Phone:
Welcome back to everyone who was gone for the summer! You picked a good summer to be gone — it was hotter than usual. We did receive more rain during the monsoon season than usual, but it all came in three weeks in July. Beside those three wet weeks, we had a hot, dry summer; even the cacti wilted.
Road Paving
As you will have noticed, the paving work scheduled for 2017 has been completed. We have repaved Paseo Otoño, the pool parking area, Strada de Acero, and Via Sempreverde from the Paseo Otoño intersection to a few houses past Strada de Acero. This has been an eighteen-month effort, starting early in 2016 with no one on the current Board having experience with paving roads. Fortunately, several homeowners with experience with paving equipment and building projects helped joined the Roads Committee as we researched paving options. We hired a consulting firm to study our roads and present a five-year plan for the roads. Portions of both Paseo Otoño and Via Sempreverde were failing, and we had to patch potholes late in 2016 and more early this year. Based on that study and our own evaluation of road conditions, we selected the area to be repaved.
We used the consulting firm to help us with the bidding process and to monitor the paving work. Work was scheduled to begin in early Summer but was delayed by the monsoon rains. We started again in late August and finished almost everything in three weeks. A few minor items have taken longer to complete and we’re now down to a final punch list of small issues.
All of the other roads have been seal coated to extend their life. This is a maintenance activity needed every four to five years. All roads have been restriped as they were before and parking areas were restriped.
Real Estate
We have ten new home owners so far this year. Most of the resales were in the first several months of the year, followed by an almost five-month dry spell of no activity. Recently, two homes have sold and another is in escrow. Real estate agents tell me there are very few houses for sale in the entire Fairfield area.
Elections are coming and Help is needed
Our annual membership meeting and election of Directors will be coming up in February. If you are interested in joining the Board or contributing on any committee, we would love to hear from you. Please contact the Nominating Committee before December 1st if you are interested.
I’d like to take special notice of how homeowner volunteer efforts have made a real difference to our HOA. Our association functions because of volunteer efforts. All of the work preparing for paving the roads has been done by volunteers; the HOA has no paid staff. Without the volunteers on committees and on the Board, nothing would get done and amenities would decline. The worst case is that without volunteers we might need to engage a management company. And management companies generally result in poorer and less friendly service at a higher cost.
A major challenge for our HOA continues to be to have more homeowners volunteer for our committees. We more than welcome homeowners who want to contribute. Please talk to me or any Board member about your ideas and ways you might contribute. We welcome people interested in participating in any way — as a volunteer, a committee member, a committee chair, or a Board member. We especially welcome the newer homeowners who are part of the next generation moving in.
We want to hear from you about what you would like to see your HOA doing. Please contact me or any Director by phone, email, or mail with your thoughts and suggestions.