General information

Dear fellow Park owners,

Two elections will take place at next month Annual Board Meeting.

Please reach out to the Board if you would like to be on the ballot and we will make sure your candidacy letter goes out with the package for the annual meeting.

DEADLINE TO EMAIL YOUR CANDIDATE STATEMENT TO THE BOARD IF YOU WOULD LIKE IT TO BE MAILED WITH THE PACKAGE IS WEDNESDAY MAY 15, 2024

The legal deadline to mail the package is May 24 but Jessica (our property manager at Associa) is away May 20 – 27 and it takes Associa 3 business days to process the mailing.

If your name is not on the ballot, it can be added as a write-in by any member, and you can still run from the floor on the day of the election.

ANNUAL MEETING: SATURDAY JUNE 8, 2024

ELECTION FOR THE BOARD – 2 POSITIONS OPEN

Seats 2 and 3 are open for election.

When applying please stipulate which seat you’d like to run for.

(cf Bylaws Article 4, Section 2)

ELECTION FOR THE NOMINATING COMMITTEE – 3 POSITIONS OPEN

Three members need to be elected for the Nominating Committee.

The Board is looking forward to seeing you all at the Annual Meeting.

CRCC Board

The Board is inviting you to join the coming Board meeting on Saturday, May 11 at 2pm at the Marblemount Community Hall and online.

In advance of the Board meeting, we welcome you to join for a neighbor’s lunch outdoor, at the same location at NOON.

Join Online

Meeting ID: 279 661 867 083
Passcode: VZP5CH

Two policies will be voted on and will go into effect at the meeting.

Policy #3100 – Communication and Anti-Harassment Policy

Policy #2210 – Collection Policy

As the Annual Meeting is next month the Board is sharing the projected budget for next year. This is a work in progress. It needs to be finalized in the next 10 days so it can be mailed on time for the Annual Meeting. Therefore, this meeting is important to collect your feedback if you are not already in touch with the Board or on the budget committee.

To help working on the different projects and make sure every member can get involved if interested, the Board has reinstated several Committees. Each committee has two Board members. Please think about joining a committee and help the Board.

The Nominating Committee faded away as the previous Board didn’t organize election for it at the Annual Meeting of last year. Three members need to be elected this year in June for that Committee to be properly reinstated as required per our ByLaws.

Seats 2 and 3 are open for election at the coming Annual Meeting. Please reach out to the Board if you would like to be on the ballot and we will make sure your candidacy letter goes out with the package for the annual meeting (deadline May 20, 2024).

The Board is looking forward to seeing you at the Marblemount Community Hall for the lunch at NOON and for the meeting at 2 p.m.

CRCC Board

Hope this message finds you and your entire family well. Unfortunately, many of us find ourselves in difficult times. We owners in CRCC are no exception.

The infrastructure that was put into place during the construction phase of the Park in the 1960s is showing its age. This includes the roads, bridges, and especially the water system.

Some tough decisions are being made by the new board of directors on how to proceed with and, most importantly, fund the upgrades and repairs necessary to maintain the viability, not to mention enjoyment, of our time spent in the Park.

The proliferation of potholes in the roads this year is because the roadways desperately need to be “crowned”. This is where the center of the roadway is built up to be higher than the shoulders so water runs off rather than pooling on the road.

The Boulder and No Name creek bridges need to be completed. Bernard Bridge needs to be repainted immediately. It is steel construction that will last a very long time if maintained properly. That means rust absolutely cannot be allowed to get a foothold.

Most importantly, the water system in the park needs to be replaced. It has been patched together for years to keep it operational but we are now facing systemic failure. A large water leak on East Cascade Drive was found and patched, but it is an example of the type of problems we will face in the very near future without replacement. No one wants to have the water system fail completely to the point the county comes in and mandates that the entire system be replaced all at once.

Yup, we’ve arrived at the part that nobody wants to talk about: how much is all of this going to cost and be paid for?

In 2020 a viable estimate to replace the entire Park’s water system was put together. The price tag was $1.1 million. Since then the water system has deteriorated and we are living in a post Covid inflation world. Our best estimate is that the new price tag has become $2.3 million of today’s money. The new reserve study that was ordered will tell us more precisely what we should budget.

All of this is to say that by necessity, the yearly assessment in CRCC is going up next year. The board of directors is working diligently to set up a payment plan option to soften the financial burden. Owner participation is necessary to make that happen by voting to change the Park by-laws that stipulate a single payment.

Park reserves to pay for water system replacement have been underfunded for years. Not an accusation, just simple math. We are forced to replace the water system in much smaller steps because reserves are one fourth of what they need to be.

The plan is not ideal. Pending engineering approval, one option may be a 4″ diameter dedicated fill line running from the pump house to the concrete water tank via Cascade Drive will be installed. The addition of this line will dramatically reduce the stress on the old, crumbly asbestos/concrete pipe now used to fill and get water from the tank. This will buy us some time because we will create fewer new leaks.

The next phase is to replace the asbestos/concrete service line. Yes, that requires digging up Cascade Drive again, but we don’t have adequate funds to do it all at once.

Please review the attached budget carefully. The board is committed to full disclosure of the difficult financial path that lies before the Park’s owners. If you disagree with or want to discuss what you find, send an email to [email protected]. We will be glad to investigate your concerns.

May 4, 2024 VERT Team Training will be the first CRCC Leadership Seminar

The VERT team will meet at the Picnic/bathroom area in Div 1 at 8:30 am and then make its way to the start location for 9:00 am.

A couple of spots are open, please email the Board if you’d like to join. (The VET Team Training is limited to 12 participants.)

If there is high demand, we will hold another Team Leadership Training later in the season.

Objectives: Good leadership skills are essential for any organization, association or community to prosper. The CRCC will benefit greatly from each additional member who gains understanding of leadership principles in regard to their own individual strengths and weaknesses as a leader. Everyone can be a leader in some way.

Cost: Free

About the organizer: Jeff Huntington has logged over 80 weeks as a field instructor for the National Outdoor Leadership School between 2014 and 2021. As a field instructor he had the privilege of teaching technical mountaineering and leadership skills on extended expeditions in remote parts of Alaska, British Columbia, Washington, Utah, and Chile. He has been a park member since 2011 and loves spending time in the backcountry of the North Cascades.

Details: This seminar will be held entirely outdoors and require active participation. Dress prepared for the weather and bring extra layers, raincoat etc. Wear sturdy walking shoes or hiking boots. We will not be walking far but we will be on trails to get down to the river and be spending most of our time away from vehicles and restrooms. Other things to bring: small daypack with snacks, water bottle/thermos, trekking poles (optional), notepad and pen, sack lunch (optional). The seminar will conclude with lunch as a group by the river.

Come join fellow park members for a fun and informative morning of leadership skills development. This seminar will focus on teaching abstract leadership topics in an active and engaging way. You will learn the proven 4-7-1 model of leadership which explores leadership roles, skills and styles. We will learn about communication, decision making, self-awareness and more. All skills are transferable to the worlds of business, family, education and government.

Efforts continue to diagnose and repair leaks in our water system in preparation for the replacement project.

After determining the majority of the water being lost in division 1 from the concrete tank is occurring on E Cascade Drive, the decision has been made to replace the aging asbestos/concrete 4 inch line. Continuing to band-aid this section of pipe is no longer an option.

The plan during the minimum of 2 week long replacement project when the concrete tank is off is to supply the entire Park from the wooden tank in division 3. While testing the feasibility of this plan another major leak was detected and fixed in division 3. We are still losing water from “Woody” so those leak(s) need to be patched before beginning the replacement project in division 1.

During the period of time everyone is getting their water from Woody everyone must do their utmost to conserve water usage because we will not have the capability to refill the tank. A genuine opportunity to pull together as a community!

A reminder: the entire Park remains under a boil water order until further notice. The board wants everyone to be as safe as possible!

Whatcom Excavation has been doing a fantastic job performing these repairs. The crew actually cares about how the Park is doing, really!

Obviously much coordination and preparation must happen before the projects begin. Owners will be given ample warning to prepare but must realize temporary water outages are still a possibility as leak repairs are underway.

Thank you for your understanding during an extremely distressing time.

CRCC Board