Lakecliffe - The Quiet Before the Storm

Work continues while preparations are underway for the main event. That is scheduled to begin on Monday, August 4. Now before any of our residents get bent out of shape, let me say that neither I, the board of BLMH or the management is making a promise that the street stripping will begin promptly at 7:00am on Monday.

Nevertheless, I will get my vehicle off of the property at about 6:30am on Monday.

it will be interesting to see if everyone on Harrow Ct. and the north section of Lakecliffe gets out of the way prior to 7:00am on Monday. Some won't.

Weather
The schedule will be influenced by the weather. Currently there is a "chance of thunderstorms" on Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday there are "thunderstorms" and again on Thursday there is a "chance of thunderstorms."

Impact on other projects
There has been a flurry of activity elsewhere on the property. The landscaper is moving stone which is to be distributed around buildings in place of the mulch which prior boards spread with great abandon and at great cost. It's all a part of drainage improvements and steps to reduce overall maintenance costs.

Some projects, including the roofing of eight large buildings will commence after the street reconstruction has been completed. Meanwhile preparation work on those buildings is underway.

Work continues in preparation for painting of the exterior of 1/6 of the buildings on the property.

The 80/20 Rule
Recently a comment was made that "most businesses, statistics, etc.....have an 80/20 rule....where 80% of the resources, time, etc. go to.... 20% of the people." I have no problem with that perspective and agree completely. However in practice and using simple math, 20% of 56 units in the construction zone implies that 11 units will have some sort of problem and require unusual interaction or hand holding. Now, in a HOA where we have one manager and six board members with one fully engaged A&M  director, that would indicate a potential problem, wouldn't it? Ah, no problem. The board can take off from their day jobs and take care of this. As for management, there is nothing else going on this week, is there? Duh!

Let's amplify this and look at the statistics for a HOA with 336 owners. Using the 80/20 rule, that would imply that 67 owners will absorb an unusual amount of time and resources. If so, that small group outnumbers the board by almost 11:1. At BLMH the owner body to board ratio is currently 56:1.

The comment went on. "80% of the resources come from 20%".  Not true. If this were so, our HOA income would be severely reduced. If I look at this from the perspective of the number on the board, then we have 6 serving the needs and requirements of 336. BLMH has board comprised of fewer than 2% of the owners dealing with the real problems and dealing with the 20% who supposedly absorb most of the resources of this HOA. Furthermore, at any time the owners in that pool of the 80% can migrate to the 20% and become a resource hog.

Is that a problem for this HOA? I assert the 20% are a drag and the 80% are dead weight. Furthermore, in an economic environment in which rentals are rising while home ownership is stagnant, I suggest that board members are actually unpaid workers for profit seeking remote owners.  More on this in a future post.