April 23, 2026
The annual meeting was once again held at the Westerville Public Library, with an experimental addition of a zoom meeting option for remote attendance. 21 households (30 people) were represented in person, with 2 households (4 people) present via zoom.
Due to the fact that the zoom meeting utilized their “free” tier of service, the online portion of the meeting was limited to 40 minutes, so we structured the meeting so that budget and election of officers was handled first to get the primary business handled during the zoom portion. The zoom was deemed a success by the board and the remote attendees, we will look for options to remove the time limit and improve interactivity for future meetings.
First order of business was a quick review of the 2025 meeting minutes, and review 2025 spending vs budget, and review 2025 neighborhood activity highlights. The primary variance from our 2025 budget was an extra mulch application, and replacement of the door and frame for guard house. Last fall the door was kicked in by vandals and the door and frame needed to be replaced, unfortunately requiring a custom door size. Kari reviewed the front entrance refresh status and we declared that project complete.
We next reviewed the 2026 budget. The year’s budget is essentially our standard operational budget with no proposed capital projects for the year.
Existing board members Frank Deutchki and Andy Welter have 1 year remaining on their current board terms, and will continue with their terms. John Midle Kari Lively, and Sheryl Klein’s terms all expire this year, and they consented to run for re-election if no one else wanted to take a seat on the board. They were re-elected unanimously for a 2 year term. Board assignments will remain:
- John Midle – President
- Frank Deutchki – Treasurer
- Andy Welter – Secretary
- Kari Lively – front entrance vendor coordinator
- Sheryl Klein – “at large”
In an effort to standardize board operating procedures, the board proposed that in the event budget overruns, if we needed to exceed our overall announced budget by more than 10%, we would call for a vote from members before doing so. This proposal was voted on and accepted by the members present, and will be added to our bylaws.
The boards second proposed operating procedure is to establish a non-binding methodology for when to propose changes in annual dues. Any changes to annual dues will still be voted on in the annual meetings as before, but the following procedure will be our guideline for when to propose change in dues.
- “Reserves” are defined as the HOA bank balance at the low point before annual dues are collected in the spring.
- Our goal is to maintain a reserve equal to 100% of the proposed annual budget, with an acceptable range of 90% – 105%.
- If reserves fall below 90%, we will either revise the budget or propose an increase to annual dues. The amount of the increase will be set such that the increased dues will return us to 100% reserves after 2 years.
- If the reserves rise above 105% of the budget, we will propose a temporary rebate equal to the amount that will return us to 100% reserves over a 2 year period. After the reserves are back in balance, the dues will automatically return to the previous amount.
Based on this methodology, our current reserves of 90.7% do not warrant a change in dues at this time, though given inflation, and the closeness to the threshold, we anticipate that we may propose a dues increase in 2027.
The dues methodology was also approved.
The board also announced new guidelines for the use of The Overlook Facebook group. This is the private group, meant for board and resident communication. The guidelines going forward will be:
- Only current residents of The Overlook will be permitted to be members of the Facebook group.
- 2 board members, the head of the social committee, and the neighborhood directory chairperson will be the administrators of the group
- Discussion should avoid national and state political issues. There are many places for those issues to be discussed. Local Westerville specific ballot initiatives and issues are appropriate, but discussion must be kept civil, and of “reasonable” frequency.
- Commercial advertisements are not permitted. Non commercial posts ex.“desk for sale”, “Free plants!”, “Garage sale” type announcements are welcome, but keep them to a “reasonable” frequency.
- Fund raisers for schools, sports teams, non-profit organization are permitted. (See “reasonable frequency” notes above)
- Asking for and providing recommendations for commercial vendors is encouraged.
The Overlook address book will no longer be published as a 3 ring binder. For privacy, we will reduce the content of the list to name, address, phone numbers, email addresses, and optional notes. We will no longer list children, ages, or place of employment. The list will be published as a single text table in PDF and sent via email. We do not plan on placing the list on the westervilleoverlook.com website due to data harvesting concerns.
The social committee had the following announcements:
- Neighborhood garage sale will be June 12-13 to coordinate with the Annehurst sale.
- Food truck night frequency is being reduced in hopes that we will have better turnout for a reduced number of visits.
- A wine tasting night is being planned
- Ice cream social night will be in June or July
- 1st weekend in August is Tuesday August 4th
- September or October will be the Chili and Chat
- October will have the beggars night halloween hotdog roast.
The board opened the floor for other discussion. The subject of house paint colors was raised, with a suggestion that non-earth tone colors be limited. The board pointed out that the current deed restrictions did not implement any aesthetic standards, and changes to the county registered deed restrictions are not permitted at this time by state law.
No other subjects were raised by the floor, and the meeting was dismissed.