Preston Hollow Newsletter Jan 2014

We hope that everyone had a safe and joyful holiday time with friends and family, and that 2014 will bring health and blessings.

This is a general newsletter and a report of some of the topics of our PHHOA meeting on January 14th. This should not be taken as minutes of the meeting. Our renewed entry marque looks wonderful! Lisa Groneveld guided the project. The trees were in need of trimming; walls were cleaned, patched, sealed, and painted twice. Thank you Lisa! Bill Thompson attended a meeting with the Sheriff’s Dept. for Crime Watch. Much of Bill’s report was already emailed and posted on the blog with the notice about the crime this past weekend. There are also some “vendors” going door to door. It is noted at the entry that no soliciting in Preston Hollow is permitted. Be alert, they may be casing us for occupancy. Be sure to lock all doors and garages and call 911 if you see anything suspicious.

We had a speaker from Hernando County Appraisers Office which was most informative. Preston Hollow is seeing the expected number of sink hole activity as being seen in the rest of the county. If you have had one, you want to be sure that it gets marked as “ repaired” when work is completed. Some buyers are asking to see only homes that have repaired sink holes, this becomes an asset in selling a home.

Thanks were extended to Board Members that have ended their terms. John Cucinella, Second VP, who supervised the care and repair of our common spaces, and Joe Deller, who served as Treasure. We all will be missing their contributions. Lisa agreed to serve a second term and was elected. Thank you Lisa. To date we are still short two board positions. If unfilled we will have to look at management and accounting services to fill these gaps. That will be additional expense. Currently Joe Deller is helping with the treasurer duties and will through Jan. The board is looking at how some items can be done by others to ease the responsibility of this position. The board would like to continue our approach to be frugal and not raise dues, to continue to grow the savings account to the previous status that will safeguard us in the need to replace the sprinkler system “brain” and the walls at the entry way. Our walls are on county property. Please joining the BOD. We have many talented residents.

Other items that came up at the meeting are the continued misunderstanding of the change in the duties of the ACC, procedures for” failure to maintain”, and the sighting of one property on a violation. Briefly, last early summer three board members met with our attorney after the sighting of homeowners on violations of lawn and landscaping. Procedures set up by the liaison to the ACC at that time, were not followed. The Board members at the meeting with our Attorney were informed, that according to our original documents, the ACC should handle only changes to property and new construction. The board should handle failure to maintain. Policy and procedures were reviewed and found correct with a failure to maintain. 

To let you know this process, it involves receiving a signed concern in writing, two Board members observing the concern and if valid taking a picture dating and signing the copy. These board members will have to appear in court if it is an issue that is carried out to that end. Letters are to be sent by the board following a specific communication guideline: must be specific to the violation and site the exact restriction, reasonable time frame for the repair of the item sited, and request for dialog if hardship might be imposed or interpretation needed. Further communication with additional pictures if no action is taken by the owner, up to three letters, and then the interaction may be turned over to our Attorney for further follow up. The Board at that time took over the handling failure to maintain items.

The Board received a complaint from a home owner on a failure to maintain. The procedure was followed including several pictures to demonstrate the situation. A first letter was sent. An adversarial letter was returned, a second letter was sent. One aspect involved a code violation, the home owner who filed the complaint called this department. The failure to maintain was corrected. During this time frame a member of the ACC was removed from duty by the Board, relative to that persons actions on the failure to follow the previous guidelines when the ACC was handling the failure to maintain issues. The two remaining members ACC members resigned over the change in how the ACC functions, citing a “powerlessness” in the duty to maintain areas which they formerly handled.

As only one current member of the board was present at the meeting with the attorney last spring, (the two others have left the Board of Directors), a motion carried that the current Board will meet with an Attorney and go over our procedures in place, and who should address both ACC and failure to maintain issues according to our documents. Results will be reported on at the next HOA meeting in April.

A community member presented to the Board a contract from a HOA management company and requested that the Board review and consider such a contract to put all of these issues into the hands of a third party. Another home owner gave information on a second company offering such services. The Board will investigate these possibilities. Should we not have someone come forward to assist with accounting duties, the board will need to seek accounting services.