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After weeks of campaigning and mail-in ballots, Marsh Creek homeowners signaled an urge for fresh but cautious change in the leadership of the Marsh Creek Board of Directors, electing two recent community newcomers while bringing back an experienced hand.

In front of 80 or so homeowners in the Marsh Creek Country Club Monday evening, and another 28 dialed in on Zoom, outgoing President Barbara O’Connor announced that Scott Herrington, Tom Burkhard, and John Hutson were the top vote-getters in the six-person election. The trio fill three seats vacated by the retiring O’Connor and Brent Burkey, and by Lynn Pauquette, an appointee to the Board who failed to win back her seat.

Hutson has twice served as Marsh Creek’s President but was not selected to serve in that role again. Immediately following the General Meeting, both the new and continuing board members huddled and voted current member Brian Foy as the new president, and Kathy Sharpless and Ken Gentile as Vice President and Treasurer respectively. Hutson will serve as the Board Secretary.

One of the first items of business for the eight-member Board will be to fill the ninth seat that unexpectedly became vacant with the resignation of Rick Cozby. Asked by a homeowner if the outgoing board ever considered appointing the 4th top vote-getter to the Cozby seat, Burkey, who sometimes acted as the Board’s in-house legal advisor, replied it was a legal impossibility for the outgoing board but could be an option for the new board which could also choose someone else entirely.

While some of the night’s talk swirled around the contentious issue of the “Upland Buffer” dispute between the Board and some Villas homeowners, the discussion morphed into a broader questioning of the Board’s handling of HOA Reserve Funds. Some reserve funds were used to pay legal fees the Board incurred in a fight against homeowners known as “the Spartina Eight”.

Homeowner Jane Muir charged that the Board improperly tapped into the reserve funds because, she said, those monies are dedicated to be spent on fixed assets. Their use for current operating expenses such as legal fees, she said, was improper. Without homeowners’ expressed consent, she said, such payments violated Marsh Creek HOA bylaws.

The Treasurer, Ken Gentile cut the discussion short.

“I’m not going to go any further”, he declared, referring to the legal bills.

Yet Gentile went on to state that Marsh Creek has $1.1 million in reserves, a level he equated with being “54% fully funded”. He claimed that Marsh Creek’s auditor has labeled that level of reserves as “good”.

Yet several concerned homeowners expressed worry that reserves would fall short of covering the future cost of a major re-paving project in Marsh Creek.

Gentile countered that the Board has hired a contractor to study the community’s roadways and said he believes the community has “8 to 12 years” before facing the need to fund the forecast $2.2 million road project. By then, he said he expects Marsh Creek to be “70% fully funded”.

“I’m not worried”, he said, “but I expect assessments will have to go up”.

The Board also dealt with numerous grumblings from Villas and patio homeowners over inadequate mulch.

Marsh Creek contracts with Brightview Landscaping to provide lawn services to 243 patio homes and 38 villa patio homes as well as community common property. An annual supply of mulch has been part of the contract with the homeowners.

Some discontented homeowners called for a “strategic mulch plan” or a “mulch survey”, but they were met by an assertion that “labor costs are devastatingly higher and we won’t be using as much” (mulch) and were advised to further air their grievances before the Patio Homes Committee.

Finally, Board Member Mike Williams promised to soon take the wraps off a 41-page “Strategic Plan”, that will be followed by two informational meetings to explain its contents.