My Final year on the board, part IV- President's Newsletter Message

v    President’s Message – These are my final newsletter articles as a member of your board. 

We’ve accomplished a lot in 8 years. There were real opportunities and of course many challenges. 
You need to determine who will replace me, their agenda, the specific programs they will have or continue, how they’ll be accomplished, the fees necessary and the benefits to owners.  I’m including several reports, insights and guidance to owners and future boards in this newsletter.   I’ll be available for questions during the annual meeting on September 27 and I’ll make a presentation.

Election 2018. About 75% of our owners live on the property and all have a financial interest in the success of this association, but most are uninvolved. Our history indicates that a small group of owners can control the board and the association. The board you elect will be tasked with figuring out the long term finances, they will set your fees for 2019, will spend association money, and will make and enforce rules.  Not all boards have been well prepared for this. The Candidates’ Forms may not reveal the actions you can expect from a board.  Not everyone understands the requirements and reality of a “working board.” Boards do manage our managers, set priorities, make the significant decisions, provide oversight and interact with our contractors and experts! I suggest all owners attend the annual association meeting and listen to the candidates to determine where they are coming from. I expect that candidates will have an opportunity to address the owners prior to the final vote tally. The current board will make presentations.

Do you want your fees to remain stable? It must be decided Who will maintain the water mains.  There are some really significant things going on. For example, after 5 years of effort and discussions with the city of Wheaton there is a real possibility of turning over our water mains to the city, who would then maintain them. The city is waiting for a response from our association. Board member positions about this have ranged from “wonderful” to “ambivalent”. Nevertheless there has been substantial progress on this “impossible” project. A change in our approach to water main maintenance has facilitated this and we now have about 500 feet of new water main. The city will not take over infrastructure in disrepair. If your board fails to pursue this with adequate resources and vigor, then this will never happen. Over time failure to transfer to the city is a guarantee to cost each owner at least $4,500 via fees.  If this initiative fails then owner fees will need to be adjusted. You need to let the newly elected board know what priorities they should establish and follow. The last 8 years have proven that fees can be stable while maintaining and improving the association. Come to the annual meeting!

Many trees have died - Recent Architectural work on the property: You may have noticed a lot of work to build architectural walls, grading, drainage work, completion of common area decks, streams, etc.  In 2009 I asked that board how they would deal with our many ornamental trees which were approaching end of useful, healthy life. I was told “Trees live a long time”. At that time I asked myself “What will our association look like in 10-20 years with hundreds of trees dead, and removed?” I concluded that our boards needed to pursue a realistic, long term program. If not, we’d have a lot of dirt scars, weird grassy mounds on the property, mud, bare areas and so on. As Maintenance and Architecture Director I took it upon myself to enroll the board in a long term program to deal with this.  As president I continued to move this along with board support. In 2010 we began a program to address tangled trees, fix our streams, build walls, deal with dirt mounds, failing common area decks, even a stream for which maintenance had been delayed for 10 years, and so on. I also literally moved sod, stone and other landscaping completions to maintenance so they would be performed with some urgency.  This dealt with many of the property’s landscaping issues as they occurred.  The boards since 2010 have agreed that the streams are a major architectural aspect of our property. By 2015 a survey revealed 95 additional scars on the property; that survey facilitated the decision of the board to expend a large amount of funds on specific repairs by a landscaper.   In August our landscaping director stated to the board that certain pine species are dying out.  There obviously remains much to do.

For additional perspective see my other articles inside and the insert to this newsletter.