Diane Critchlow, one of 50 winners in the Holiday Lights Contest, accepts her sign from the elf (Director Danny Carrillo) and Santa Claus (Director Tom Reimers) at the Rancho Murieta Association Board meeting on Dec. 19. 

RANCHO MURIETA, CA (MPG) - After beginning the session with Christmas cheer, the Rancho Murieta Association (RMA) Board went on to consider three touchy topics at the Dec. 19 meeting.

• Preliminary data captured by four new Lidar cameras shows that Rancho Murieta has a significant speeding problem.

• The board adopted a revised rule about vendor moving violations that will make them far less onerous on residents, but RMA members will remain responsible if their delivery person speeds or blows a stop sign.

• President Scott Adams explained why the board won’t ask RMA members to begin paying dues to the Rancho Murieta Country Club to keep it solvent. See the separate story in this issue.

 • The Recreation Committee awarded prizes to 50 winners in the 2023 Holiday Lights Contest.

Other meeting topics included the election of new board officers and committee chairs, a new SMUD fee for street lights, and approval of an additional $3,000 to finally get delivery of new dashboard cameras for the compliance cars.

Speeding

After installing four new speed enforcement cameras earlier this year, the staff turned them on Oct. 23 to begin a 90-day grace period to let residents know when they were driving over the 25 MPR speed limit. The cameras are mounted on poles on Murieta Parkway, Pera Drive, Murieta South Parkway, and Riverview Park

Director Tom Reimers, who chairs the Compliance Committee, released some preliminary results that showed the cameras captured 817 speeding violations in November. “I think we have a speeding problem in this community,” he said.

Of that number, 308 were residents. Hart said they were sent warnings. The remaining speeders were contractors, delivery drivers, guests, a reported school bus driver, and attendees at special events at the country club.

The November report showed 24 vehicles were traveling at 34 to 35 mph, 491 at 36 to 40 mph, 69 at 41 to 45 mph, and 12 at 46 to 50 mph.

Adams said the board will discuss the issue at more length at the February meeting. “On Jan. 22, these are going to start to become real citations and not just warnings,”  he said.

Audience member John Haviland asked whether the statistics could be published. “I don’t think our community understands the magnitude of the speeding,” he said. “I think it would open everyone’s eyes.

Audience member John Haviland urges the board to publicize ‘the magnitude of the speeding problem’ inside the community.

Hart told him that the board wanted to do that,  and he was accumulating the information for his February meeting report. Hart said the camera captured more than 900 violations in the first two weeks with many driving over 50 mph, and several over 60 mph.

“This is something we’ve got to take some action on, and we will publish on it,” he said.

Vendor rule

The board unanimously approved a revision to a non-architectural rule on vendor moving violations and fines that drastically significantly reduced the fines. The Governing Documents Committee, chaired by Adams, has been working on the rule for months after a referral from the Compliance Committee. A public review of the rule change has been completed.

Director Danny Carrillo asked Adams if a resident still must pay a vendor’s fine under the rule change. Adams told him that the association has no jurisdiction over a vendor, and the CC&Rs say a resident is responsible for all of his “invitees.”  

The CC&Rs were written when vendors were going to multiple homes, which is even more prevalent today. Residents complain when they end up being responsible for a vendor who has gone to 10 homes. However, it isn’t practical to split up the ticket among 10 people because it won’t work administratively, Adams said.

Under the previous rule, vendor violations would accumulate against the resident. For example, if the resident already had a speeding violation, a vendor violation would count as a second strike with a $100 fine that would increase to $200 for a third.

Adams said the rule change significantly reduces the fines, with the first citation zero and the next one at $25. Nor will the citations accumulate against the residents.

Adams suggested that residents warn their vendors they won’t use them anymore if they get another citation and ask them to pay the fine. “You can’t write a rule around the CC&Rs,” he said.

Adams said his committee received seven comments from residents about the rule change Some wanted it to apply to guests as well, while others didn’t. Some didn’t want the rule to change at all.

Adams said the association faces liability if it denies entry to vendors. An extreme example took place 11 years ago when a hospice worker was caught speeding twice and blew a stop sign. Another example could be an HVAC company driver speeding to a service request to fix an air conditioner for an elderly couple in hot weather.

“Does RMA address egregious issues? Yes,” Adams said. “Does RMA address these high levels of speed. The answer is yes.”

However, it is impractical to expect a gate officer to track which vendors have been denied entry when vendors make up about 50,000 of the 180,000 to 200,000 non-residents who come through the gates every year.

Audience member Melinda Martel asked if she could check to see whether a vendor had multiple violations. Hart told her that no such list exists.

 “But that’s something that we’re certainly going to have a discussion about,” Hart said.

Holiday Lights Contest

Although she usually brings up the rear in making committee reports, Adams moved Recreation Chair Renee Bechtold to the front of the  agenda so she could announce 50 winners of the annual Holiday Lights Contest. “I know you aren’t here to watch the entire meeting,” Adams told the audience.

 More than a dozen of the winners showed up to collect their Visa gift cards and special lawn signs in person. Santa Claus (Director Tom Reimers) and his lead elf (Director Danny Carrillo) presented the prizes.

Bechtold said the preliminary judging was done by members of the community. Then members of the Recreation Committee made the final selection. “It was a very tough decision because there are beautiful homes out there with really amazing decorations,” she said

In other business

• The board elected officers for 2024 as follows: Adams, president; Tom Reimers, vice-president, Danny Carrillo, secretary; and John Van Doran, treasurer. The board also elected committee chairs.

• Chris Childs, who chairs the Finance Committee, said SMUD has notified the association of a $14,000 fee increase for operating the street lights. The notification came too late to put it into the budget.

• The board approved Hart’s request to spend an additional $3,000 for dash-mounted video cameras. RMA actually ordered them in March, but they have never been delivered. Hart said an upgraded model of the camera was in stock. The cameras will be used to document stop sign violations.

• Director Patrick O’Hern, who chairs the Architectural Review Committee, said his group had reviewed 402 plans in 2023. He thanked the staff for their hard work.

• Adams said the board has been meeting with Bob Keil, the developer of the Residences East near Stonehouse Park, for seven months. Keil is proposing non-paved trails even though RMA cited governing documents and a park committee vote requiring 12-foot asphalt trails “Where the board stands now is where we stood seven months ago,” Adams said.

The board’s next meeting will be at 6:30 p.m. on Jan. 16.