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Don Freiert
Written by Greg Hankins, Editor   
Thursday, 04 February 2010
Don Freiert, Jr., is a CPA who served as VP - Corporate Real Estate for Nationwide Insurance, and held similar positions with Cardinal Health and Bank One.
    Freiert has lived in Seven Lakes for less than a year. So what would he bring to the SLWLA Board of Directors?
Image    A fresh perspective. “I think I can bring a fresh perspective,” Freiert told The Times. “and it’s an inquisitive perspective.”
    “I come in with a fresh set of eyes and can take a new look at things at a time when a lot of questions are being raised about what’s going on with the community. Questions about how do we protect our property values — and how do we improve our property values.”
    Those questions often come about, Freiert told The Times, “because the landowners don’t have a clear picture of what the future is — financially as well as obligation-wise.” Reflecting on the conversation and public comment at a recent SLWLA Board meeting, Freiert said “You heard the Board members say things like ‘Three years ago the Board committed to doing this over a three-to-five year period.’ Well. those things don’t show up anywhere.”
    There’s not an easily-accessible plan that landowners can reference to understand those sorts of commitments, Freiert said, “and there should be.”
    The problem is not that there is no plan, he hastened to add, noting the amount of work done by Long Range Planning and other committees. “It’s the communication part of it, which the Board acknowledges they are just getting into. Because, in the past, people haven’t really  cared to know about it in depth.” The remediation of the Lake Auman Dam was “a wake-up call” for many landowners, Freiert said. “People have realized, “Hey, we really have some responsibilities and obligations here!’ I feel there’s a strong fiduciary responsioblity of the Board to communicate about that with the community and I believe I can add real value there.”
    SLWLA Treasurer Kathy Kirst is retiring from the Board in March, and Freiert said his skills, training, and experience were a natural fit with the Treasurer’s job. “I don’t know that I would end up being the Treasurer,” he added, “but my financial capabilities would be a plus for the Board.”
    “Looking at the numbers, even I have questions about the way things are viewed and presented. It’s a complex issue. The way the Association is accounted for and tracked is like a big checkbook — it’s what goes in and what goes out. Now that’s a pretty safe way of living -- and there are safeguards against doing something crazy and putting burdens on the future. But if you listened to people the other night [at the Board Meeting] some people have trouble understanding it.”
    “I think clarity is something that I could help bring,” Freiert said. “It gets back to my freshness to the thing. I’ve not been looking at these budgets year in and year out . . . It’s something that in my past background I tried to do: Make things understandable to people.”
    The other area for me where I could add value is in the long range planning or strategic planning aspect. I only have enough information to be dangerous at this stage — and nothing against the folks that are there. I hear we have a long range committee and a roads committee, and an entrances committee — all doing real good work. But I don’t see an overall plan.”
    “It’s like somebody said, ‘If we approve [a] 36 percent [dues increase] this year, what’s to keep it from being 36% next year?’”  
    The Board’s objective, Freiert said, is to hold operational expenses level with last year, so all the dues increase goes to rebuilding reserves. If that happens next year, “you get another $400,000 to put in reserves, and the next year you get another $400,000. But you don’t see that [in the budget]. You get a one-year view.”
    “As someone said the other night, ‘Where is a five to ten year view of what we expect?’ If we bite this bullet right now, will we be good to go and revert back to a five percent increase or less in the future?”
    “My two areas of value that I bring are the financial angle and that ability to develop a big picture view in a way that everyone else can have a good understanding. They don’t have to be financial analysts, they don’t have to be planners, they don’t have to be CPAs. But they have a right to understand what’s going on. It’s their money. It’s my money.”
    Freiert told The Times he supports the proposed budget and dues increase, “but even myself, I was shocked at the budget . . . I didn’t have a clue that was coming . . . I knew about some of the issues, but I hadn’t converted them into into dollars and sense.”
    “All of that work the Board did over four months to to arrive at this solution was not well understood as it was taking place,” Freiert told The Times. “There probably was a away to start to lay out some things before it hit.”
    Even the openness of the Board’s process backfired on it to some extent, he noted, because landowners read about the proposed dues increase in The Times before hearing the Board’s presentation. “That a double-edged sword,” he noted. “Now you have people getting emotional of it, but they don’t have the detail. Now you are in defensive mode. I think we could do a better job of that.
    Asked about key issues he thinks the community faces over the next few years, Freiert said, the front entrance and mailhouse have to be at the top of the list. “That’s the front door to our community . . .  Talk about the impression you create of the community . . . I can’t wait to get past the mailhouse, because what they have done with Lakeway Drive is great.
    “The issue of roads is key,” Freiert said. “Not that they are falling apart, but you’re back to an impression issue.”
    “One of those things I learned from being in real estate over the years: you have to maintain the appearance. You need to keep it up.”
    “It seems like the mail delivery thing is is dead,’ Freiert added. “You can’t win arguments with the government. I think we need to get on with it and say ‘We need mailhouses, how do we do it?’ I know there is a group studying that.”
    “The other thing to look at: Is there value in other amenities? I was surprised when on the website, there are 90 people on the waiting list for the boat slips at the marina. Is there another place to put them in -- a second marina? That might be in the long range plan. Can that fund itself? That’s just one example that I came across. We have a demand, a need, can we find a way to fulfill it?”
    Freiert noted that it is in the best interest of the community for those who own unimproved lots to come and build homes in Seven Lakes West. “But, if they did that, the current facilities would be overwhelmed. So you do in fact have to provide for them.”
    Freiert said his newness to the community gives him another advantage as a prospective Board member: he’s not yet playing golf three days a week, shooting with the Sports Club, and so on. I don’ t have all those patterns established. And I didn’t come down because I have relatives here. So I need to get engaged to meet people to develop friendships and relationships.”
    “I can add value and I am willing to give back,” Freiert told The Times.
    Emphasizing that he understand election to the Board carries with it a time commitment, Freiert said, “I recognize that serving on the Board is not an honorary role. Community matters to me.”
 
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