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Minutes of the General Membership Meeting of the Westmoreland Association
March 19, 2018

Officers Present
President - Walter Mugdan
Vice President - Victor Dadras
Treasurer – Gary Savage
Secretary – Charles Manna

Board Members Present
Phil Toscano
Peter Reinharz


Officials Present
Ahmed Nazaar from Councilman Paul Vallone’s office

President Walter Mugdan called the meeting to order at 8:05 P.M. A motion was made, seconded and unanimously adopted to waive reading of the minutes. (Mr. Mugdan noted that the minutes are available for review on the Westmoreland website.)

Gary Savage provided the Treasurer’s Report indicating that the balance-on-hand was $22,152.63 as of March 19 2018. (2018 dues payments received within the previous week were not yet included in this report.) A motion was made to accept the Treasurer’s report. The motion was seconded, and the report was unanimously approved.

New Business
The Westmoreland Homeowners Association nominated the following current officers to serve for the coming year:

President - Walter Mugdan
Vice President - Victor Dadras
Treasurer – Gary Savage
Secretary – Charles Manna
Motion was made, seconded and passed to accept the candidates as nominated

The current Directors of the Westmoreland Association were re-nominated to serve for the coming year. In addition, a new candidate, Namshik Yoon, was nominated to be a Director. A motion was made, seconded and passed unanimously to accept the slate as the new Board of Directors. The members are:

David Diaz
Phil Toscano
Robert Timmerman
Peter Reinharz
John Duane
Namshik Yoon


New Business

Three Park Cleanups Scheduled –
Alley Pond Park - A cleanup is scheduled for Sunday, March 24 from 7:30 to 9:30 for the upper park – The entrance to the lot is near the Sanitation Department building on Winchester.
Glenwood Landing Park – Saturday, April 21,2018. Laura Toscano, a local high school student, led a project involving the improvement of the Glenwood Landing Park last October 28, 2017. Laura and members of the Douglaston Manor Garden club will join volunteers in the morning from 7:30 to 9:30 at the park to spruce it up for the Spring.
Udalls Cove – the 49th Annual clean-up will be Saturday, April 28th at 10:00 AM. Meet at Aurora Pond on the "Back Road" (Sandhill Road) between Douglaston and Little Neck, west of the Little Neck LIRR Station. There will be a free lunch at Memorial Field in Douglas Manor.

Old Business
250-21 41 Drive:
The house is in violation of the covenants. Specifically, the setback should be 20 feet from the front line, but new construction started last June or July extends to within 15 feet. The addition is in violation by at least five feet. Currently, the house has halted renovations, including additions at the front and back of the house. Our attorney is Maura Nicolosi, who also has represented the Douglas Manor Association and the Broadway-Flushing Homeowners Association in connection with their efforts to enforce their similar Rickert-Finlay covenants. Ms. Nicolosi has prepared papers to file with the courts. Hopefully, this will motivate the homeowner to come into compliance. The homeowner's attorney will be notified shortly before the lawsuit is filed, providing one last chance for the homeowner to provide a binding, written commitment to comply by a reasonable date certain. This might make it unnecessary to actually file the lawsuit.

A $3,500 retainer will be paid to Ms. Nicolosi. Given the current prevailing rates for legal services, the money will be spent quickly if we are forced to move forward, and we will need to spend more of our available funds, and will likely need to do additional fundraising. We are hoping that this will not be necessary.

Westmoreland and 41Drive:
The new construction there has been halted since last Fall. Victor Dadras spoke with the architect and the general contractor. The architect, Edward Lui, confirms that he owner intends to finish the project. The contractor, Sweeny Lee, claims that the construction was halted due to cold winter weather, and will finally resume within the next few weeks. There is concern that there may have been severe damage to the structure since there is no proper roof nor windows.


254-17 40 Ave
The house is in poor, if not derelict, condition. Residents have contacted 311 on several occasions to complain about neglected lawns and the use of the driveway for commercial vehicles. The renovations were started 20 to 25 years age, but never finished, and the house is standing empty. The current owner is not living in the house. They moved away many years ago. One spouse is believed to have died.


Northern Blvd Bike Lane
We wrote to the DOT supporting the creation of the new bike lane and barriers along the quarter-mile stretch from Douglaston Parkway to the Joe Michaels mile. So far, the only criticism is the pile-up of trash on both sides of the barriers. Mr. Mugdan will contact the DOT to ask the they be maintained and kept clean.

Speed Humps
We asked DOT to install a speed hump on Morgan Street. We are hoping for a response in the next month (it was due in January, 2018). So far, speed humps were installed on 39th Ave and on Gleenwood, in response to our request.

We asked Ahmed Nassir to ask Councilman Vallone to support our longstanding request that a four-way stop be installed at the intersection of Westmoreland Street and 41st Road Ave.

Participatory Budgeting
Ahmed Nazaar from Paul Vallone’s office reported that the projects have been identified and cost estimates provided. The voting will begin April 7th and continue to April 15th. Ballots will be made available and, for the first time, on-line voting will be available. Namshik Yoon inquired why are we voting to budget capital items that should be funded by the city departments that are responsible for them? Ahmed replied this is because of the limited funds that are available, and the potentially different priorities among agencies and local communities.

District residents sixteen year or older can vote for as many as five of the projects.



The meeting was adjourned at 9:30 PM.

Respectfully submitted,
Charles Manna, Secretary
 

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