The RFCA community will be voting on two proposals at a Special Meeting that will be part of the Annual Meeting on March 22, 2022 at 7PM. We rely heavily on absentee voting to achieve a voting quorum, so please review the options below on how you can vote. Your vote is required for the two proposals below (Ballot Items 1 and 2) and also for the election of officers (Ballot Item 3).

Ways to Submit Your Ballot*:

Ballots (one per household) must be turned in by 6 p.m. on March 21, 2022, if not attending the meeting in person.

1. Scan or take a photo of your ballot and email to office@lonestarcommunitymgmt.com

2. Mail your completed ballot to River Forest Civic Association, 1903 Vermont Street, Houston, TX 77019

3. Deliver your completed ballot to your block captain:

Jenny Teixeira (Cardinal)
Mary Marquardsen (Carolcrest)
Chip Saegert (Cindywood)
Joan Cupic (Heatherfield)
Ingrid Shurn (Heatherfield)
Jason Saunders (Kellywood)
Drew Szilagyi (River Forest)

*There will voting during the meeting and should you attend and vote then, any previously submitted ballot will be destroyed.
 

Further Explanation of Ballot Items:

Ballot Item 1: The first voting issue is to make a minor update to the Deed Restrictions to prohibit short term rentals (e.g. VBRO, AirBnB). We have seen this is becoming an issue in nearby communities and wanted to update our Deed Restrictions to include this restriction, as the current Deed Restriction wording does not specifically preclude this.
 
Ballot Item 2: The second voting issue is to amend the By Laws to reduce the Board from 7 to 5 members, by dropping the 2nd and 3rd Vice President positions. The proposed change is driven by Texas Senate Bill No. 1588 regarding Property Owners Associations that came into effect in September of 2021. The regulation states that the Board and the Architectural Controls Committee (ACC) must be separate entities and comprised of different homeowners – no one who serves on the Board may also serve on the ACC or share a home with anyone who does. Our current Bylaws specify that certain Board positions are assigned to the ACC, which can no longer be the case. So we would now need to have 7 homeowners on the Board and 3 on the ACC (total of 10 separate homeowners out of 71 total homeowners).
 
After reviewing the options with our Legal consultant, we are proposing to amend the By-Laws to reduce the Board to 5 members (4 elected officials and the Past President), and to maintain an ACC of 3 homeowners. We feel this is the best course of action since we are a small community, have difficulty filling volunteer positions, and that the roles of 2nd and 3rd VP are minor (basically back up for Treasurer and Secretary, and 2nd VP role on ACC is no longer allowed). We feel that 5 Board members plus 3 ACC members is the right representation of Homeowners in volunteer positions based on our size and the difficulty we have in filling these volunteer positions.

Ballot Item 3: Vote to confirm nominees for the Association Board of Directors, including President, VP, Treasurer, and Secretary.  
 
For any questions on voting or the special meeting please contact our Lone Star Community Management representative, Mackenzi Odom, at office@lonestarcommunitymgmt.com or (281) 717-3481.