Annual Meeting Notice
Sample Ballot
Election Envelop

Candidates for Election

We will be voting on three positions with two year terms.
Printable version of the candidate statements

Katie Allegretti

My name is Katie Allegretti and I am running for a position on the Board of the Sorrento/Meadows HOA. As a two year resident of the Meadows, wife, and stay at home mother to 2 toddlers, my main goals are to create safety within the community, and to prevent any further dues increases.

I feel as though our current board is in need of someone with a fresh personality who is able to work productively not only with other Board members, but with the homeowners of this community as well. I have confidence that through my recent experience with the Board (chairperson of an investigative committee assigned by Melissa Centeno to settle an issue for the Board), seeing how things operate, and knowing the changes I would like to see within the community, that I would be able to bring a lot of productivity, hard work, and some new ideas for ways we will be able to make this community a fantastic and safe place to live. As a long time Porter Ranch resident, which includes living within gated communities for nearly a decade, I know the reasons I chose to live here and the ways I wish to see things maintained to protect our most important financial investment, our homes.

If you elect me to the HOA board, my main focuses will be:

• Safety – We live in a gated community to keep out intruders. We also live in area of steep hill. Often our visitors and residents drive much too fast. We need to enforce our speed limits and stop signs.
• Responsible spending -- to maintain our beautiful community, with no dues increases
• Professionalism -- Board members will disagree on important issues, but they can do it in a far less toxic manner that I have seen at recent Board meetings.
• Focus –The Board manages a $1.4 million dollar business. They need to focus on the strategic goals of the community and demand that the Management Company, the Committees and our vendors do their jobs.
• Service -- As a stay at home mom, I would be an available presence within the community during the day to address issues and to meet with vendors as needed. I have a strong desire to tie this currently unraveled community back together and to bring a fresh personality to the team.

I want this community and our homes to retain their value by preserving safety and appearance and using funds responsibly to get things done. I believe that our dues have gone up too fast, and I will work tirelessly to prevent any future dues increases

While I have not ever sat on an HOA board before, I was recently the chairperson of an investigative committee assigned by the Board of Directors to settle an issue they were unable to come to an agreement upon. Before I was a stay at home mom, I worked for a computer software company. During my 5 ½ years there I worked closely with the Human Resources department, the Marketing Department, and the Accounting Department. I planned large corporate events, I was also a Global Contracts Administrator, handling all contracting and software distribution, sustaining relationships with our global customers and employees. As an Executive Assistant I was in charge of handing all of the travel and meeting planning for the president of the company. That part of my job also included establishing vendor relationships, negotiating contracts for services, and maintaining day to day operations for our 100 employee California location.

I would love to have your support and greatly appreciate your vote.

Email katieallegretti@gmail.com

Melissa Centeno
Incumbent

Dear Sorrento/ Meadows Families & Friends,
I believe your HOA has made many positive advances in the two years I have been on the Board. Last summer the Board unanimously voted for me to be your President. It has been an honor to serve our community, especially in this economy. I believe that with your support there is much more we can do to make our association prosper. I am running again to continue to serve on the board because I love my community and there is much more I wish to accomplish in what I hope will turn out to be a more harmonious group of board members.

Although we still have a number of properties that are in arrears to your association, we are now on an economic upswing. The new property owners have had to undergo a rigorous loan qualification process and they can afford to pay their dues. Fewer speculators own property. As a result, our finances are in much better shape than they were a year ago. I believe we can maintain and improve our community, maintain the service we expect from our vendors as a guard gated neighborhood, and keep our Reserves in a good range this year and for many years to come without raising the dues.

As many of you know, my most important job is being a mom! I founded the Mom’s Club so that all of the mothers could share experiences and make new friends creating a stronger community. I am proud of my involvement with the Hospitality Committee as it brings our neighborhood closer together through community events like Spring Fling, Luau’s and last year’s Fiesta all occurring on a shoestring budget. I am proud of the way we have maintained and improved our pool areas acquiring better service companies for less cost to the association.

The biggest struggle for me in the last year was our divided Board of Directors. There have been two camps on the Board. I have tried to be fair and equitable with both groups, even as one Board member has sued me and sued your HOA for $15,000 this year. I was proud to represent my community in court and humbled by the support I received during the trials, and I am very pleased that the Court found in my favor and in favor of your Association in both cases.

There is much more to accomplish in the upcoming years. Streets need to be sealed. Fences and gates need to be painted. Shapell is turning over some very large parcels of land to us this year to maintain. Our Water 2 Save initiative will allow us to save water starting this summer, but we will still be able to maintain our fire buffer with Browns Canyon. That buffer was crucial to us during the Sesnon Fire. I also have a desire to look into further water and power saving avenues including Solar Power for our community. We continue to have speeding, dog and parking issues to tackle.

I hope you think I have done a good job as your President. I would really like to count on your support for my re-election to the Board this year. Thank you for your vote!

Email melissa.centeno@sbcglobal.net

Dominic Little

Dear Sorrento/Meadows Neighbors,

As a new member in the community and soon to be father, I couldn’t imagine a more important task at hand than being part of building a strong community. In fact, since my wife and I decided to move here, I have been working as a volunteer continuously. The work that I have performed as a member of the Newsletter/Website and Finance Committees has ranged from editing and publishing articles in the Sorrento/Meadows Newsletter to providing financial guidance regarding common business practices. It is my hopes that with your vote, I will be able to continue helping our community as a newly elected board member and apply the professional skills that I have developed over the past 12 years as a professor of sociology (California State University Northridge, College of the Canyons, and Los Angeles Mission College) and quantitative research consultant (US Military and various non-profit organizations across the greater Los Angeles area).

As for my political persuasion, I am strongly committed to the principals of fair governance: participatory, consensus oriented, accountable, transparent, responsive, effective and efficient, equitable and inclusive and law abiding. Additionally, I advocate a form of governance that is data-driven, emphasizing solutions that rely on objective criterion versus personal preference or ideology. If elected to the board of directors, I promise to serve with integrity and honesty.

Thank you for taking the time to read about my background and philosophy. I look forward to the opportunity to serve OUR community.

Email VoteForAJandDominic@gmail.com

Christina Raskin

My husband and I moved to Sorrento to build a home for our new family. We chose the community, probably for the same reasons that you did: It is a safe, beautiful area that felt comfortable, and it was the right place to raise children. With our first child now 1 ½ years old, I want to strengthen our community. My chief goals are:

• Safety and Security. As a new mom, safety comes first. This not only means ensuring the quality of security services, but also the ongoing safety of facilities and streets and the viability of the fire buffer around our community.
• Dollars and “Sense.” Financial stability is of the utmost importance for any HOA, but especially one as large as our community. This is about wise accounting and spending habits. But it is also about making the HOA’s money work for us:
• The HOA reports that one of our reserve accounts is only earning interest at 0.25%. That is hardly the best deal in town, even for liquid accounts.
  • Some of the HOA’s funds are currently held in accounts that exceed the FDIC limit. Bank failures aren’t things we read about in history books anymore. We need to be careful.
  • We currently enjoy a surplus. But before returning funds to homeowners or slashing future dues, we need to be responsible. We need to ask why, so that we can ensure that future income is sufficient. Is the surplus the result of faulty budgeting? Is it the result of prepayment or unusual windfalls?
• Community and Civility. Sorrento can be a place to live or it can be more. It can be a place where issues with neighbors are avoided because you know all of your neighbors. In recent years, our HOA has done well. This is in no small part due to the efforts of our Hospitality Committee, which I have had the pleasure of serving on. There are other groups as well, such as the Toddler Group that I founded and organize.

Many homeowners, however, wish there was more civility on the Board itself. Many were dismayed to learn that over the past year the HOA was forced to spend more than $3,000 defending itself against lawsuits brought by a board member—lawsuits that came to nothing.

EXPERIENCE/QUALIFICATIONS: I am a graduate of the Georgetown University Law School. For 6 ½ years, I practiced real estate law at a large, international law firm. Although I would not be serving as the HOA’s counsel, I have developed skills that I hope to bring to my role as board member. As a transactional attorney, my job is to put together complex deals.

This requires an eye for detail, including:

• Developing creative solutions to complex problems;
• Understanding and keeping track of complex financial agreements; and
• Issue spotting and risk assessment.

I also have extensive experience negotiating, analyzing and drafting complex agreements. Beyond using these skills in connection with the HOA’s vendors, I hope my negotiation skills will help the Board to better function as a unit by reaching consensus and compromise rather than in-fighting.

Lastly, from time to time board meetings are hung up by confusion over the existence and applicability of various laws. As an attorney, I have the access and understanding of the legal background to cut through some of these difficulties.

Email clraskin@gmail.com

A.J. Silvia

I would like the opportunity to continue my service to our community as I have in the past which resulted in tens of thousands of dollars saved and returned to this HOA. I believe that there is further work to be done that could recoup and return monies owed to this HOA. I would continue to participate in a civil, courteous, respectful and cooperative manner as I have done in the past.

EXPERIENCE/QUALIFICATIONS: Experience: Two (2) years researching and studying the Davis-Sterling regulations which govern in part the legal responsibilities for HOA boards. One (1) year as a member of the A&L committee. (which brought back over $14,000.00+ to this HOA and also saved this HOA from future overpayments in utility rates)

Masters degree in Nursing, MSN, University of Colorado—Colorado Springs

Undergraduate degrees in Nursing and Criminal Justice

Email VoteForAJandDominic@gmail.com