Pre-meet socialization.
A good turnout - standing room only. 3 of the 4 directors plus Pam Chandler (HOA manager) were present, a quorum. One director was missing due to a new baby in the house. Home and lot owners were represented.
Last year's unaudited numbers were reviewed.
Questions were raised about the increased cost of the security line. That was attributed to increased "coverage" - more hours of duty, plus the roving guard who is charged with overseeing construction workers on site, and helping to insure they leave on schedule at day's end.
There will soon be E mail availability to both guard shacks and also Pam (and she'll also see all E mails to the guards.) Several homeowners felt the guards were too lax. Others felt they had improved over the last set, which were workers from the golf club and not part of a security company. Pam asked that when someone sees a problem or is dissatisfied with the security that they contact her.
Forms were handed out to list regular visitors so they can tighten the flow at the gate.
Some discussion took place about the raised assessment with no representation on the board. The board won't be handed over to be run by residents till the last lot is sold (projection: 4 years. About 260 to go.) A point was raised that there is nothing to prohibit the board from including a homeowner representative.
The dangerous intersection at the east entrance and 71 was discussed. It was said the best thing we can all do is contact our legislators and let them know our concerns. Within a few days I will post the contacts here. Discovery is trying to figure out other possible configurations.
Issues to hurdle: speed limit, rear ender possibilities coming east over the hill (possibly hitting the rearmost car waiting for a new light to turn.) Barton creek bridge apparently cannot be widened due to environmental concerns.
There will be apartments built (not affiliated with S.O. between Lowes and the east entrance.) 293 units. I believe ground is about to break on that.
The rear road WITHIN Spanish Oaks, connecting the East and West portions will be closed till construction is complete - about a year and a half... Liabilities preclude its use till complete, so both sides' gates will be locked. When completed, it will also access a "fishing camp" and S.O. swimming pool (for all residents) and pavilion, fire pits and amenities, approximately halfway along the east-west road on a beautiful point overlooking the preserve.
The new west Guard gate will be complete in about 90 days and will be placed AFTER the Tennis Academy. Further, construction traffic will be halted and processed farther back, so residents won't have to wait for it to clear.
The sales office will move to the west side in February and will be outside the west gate.
There is no plan yet to offer social memberships to the Golf Club (I understand it is a requirement for new buy-ins.) It is being considered.
Terri raised the point of heretofore weak communication from Discovery Land and I later offered this blog as a mechanism by which they could communicate beyond the quarterly newsletters (one of which is imminent.)
Discovery revealed some of the plans for the various parks within the development and pledged that we'll soon see increased landscaping in the public areas.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lori Bailes writes:
The 4 Main Points of last nights meeting seemed to be:
1) We need to have a resident on the board. It seemed like the board was open to possibly allowing this.
2) The safety at East entrance. There is not going to be a quick fix for this. We need to make noise to our local Representatives, the Environmentalists and anybody else that could possibly help us with this situation. Please don't be misled into believing there will be a light there, chances are there will never be a light at "that" East entrance. The best we are going to do anytime in the near-term (3 years) is to get the speed limit reduced. Because of the hill, putting a light there could cause more accidents. In order to get a turn lane we would need to fight the environmentalists on allowing the bridge over the creek to be widened. Even if they allowed that to happen, it would be 2 years before we would see the end result. We may have better luck getting Spanish Oaks to relocate the East entrance.
3) Security represents 47% of our total expenditures. The security personnel need to know that we are watching them. They are accustomed to answering mostly to the sales office and it is all of our responsibility to make sure they realize that the residents are who they are here for. Any problems or concerns need to be brought to Pam Chandler's attention.
4) Costs of water represented 18% of our total costs last year. This cost is only going to go up with the addition of more landscaping. Evaluating our options on how/where to get the irrigation water in the future could save us huge amounts of money down the road.
Please think about what issues are most important to you and how you might want to get involved.
Lori Bailes
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you think of it, let your neighbors know about this blog! It gets a good number of hits every day, but I'd hate to have some new folks miss it for keeping up on what affects our community.
This is YOUR blog. You may contribute two ways - post a comment. Or E mail me to POST a post at rwood24@Austin.rr.com (more visible.) As administrator I must approve and input your contribution to keep inappropriate comments out.
Notice the links on the right column to Bee Cave news, weather, etc.
Bob Wood
No comments:
Post a Comment