Congratulations to Steven and Sara.
Obviously both of you have put in more time and energy to the community than I. My best effort related to HOA is to attend the annual meeting and participate the picnic when there's one.
I have been in this neighborhood since Jan 1995, the original owner of a "Great American Home" built home. There were forced out of business due to a bad press regarding to insulation (or lack of). The HOA was controlled by the company until propably phase II completed, if I remember correctly because technically they own most homes until they were sold. With that said, I don't necessarily notice how this year's HOA is worse or better than in the past. Last year, the HOA sent out glassy newsletter which I suspect would cost a lot of money. This year, they hadn't sent out much. They also did not have picnic. Granted, the attendance has been sporatic. I did remember one year with a great turn out with one magician, etc.
Anyway, I am looking forward to seeing some improvement (not just change, for it could change for worse). Many discussion topics presented here has been discussed before, such as speed bumps, pool, etc. We did have these discussions in the past. Almost every year actually. One thing the board can utilize the new website is to record these discussions so new neighbors can review them and bring them up for discussion again if they like. At least, we will know better what the pros and cons are. Take the speed bump for example, we've asked if a stop sign would help. It turned out that you can't have two stop signs too close to each other; I was told. So, we can't make the RC and FB intersection a 4-way stop. I can't remember the legal requirement for speed bump... 700 feet apart? Building a new pool would require all owners to share the cost. Last time we visited the issue; each household would need to chip in hundreds. It was voted down immediately.
Anyway, we learned tonight that there's a new website in development. I took a quick look. It does have the professional look. However, there's no way to communicate with the board members other than the voice mail line that board members do not know how to check. We are paying $182.62 a year for "telephone expense". I assume it is for the VM? New board, please schedule someone checking VM and returning calls. For computer savvy people, email or discussion board like this might be an alternative.
I have an open question - "Community Relations" expenses has increased from $401.41 to $953.26. I'd like to know what this is.
