Lisa Pieropan: 0:00

As a board member, you think about protecting the association if you're in court. Here we are. Here's all the literature that we've sent out. Here's what we've been saying all along about the property. So there's no surprises. It's not like we haven't communicated in any way. So that's part of the board thinking of protecting the HOA. It's not just communicating with the membership, but you always want to look down the road like, are we covering all of our bases?

Announcer: 0:29

A regular highlight of the HOA insights podcast is our board heroes feature, where we dedicate one episode each month to celebrate the remarkable efforts of HOA board members. To us a board hero is one of the 2 million elected volunteers who deserve recognition for excelling in a role that often goes unnoticed. Today, we're excited to spotlight one of these exceptional board heroes and share their inspiring story. If you match our definition of a board hero, or know someone who does, please reach out to us. Our contact details and those of our sponsors are provided in the show notes.

Robert Nordlund: 0:59

Welcome back to HOA Insights: Common Sense For Common Areas. I'm Robert Nordlund, and I'm here today for episode number 139, with another one of the board heroes. We're proud to celebrate. I read of today's guest in CIS common ground, and was very impressed and tracked her down. So today we have with us Lisa pierpan, board president over condominium association in Southern California. Her association was built in 1976 converted to condo shortly thereafter, in 1978 and she's been an owner there or at her prior association for 39 years. Well, she joined the board, actually, of her last Association after 29 years of ownership. So she spent a lot of time as an owner at the Association. She understands what goes on as owning a home in part of a community association. We're going to shortly hear from Lisa what changed in her circumstances to make her want to join the board and what skills she picked up to be an effective board member. The association that she lives at now has a portfolio manager, but Lisa is currently the volunteer Facilities Manager, which at this point is effectively a full time job, and so we're taking some of her valuable time here as we're recording this episode, she told me she feels she gets paid by the increased property values that she is enjoying from improving the association. And I appreciated hearing that, because that's a lot of what I felt when I was president of my association. You invest a bunch of time, but time well spent, not only raises your property values, but it raises the property values of everyone else. But first, I hope you enjoyed last week's episode number 138, with another one of our board heroes, Paul Butler, and he was telling excitedly how his association quickly responded to our episode 132 on mission and vision statements. The board thought that was a great idea, and so last week's episode 138 tells how Paul's board, very simply and quickly created mission vision and values statements, and how they're preparing to introduce it at this time to their homeowners at an upcoming meeting. And I suggest listening to that episode. Is time well spent? Well, if you missed that episode or any of our prior episodes, you can find them on our podcast website, Hoa insights.org, on your favorite podcast platform, or on our YouTube channel, but better yet, subscribe to the podcast in order to get every episode delivered right to your phone or mobile device. Now what we've learned is almost half of our audience stumbles onto this podcast, finding it on a search engine. So I want to encourage you that subscribing not only gives you regular reminders when we have a new episode weekly, and the topic of that episode, more subscribers means more boards all across the country are including that content, the things they're learning here on this podcast to help lead their associations more effectively. It's all about the search engines nowadays. Well, those of you watching on YouTube can see the HOA insights mug that I have here, that I got from our merch store. You can browse through that from our Hoa insights.org website or the show notes. You'll find we have plenty of free items, like board member zoom backgrounds and some specialty items for sale, like the mugs. So take a moment after the show see what we have for you in the merch store, and at least pick up one of our free items before your next board meeting. Well, we enjoy hearing from you, and most episodes are indeed in response to a topic you've recommended. So stay in contact, letting us know what questions you have, topics you'd like us to hear, you'd like us to address so you can hear more about them. So leave us a voicemail at 805-203-3130, leave a comment on the YouTube video or send us an email at podcast at Hoa insights.org so here we are at today's episode. Lisa, welcome to the program. Let's start with what circumstances led you to run for the board after 29 years living at Community Association, living,

Lisa Pieropan: 5:08

yes, I had been a volunteer all that time, committees, different committees and projects for the community, but that particular HOA was starting to go through a change. Again, it was a series critical deferred maintenance. Board had not done repairs for many, many years.

Robert Nordlund: 5:26

So this is your last Association, not your current Association,

Lisa Pieropan: 5:30

but they did nominating committee, so they approached me to run for the board, and

Robert Nordlund: 5:35

I did okay. So they the board was proactive. They saw you, and we talked about this in other episodes, how having committees taking learning who your proactive homeowners are by seeing who's volunteering. And they said, Lisa, let's see if she wants to run for the board. Yes. And they lit a fire under you. Okay, well, you got on the board. What were some of your first experiences that made you think, Am I crazy? Or now here I am. I belong here, after the volunteering, this is where I belong.

Lisa Pieropan: 6:13

Well, truthfully, the HOA was in such terrible condition that we as the new board, and this was the first board that was willing to improve the property. And I mean, in decades, the impetus previously had always been, don't raise the fees, don't spend any money. So we was

Robert Nordlund: 6:31

gonna say, Is it really the properties was deteriorated, or was it an ineffective board that just let it slide because they were looking the other direction. Both, okay,

Lisa Pieropan: 6:44

very much. Both, okay, I'm, I'm a Project Engineer, and so I looked at the property, and at that time, I didn't understand what board membership meant, board directorship, I didn't understand and we as a board were willing to do the work to begin converting the property and restoring the property, and we know where to begin. We had

Robert Nordlund: 7:10

no idea it was problems. Everywhere you look, it was

Lisa Pieropan: 7:14

so bad. And none of us were board trained, none of us. And so what we did is we hired a past president of Cai to do an operations audit. She was there for months, okay? And the audit was hundreds of pages, everything from the employees to the accounting and once we had the audit. But one thing, one thing she did offer as well, is she offered us board training. And when I went through board training, it was eye opening for me. I had a completely different understanding now of what it meant to be an HOA owner and what it meant to be an HOA board director.

Robert Nordlund: 7:57

You both live there, but they're very different roles and responsibilities.

Lisa Pieropan: 8:01

Despite 28 years of volunteering, I don't think any one of us on the board had ever heard of Davis Sterling.

Robert Nordlund: 8:09

And for our listeners across the country, Davis sterling is the body of law in California that guides, controls, legislates what goes on in community, associations, fair,

Lisa Pieropan: 8:19

fair, okay, none of us had even heard of it, or the business judgment rule, or the basic tools that a board has to have in its toolkit.

Robert Nordlund: 8:31

Now, let me ask, had you been professionally managed through this time period?

Lisa Pieropan: 8:36

We had a full time on site manager, but part of the change and why a new board was possible was he was no longer manager at the property. Was it

Robert Nordlund: 8:48

retirement or past? Fired him? He passed.

Lisa Pieropan: 8:53

Okay, do it? It was. There was an expression among homeowners that it was his five dumb so he was the one that had control for all those decades, and the board was afraid of him,

Robert Nordlund: 9:06

which is why he didn't explain about what the body of governing law was, the general principles for how board members will be judged, which is that business judgment rule, things like that, that to me, I feel those are just basics. Now, if you listening to the show and you don't know what the business judgment rule is, please google it. Ask your manager, ask your attorney that, Lisa, stuff you really need to know

Lisa Pieropan: 9:34

definitely, absolutely okay. So what, what I did at that? Hoa, it was, again, I said it was so bad, we didn't know where to begin. So what did is I created a letter for a master improvement plan, and that that was a large Hoa, more than 500 units, and we sent out to all the owners, like, what are you looking for? Because we wanted to look to our members all those eyes. What do you see? What do you. Think needs to be done, and we got back hundreds of responses.

Robert Nordlund: 10:05

That's wonderful, hundreds. We're talking about more than one out of five. So that's amazing. What's a good return on a survey? Five or 10%

Lisa Pieropan: 10:16

more than that? It because it was like a new a new era was coming. Yes, and I think the the owners could see that, even the long term owners. And so what I did is I cataloged all those responses, and I I printed them all up and put them in the newsletter. And what it turned out is almost all the requests were just for basic maintenance. People weren't looking for amenities or hot tubs. They just wanted basic maintenance.

Robert Nordlund: 10:46

Are we talking light bulbs? The light bulbs to be replaced, sprinklers to work,

Lisa Pieropan: 10:51

stairway railings that were rusted out? I still have all of those responses even years later, but just the most cracks in the sidewalk, uplifted asphalt. It wasn't anything special. It was just the normal common area maintenance that a board is required to do to maintain the property. So with that understanding, that's what we focused on. So we created a management structure to start addressing a maintenance which is we, we brought in a full time facilities manager, because that was someone that could begin determining how to prioritize these projects, what needed to be done. And, and because it was a large property, 65 acres, it required a lot of oversight and just seeing so we would start with things like, let's survey the fences, so that we create a list of everything that needs to be done at every fence. I would prepare property port reports per building on this building, here's all the things that need to be done. So that was at my old Hoa, and we started the ball rolling for that kind of intensive restoration of the property.

Robert Nordlund: 12:06

Okay, on that, I'm totally happy about that. I'm glad for the fresh air. I'm glad for the board that seems to be doing what boards are supposed to do, lead and take care of the property. I'm glad to hear that the homeowners were receptive to this new administration. I'm they were aware of it. And my question is, everything costs money, so you've hired a facilities manager. You're fixing things. How did the owners respond to I'm presuming you said, well, the monthly assessments need to rise. Were they saying Finally, we need to get things done, or were they resistant?

Lisa Pieropan: 12:46

I don't know if I can recall at this point, Robert, it was a few weeks ago. Okay, we did raise assessments. And then there was the backlash, which is what we tend to term the dark hats. The dark hats came back in. So all of our good work was stopped. It was stopped.

Robert Nordlund: 13:11

How does someone stop the actions of the board? You know, you're the white hat people, they're the dark hat people. That's a fact of life and Community Association. I think half the problem is trying to keep the dark hats off the board. But how do you what did that do to the dynamic of, let's fix this. Let's fix the crack in the sidewalk. That's a trip hazard, all those kinds of things,

Lisa Pieropan: 13:40

the dark hats instigated a recall election, okay? And I was re elected, but the white hats no longer had quorum, okay? So the projects were stopped, and after a year of that, you just finally say, you know, I'm trying as if I'm trying it 80 hours a week, and it's not going to go anywhere, because all these projects are going to be voted down, damn.

Robert Nordlund: 14:13

You're pushing a you're pushing a boulder uphill, and it's just plain too heavy, and

Lisa Pieropan: 14:20

so all you can do at that point is just you're bringing all the correct information forward, but if you don't have quorum, your voice isn't heard. Was that

Robert Nordlund: 14:32

because people didn't want change, or they didn't want the increased cash flow that that required?

Lisa Pieropan: 14:40

I think ultimately, it generally comes down to condo owners do not understand their responsibilities in an HOA and board members do not understand their responsibilities of board director. I think that's the same problem I've seen almost everywhere.

Robert Nordlund: 14:57

Sometimes I think of it as a partner. Ship, where the board is responsible to manage the affairs of the association and the homeowners are responsible to pay their fair share of the bills. And when those two things come together nicely, good things happen, but, but when the board isn't taking responsibility and when the homeowners are resistant to paying their fair share, then you have this impasse that can lead to deferred maintenance and cracks in the sidewalk, cracks in the asphalt, light bulbs, missing dry patches in the landscaping, all that kind of stuff.

Lisa Pieropan: 15:35

I think ultimately, how I would define a dark hat is someone who has a personal agenda that is non fiduciary, and they're willing to sacrifice the HOA for their personal agenda.

Robert Nordlund: 15:48

And I'm thinking of the business judgment rule, where one of the three tenets of the business judgment rule is you put the interests of the association above your own

Lisa Pieropan: 15:57

absolutely and fiduciary.

Robert Nordlund: 16:00

Yeah, one of those basic illustrations is, as a board member, when you raise the assessments, it's going to take money out of your pocket too. But if you know that the insurance premiums are going up, if you know that the water cost is going up, if you know that, well, from my point of view, you need to add more towards reserves. The assessments need to go up. It's unfortunate you don't like it, but it's what you've got to do. The homeowners, they just say, I'd rather have my assessments back the way they were two years ago.

Lisa Pieropan: 16:31

Who wouldn't? I don't want to raise assessments. I don't want to pay raised assessments. Here at Villamar, we were very careful, because I think you have to become familiar with the lay of the land at your HOA, about what would work when, when the white hats achieved quorum again here at Villamar, the first two years, we did not raise assessments. There was enough in the reserves to start the major projects to say, but they that we were doing, and that's why we kept saying, Look, we're doing all this without raising fees. But politically, that was a decision that the board made because we had already tried it. We had already tried it, and we weren't re elected in the quorum. I was on board for two years, and I was a minority voice, and all the projects I had been working on were stopped. So when the White House had quorum again, we didn't raise the fees, just because we had to take an honest assessment, and for the amount of projects that we had to do, I was working as fast as I could. It's not like I could have worked faster. So it even if we had more money at that time, we couldn't have taken on more projects. First two years, that was our decision. The third year, which was last year, we raised the assessments for dollars, for just a token amount, yeah, but just to sort of get people, we have to go up a little bit just to start ease people in this year. Or for 2026$4 was this year. For 2026 we went up $50 the increases have been huge, you know, in water, insurance and and utilities. So what we did do, as well is we decreased our reserve contribution in case what we planned for anything that we over, planned for the utility increases and the insurance increases, so anything left over can go back into the reserves. Okay, so we're very careful about our preventive maintenance. That we have large preventive maintenance projects coming up for next year. So we know that we had to commit to that in operating. So the board made the decision to lower our reserve contribution to about 22% when normally we're about 40% we lowered it to about 22% in anticipation of these two enormous preventive maintenance projects we're going to do, which is repainting our balcony decks we have the waterproof membrane and our landing decks. When you understand why you're raising or why you're reducing reserve assessments, I think the board is still in a very good position, because you're making those decisions with the knowledge of your plans over the next several years, right?

Robert Nordlund: 19:23

I'm hearing two things. I'm hearing what you've been talking about, described it as political capital. You can only do so much. You don't want to rock the boat too much. You want to lead change. You want to lead effective change. But I remember hearing a board member talk in detail about the special assessment that he passed at his association, and he said, you can always hire an engineer, you can always hire a contractor, but you're the one who has to have political capital. You need to have the will of the owners in your hand. You can't push them too hard, or it's going to break. So there's political capital and strategy. And I got to tell you, Lisa, you you put shivers down my spine when you said you're lowering your reserve transfers, because that's that's my world. But when I hear, heard you finish that thought out, it's all strategy, and the strategy is okay in the big picture. And I'm just going to make a hypothetical here. We know we've got the roof project in 10 years. Next year, it'll be nine years, then it'll be eight years. But in the near term, we need to do these FIX IT projects that will and I'm a firm believer that preventive maintenance saves money. Yes, it's money spent, but in the big picture, it saves money. It keeps problems from getting bigger. It makes things last longer. Money well spent, I'm dyed in the wool. Believer in that. So I'm okay that you are building political capital, which is priceless, and that you're thinking strategically, that it's not a permanent reduction, but it's for a period of time for a specific purpose.

Lisa Pieropan: 20:58

Yes, we also did present the possibility of a special assessment to the membership, and we start this very early. I mean, it was probably months ago I do a Friday community report that I send every single Friday. And we started months ago that that we published an article, or quoted an article from the local newspaper about how water is going to be going up and sewer fees are going to be going up, so we try to prep people in advance about the impending increase.

Robert Nordlund: 21:30

Was this news from Lisa, or is this the association's official weekly newsletter?

Lisa Pieropan: 21:36

Well, this is the Friday community report that Lisa writes.

Robert Nordlund: 21:41

So it's for all practical purposes. It's official.

Lisa Pieropan: 21:45

It's official. Yes, got it. It's official. I used to do them in full color. I just did not have time to do that anymore. So at least we get something out every single Friday. But what we did present to the membership, if they would like to consider for a special assessment is a standby generator. Because for us, if we lose power, we lose hot water, we have a boiler system. And so it's about a $350 per owner if they would like to have a standby generator. So we would, we will put that to vote sometime later in the year, next year. That's not a normal component that we have on the property, right? It will be a new asset, a new asset. We can't really justify it with our current restoration schedule right to pay for it from from operating, nor could we. But that is something for the owners to consider it's a minimal cost, and then they would have that standby power. And so

Robert Nordlund: 22:48

350 is not really too much to ask of someone who has the wherewithal to own a home,

Lisa Pieropan: 22:55

and that could be out over, you know, a few months, if they'd like,

Robert Nordlund: 22:58

yeah, yeah. And once you spend two or three days with no hot water and cold showers, or, I was gonna say having to go to the gym to take a shower there, then you realize

Lisa Pieropan: 23:10

we have found our residents get very cranky without hot water.

Robert Nordlund: 23:15

I think that's, I think that's something universal. Well, Lisa, I want to hear more about the things that you've actually done, you've tempted me with a bunch of these stories, but it's a good time now to take a break to hear from one of our generous sponsors, after which we'll be back to hear more from Lisa paraben.

Paige Daniels: 23:32

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Robert Nordlund: 24:03

we're back. Well, Lisa and I were enjoying further conversation here on the break, and one thing that our regular listeners will know is that, again, we talk about the four C's, you need to care about your association. You need to be curious about what you're seeing or not seeing. You need to be courageous to be able to make those budget moves, project moves, as Lisa was talking about strategy, building the political capital, and you need to communicate. And I loved hearing that she had this weekly newsletter going out, and that fills that gap so people know what's going on with the board, what's going on with the their money that the board is magic. I just love seeing that happening at her association. But I also want to hear Lisa talk about one of the things she's actually done move forward on, and that's their what we'll call turf reduction. So Lisa, when. I think about grass. I think about, how has it been described? Non functional, because it's just visual.

Lisa Pieropan: 25:07

It's visual non and non recreational. Is what AB 1572 refers to.

Robert Nordlund: 25:12

Tell us about AB 1572 in California, yes,

Lisa Pieropan: 25:15

that is for commercial properties and HOA multi family properties we are no longer allowed to the deadline is in a couple of years, but we're no longer allowed to have non recreational turf. This is in order to reduce sprinkle usage, water usage. We, most of us, are watering with potable water. So it's the same water that goes into the units, because a board approached funding in many different ways, not just assessments, but we also streamlined operations, and we found other ways to save money so that we could channel that money back into repair, fundamentally back into repair. So the board started removing turf before there was an AB 1572

Robert Nordlund: 26:00

just to save money for

Lisa Pieropan: 26:02

wise water use. Okay, good with sprinklers converting to drip irrigation. But of course, we didn't really have money to put into the project to do it. If you get a quote for turf reduction, it's really quite high. We didn't have money. So we're always cutting edge and coming up with innovative solutions. So the method I came up with is our landscape was as bad as our buildings. Okay, we couldn't get into our planters with a pickaxe. Dirt was so desiccated and underneath the turf itself, there essentially been no soil regeneration in 50 years. It was just sand underneath. So first we had to restore the landscape. So what we did is we would take a planter, we would cap the sprinklers, we would cover the turf with cardboard to smell it, and we would put mulch and biomass on top, and then add drip irrigation,

Robert Nordlund: 27:05

mulch and biomass. I know mulch you can buy in a store, biomass. Are we talking kitchen food waste?

Lisa Pieropan: 27:12

Well, biomass is trimmings, grass, cut grass, chop and drop Bush, trimmings, anything that you dig up that's green and organic from the landscape, that's all the HOA transport away from the property we looked at as a resource. We no longer transported any green matter off the property, because when you don't have many resources, and you don't have a lot of funding, and your funding is going to go to the buildings. We concentrate on the buildings. First. We didn't have that money for landscaping, so we came up with other solutions. So by now, we've removed about 95% of our non recreational turf, and in the process, we're actually regenerating the soil as well. What we've done as part of that regeneration is we added an edible landscape project because the board thought, if we water it, we should be able to eat it.

Robert Nordlund: 28:08

That sounds like fun. Now we talking community garden. Are we talking trees, multi year tree projects,

Lisa Pieropan: 28:17

90 fruit trees now? Oh, wow. I mean, from bananas to guavas to oranges to lemons.

Robert Nordlund: 28:24

Don't tell the address of your association. We're going to have listeners driving by and picking stuff.

Lisa Pieropan: 28:29

Well, we have had sometimes our neighbors say we see them come in our surrounding community, community residents, and we say, please, this is for our residents here, but residents are permitted anytime to help themselves, and it has become our most popular amenity, because they go and they pick tomatoes and guavas. Right now, we have guavas, bananas, lots of lemongrass. We have a large Asian community, okay, things like persimmons and guavas and lemongrass is very, very popular, but it's free for everyone, and I, I love planting the fruit trees and going out in the morning and picking a guava for breakfast. We try to get tree donations for people to celebrate like the birth of their child. Why don't you get a tree in honor of your your child

Robert Nordlund: 29:22

or your first planted outside your building, outside your unit.

Lisa Pieropan: 29:25

We will plant it as close to unit where the sun is is workable. I asked all the realtors. I said, if you make the sale, will you donate a fruit tree to us? Because if they're going to ask me questions about reserve studies and upcoming assessments. I figure they can give back when they've made that sale. So we're not shy about asking for tree donations. And so we have 90 trees so far. So I really appreciate the edible landscape, and our other residents do as well in terms of the term. Reduction, of course, with the significant savings that we achieved in water, we were able to funnel that into purchasing fruit trees. So again, this hasn't cost us anything. The the cardboard we just receive out of the recycle, retrieve out of recycling dumpster, we haven't paid anything, and yet, we've converted now 95% of our turf, we're on almost primarily drip irrigation for the property we have very little water use, and under AB 1572 trees are immune from having the water cut off, so our trees will be preserved. You know, even as more drought tolerant measures come into play, but we are but, but trees are permitted.

Robert Nordlund: 30:47

I like that. Well, what does it look like? I know what a palm tree looks like. I know what a evergreen tree looks like when you drive into your association. Is it like the Garden of Eden? It looks fruit bearing trees with lemons and all these persimmons and guavas and all that kind of stuff. Does it? Does it feel rich and vibrant just when you drive in?

Lisa Pieropan: 31:08

It really does not when you're driving, but when you walk into the central area? Okay, too many freeze trees on the outside, because, again, we, we don't want to attempt to come in. So even in the central courtyard, there's a probably a good 40 fruit trees, and everything else is is nearby. It is really delightful. And there's these trees are watched, especially the persimmons, especially the things that are more expensive in the store. And so I think the problem, the only problem we really experience is people are so frenzied to pick fruit, but they will often pick it before it's ripe. So sometimes we'll put up signs not ready to pick. You know, we have a lot of lemons producing right now, and it's like they can't just wait until it's all the way yellow. They're going to they're going to get it soon, but we probably have at least 200 lemons right now. We had probably 90 persimmons, and we have hundreds of guavas. We have six different varieties of guava and many of these are new to me. I've never grown bananas before. I haven't and I've learned a lot from our residents. For instance, our banana trees are primarily used for their leaves, because they're used to use for steaming to wrap food and to steam it

Robert Nordlund: 32:31

interesting. Okay.

Lisa Pieropan: 32:33

Leaves have been harvested. Banana leaves. So I've learned from our residents some of these things that it would not have occurred to me. I've learned that guava tree leaves are edible. Spread them with a little tamarind paste and roll them over and eat them as a snack. So that's comes from the Indian families we have here. I've really appreciated what I've learned from our residents, because they brought in that richness of their culture, and that's added to the whole community.

Robert Nordlund: 32:59

Okay, are you getting more people at board meetings? Are they engaging? Are you building the bridge between the board and homeowners?

Lisa Pieropan: 33:09

We keep trying, but we have not had success in that area.

Robert Nordlund: 33:14

Turn off, turn off the water to the fruit trees, and they'll come knocking on your door.

Lisa Pieropan: 33:19

I think I would say that we have tried just about everything we've done, websites, reports, the list is so long of all the things that we've tried to do, to engage and and what ended up being successful is I started a Friday report, and it was in full color, and I'll show you The Notebook here. This is the first 75 Friday reports.

Robert Nordlund: 33:43

So we're talking couple pages or four pages. What do we Okay,

Lisa Pieropan: 33:47

two pages. And what I mostly concentrated on were photos. Yep, show people the work, because they don't know. We can say it's bad

Robert Nordlund: 33:57

our association. Yeah, this is what's happening at our association.

Lisa Pieropan: 34:02

We can say it's bad and many things you couldn't see them once the work was done. Okay, we opened up a wall and there's terrible termite damage. Well, we're trying to give them an understanding of what was really needing to be repairs. And then we would say, you know, here is where your fees are going. This is what we're paying for. Well, one of those would take me about 40 hours. I just couldn't do it anymore. So now we go to an all text one, but it's still that every Friday and and as a board member, you think about protecting the association, yep. And so there's always that background. Thought, here we are. You know, if you're in court, here we are. Here's all the literature that we've sent out. Here's what we've been saying all along about the property. So there's no surprises. It's not like we haven't communicated in any way. So that's part of the board thinking of protecting the HOA. It's not just communicating with the membership. Yeah, but you always want to look down the road like, are we covering all of our bases? Yep.

Robert Nordlund: 35:05

Well, and I'm thinking again, that may be a tremendous strategy, because when you're staying ahead of the problems, when you are promoting what the board is doing, how the association is being cared for, we've planted these new trees, we fix these problems. That's going to keep the black hats off balance, because the white hats are doing good things at your association. Well, Lisa, I'm looking at the time, and I have a long list of questions, but I have a feeling we would enjoy having you back on another episode in the future to talk about this project or that project, or strategy for attacking a project, I don't think we should minimize the significance of strategy.

Lisa Pieropan: 35:51

And I think you asked me a question, what's wrong with just needing to replace a component and going on, getting a bid and replacing it. And I said, that's probably the most expensive option.

Robert Nordlund: 36:06

Yeah, okay, well, we will get to that in a future episode, but at this point in time, we need to respect everyone's time and bring this episode to a close. So Lisa, it's tremendous. Thank you for taking the time to join us on today's program, to show us that notebook of the work that you've done. You are building political capital there at your association, and you're investing in things that will outlive you, those fruit trees, the better, healthier soil, lots of things like that. Any final thoughts or words of wisdom, or maybe challenges for our audience that you'd like to share

Lisa Pieropan: 36:40

for me, I would come back to understand what your responsibility is as an owner and understand what the responsibility is as a board director, because that's where the friction comes from, that lack of understanding, even when I tell our owners that you only own from the paint inward, that that's news to them and that they'll say your homeowner fees go to pay for everything else. That's news to them.

Robert Nordlund: 37:07

Yeah, I'm gonna date myself. But when I bought my condominium back in 1982 one, boring evening, I sat and read my governing documents, and I learned that I had no rights to the minerals underneath my condominium unit, and I was so disappointed because I'd grown up watching the Beverly Hillbillies and not that I was going to dig through the asphalt of my where I parked my car, but I like knowing that maybe I could, And I was so disappointed to learn that I didn't have mineral rights under my condo. And yeah, it's important to know that kind of stuff, because it makes a difference on how you act as an owner and how you act as a board member. Well, this has been fun. We want to publicly acknowledge Lisa for performing a thankless job well and for doing a remarkable job of taking care of the facility at her association, taking care of the owners, being sensitive to what they need. We're glad that there are board members like Lisa scattered all across the country, and we're fortunate to have her here on the podcast to tell her story. We hope you gain some HOA insights, and we're inspired by Lisa's observations and experiences to help you bring common sense to your common area. And remember if you match our definition of a board hero, or know someone who does, please reach out to us. We love having bored heroes on our program. Our contact details are provided in the show notes. Thank you for joining us and subscribe to the podcast. We'll look forward to having you join us for another great episode next week,

Announcer: 38:46

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