance to ask questions directly to the Lake Lotawana Association leadership and for us to share information about key responsibilities with you the members.
2024 objectives continue to focus on strategic changes to process, policy to control costs, but also take the next steps in long term planning that will drive future budgeting and proper fiscal management around our Association Infrastructure (lake, roads, dam, etc.). We will discuss all this in greater detail during the March meeting.
Objectives:
- Road drainage ditch program development
- Dredging, Silt Basin and Silt remediation planning
- Silt Basin (#3, #5 and #6) preparation for 2025 dredging
- Lake depth survey to be conducted
- Silt Basin Surveys (#6 completed)
- Cove access planning and engineering plans
- New accounting practice for dredge operations cost tracking
- Further our paperwork reduction efforts and destruction of old paper records based on new Retention Policy
- Implementation of a new process for capturing situations that could trigger rule updates providing short-term guidance to the Lake Improvement and Water Enforcement Boards and the LLA staff
- Complete Storage Lot project with new stickers and auction of abandoned property
LLA Staffing
We still have staff openings to fill in Operations. There are 2 helper positions open, and we will be looking for a Dredge Operator this year. If you know of anyone that might be interested in joining our Operations staff, please have them contact the LLA Office to apply.
Construction Site Silt Fence Requirement
A reminder that all construction projects on your property require silt fencing to be installed. As homeowners we each have a responsibility to make sure our contractors are following the rules of construction. The installation of Silt Fences is required by the State, County, City and LLA. The LLA and City both can be fined by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources (DNR) for non-compliance events that are not managed. As the urban sprawl grows around us, the DNR is highlighting this topic in their inspections.
With that background, I want to share that we have too many examples where the LLA has to remind contractors repeatedly of this requirement. Therefore, in 2024, the LLA will be issuing citations after the first warning and non-compliance continues. A citation of this nature will start incurring daily points, which as we all know eventually can lead to Lake Privileges being revoked. We need the homeowners with construction projects to be diligent in making sure their contractors are managing their projects properly and avoid any missing out of lake time.
Sincerely,
Jeff Clemow
President