Annual Meeting Minutes, April 19, 2022
Minutes for Clarksville CDC Annual Meeting, April 19, 2022, 6:30 p.m.
The meeting was held outside the Haskell House.
Board members in attendance: BJ Friedman, Malcolm Greenstein, Paula Hern, Kim O’Brien, Mary Reed, Chris Thomas, Gregory Tran
Others in attendance: Brad Prak, Prak Property Management, Kathy Doyle, Randi Shade, Jon Montgomery, Jon’s partner.
1. Mary Reed, CCDC President, presented the “State of the CCDC” Annual Report. A copy is at the end of these minutes.
2. BJ Friedman, CCDC Treasurer, presented an annual financial report. A copy is at the end of these minutes.
3. Brad Prak, CCDC property manager, presented a report on the CCDC’s affordable housing program. Prak Property Management entered into a 2-year contract to manage the CCDC properties in July 2021. It was quickly discovered that routine maintenance had not been addressed. Efforts are underway to catalog needs, assign costs, and prioritize work to be done. Processes will be put in place to keep this from happening going forward. Other work in progress are tenant income verification, migrating tenants to TAA leases, reviewing and revising current documents, and assessing rental amounts and funding sources. Brad hopes to have past issues solved in the next year.
4. BJ Friedman, acting as Election Administrator, announced the results of the Board of Directors election. Malcolm Greenstein, Paula Hern, Kim O’Brien, Mary Reed, and Chris Thomas were reelected to 2-year terms. Eighteen members—16% of the membership—cast ballots.
Randi Shade, neighbor and CCDC member, questioned the board regarding the CCDC’s mission. She was not aware that the original mission—providing housing for displaced Clarksville families—had changed and she felt that others in the neighborhood were also not aware.
Clarksville Community Development Annual Report
Mary Reed, President
April 17, 2022
Challenging is the word that best describes last year for the CCDC. Almost nothing was quick or easy.
There were many reasons why. For starters, COVID continued to be an issue, which meant that we could not have in-person board meetings, we could not open the Haskell House to the public, nor could we have any neighborhood events. Everything was somewhat impersonal and from a neighborhood visibility perspective, it was almost like the CCDC did not exist.
Another major reason is that our relationship with our property manager went south and things got very difficult. We ended up parting company in June, which meant we had to find a new property manager. Thankfully, Mark Rogers with the Guadalupe Neighborhood Development Corporation, referred us to Prak Property Management and after meeting with Brad, the board decided to hire his company to manage our properties and handle our bookkeeping. Although we all breathed a big initial sigh of relief after that decision, Brad soon gave us some painful reality checks. We learned among other things, that our finances were not as solid as we had thought they were and that many maintenance and repair issues at our properties had been ignored or not addressed appropriately. Therefore, the CCDC was looking at several challenging and expensive years ahead.
Big delays and cost over-runs on all of our projects because of COVID and supply chain issues were also responsible for making last year difficult. For example, pretty much as soon as construction of our new affordable and green rental property at 1611 West 10th finally got underway, we realized that the project would exceed the funding we had for it given that we were working with a 2 year-old budget and building costs were escalating. However, our contractor, American Youth Works, promised to save money where ever it could.
And the Haskell House project posed a myriad number of challenges, especially because the project had stalled while our former property manager was in charge of it and Kim McKnight, PARD’s Program Manager for Historic Preservation, Tourism and Wayfinding, was very frustrated with the CCDC. However, once I took over as project manager, we were able to get things back on track. We identified potential contractors, drew up specs, solicited bids and ended up hiring Phoenix 1 Restoration and Construction out of Dallas. However, their bid exceeded the amount of the Heritage Tourism Grant we had received from the City’s Economic Development Department to fund the project. Luckily, given that the CCDC could not afford to kick in any of its own money, PARD agreed to pay for the cost of the window work and assumed responsibility for installing a new roof and gutters on the House. And then, once work began on the HH and Phoenix told us that the project was going to cost an additional $9K because of the amount of rotten wood involved, PARD agreed to pick up that cost as well. Although getting the project launched and completed required 14 different meetings between me and PARD staff between mid-June and mid-December, in the end, everyone involved was thrilled with the outcome. Case in point, two weeks ago Kim sent me and everyone on her team who helped make the project happen the following email: “This has not been an easy project, but we all pitched in and did what was needed to preserve this special and significant historic building for years to come. This is what a true partnership is all about. Many thanks, Mary, for your work. And Ellen and Albert: I am beyond grateful for your oversight and assistance.”
Speaking of PARD, we also entered into a new Haskell House Use Agreement with that department. The agreement is much, much more detailed than our previous ones and requires that the CCDC do a lot more including submitting an annual report to Kim. I submitted our first such report last December and it included 13 different required attachments, including a volunteer training plan, all of which to be written from scratch. Also, I had to submit background checks for all board members as well as for everyone who had volunteered to be a Haskell House docent.
Last but not least, we made progress in baby steps on the 1011 Charlotte second egress project, which is being funded with OWANA $. Hopefully, this time next year, I will be able to report that it was completed.
2020-2021 Annual Financial Report
Submitted by BJ Friedman, CCDC Treasurer
Fiscal year 2020-2021 was another challenging year for the CCDC.
On the plus side, OWANA provided $52,049 from their affordable housing funds to CCDC for us to use to fund needed repairs for our properties. It was agreed by the board to use this money to build a second egress at 1011 B Charlotte. If funds are not all used on that property, the board voted to use remaining funds to rebuild the stairs at 1707 W 10th, or for other needed projects.
Due to the high cost of utilities for water/sewage that we pay at the duplexes that only have 1 meter, it was decided that tenants at these properties will pay a prorated portion of their water bill. However, at this time, only 2 tenants are paying due to delays in renewing leases. When all affected tenants are paying for their water, we should save about $5000 annually.
Another positive was that construction finally began at 1611 W 10th. Kim O’Brien will provide a more detailed report.
Numerous difficulties related to our finances also occurred. The February 2021 Snowpocolypse caused damage to 5 tankless water heaters at our properties. Two had to be replaced and 3 were repaired by volunteers for free. We gave the 3 volunteers $100 gift cards to Cipollina, one of which was sponsored by Cipollina.
The Haskell House repairs which are funded by a Heritage Foundation grant were delayed due to difficulties with getting bids and then for bids exceeding the budget. Mary Reed will provide a more detailed report in her State of the CCDC Annual Report. As this is a reimbursable grant, CCDC must front all expenses until reimbursement occurs.
Construction finally began at 1611 W 10th, as will be reported by Kim O’Brien. However, this is another reimbursable loan, and as of Sept 2021, we had expended about $10,000, of which none has been reimbursed.
Finally, our property manager, Rose Gabriel resigned effective June 2020. We hired Prak Property Management to replace her. PPM took over not only our property management, but also our financial management. It has taken several months to combine our old QuickBook accounts with PPM’s financial reporting system.
Ended the year with
Assets
Tenant Security Deposits
$14,500.31
Not usuable
CCDC Savings
$19,092.57
OWANA Award
$52,049
1611 Funds
$65,558.20
Other
$4.75
Total
$157,480.53
Liabilities
Accounts Payable
$14,970.39
Current Liabilities
$122,803.38
Primarily for $1611 W 10th Construction and Security Deposits
Total
$137,773.77
Total Equity
$745,517.58
Properties grossly undervalued