October 2006

ARBOLEDA COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION January, 2007 NEWSLETTER Denise Applegate, Editor Apple8s@aol.com HOA Board Meeting The next meeting is Tuesday, February 27th, 2007 at 6:30 p.m., at the Mesa Fire Station on Lindsay and Adobe. MEET THE BOARD Mike Orr, President MikeOrr@cox.net All homeowners are welcome and encouraged to attend. Security Lighting As you may have noticed, we have been experimenting with lighting possibilities at the south entrance. We would like to know if anyone in the community knows of a Licensed Electrician that would be interested in submitting a bid or proposal. Please contact any of the Board Members. Don Ellis, Vice President DonEllisF@cox.net Christina Fetchick, Treasurer ONERSKYGRL@aol.com Maxine Clark, Secretary Maxine@MerleAndMaxine.com Janice Grissom, Director JaniceSoldAnother@cox.net C/o Jomar Association Services Vikki Morley 1514 West Todd Drive, Suite B103 Tempe, AZ 85283-4846 (480) 892-5222 VMorley@JomarAssociations.com 2007 Irrigation Schedule February March April May June July August September October November December 7-8 7-8 4-5 2-3 13-14 11-12 8-9 5-6 3-4 7-8 5-6 18-19 16-17 27-28 25-26 22-23 19-20 30-31 DAVID MITTENDORF Cell 480-226-3954 Home 480-962-4491 JOSE SALAZAR 480-226-4396 On behalf of the Arboleda Community we offer our thoughts and prayers to the Jennings Family as they mourn the loss of their daughter Claire Elizabeth www.ArboledaCommunity.org Budget Information I am happy to say that our community is current on all of our invoices. I have been able to negotiate no-interest payment plans on the payment of our yearly insurance premium, attorney’s fee invoices along with other vendor invoices so that our checking account is not depleted at the end of each month. In that way, we can begin to accrue funds to be able to accomplish various projects around the community in this fiscal year. By the end of the year, we will have been able to make a number of important improvements. I was able to work with Armistead Farms who acquired thirteen decorative boulders at no charge to the Association with the exception of a delivery fee of $250.00. This saved us approximately $4,000 – so a BIG thanks to Armistead Farms and Dave Mittendorf for his kindness and generosity! Because not all common areas of the community were over seeded this fall/winter the Association has saved thousands of dollars in city water expense. This was the idea of Janice Grissom and Don Ellis and an excellent one at that. The monthly addition of funds to the Association’s Capital Expenditure Account began in January 2007. You may recall that we had the reserve report updated and learned that we needed to deposit an additional $1,023.00 each month into the account. These funds are specifically and clearly delineated for the repair/replacement of common area capital assets. These would include replacement of our physical depreciating assets, such as tennis courts, the ramada, streets, entry gates, the guard house, etc. At the last board meeting it was determined that homeowners who are two (2) months behind in the payment of the monthly assessment fees will be turned over to the attorney for collection. Currently, the Association is owed over $11,000 in maintenance fees which could be used for many needed projects in our community, e.g., additional lighting and security to name a few. Although late fees are posted to the account, some homeowners neglect paying the monthly fee and the late fee. In order to turn this around, when the homeowner is delinquent the first month, they will receive a letter from the Association with a late fee attached. If they continue to be delinquent a second month, the Association will send a second letter with a late fee attached and notice that their account is being turned over to the attorney for collection. At that point, the homeowner will be responsible for the past due homeowner fees, late fees and attorney’s fees. The board is hopeful that this new policy will reduce the number of delinquent payers. I was also successful in negotiating with Safeguard a discounted price for the computerized directories at each gated entrance. Normally the price is $520.00 for the two and the Association paid only $200.00. by Christina Fetchick - Treasurer Newsletter Contribution If any homeowners are interested in contributing to the monthly newsletter please contact Denise Applegate at Apple8s@aol.com for your article submission or any ideas that you have for our newsletter. Ramada/Tennis Court Lighting At the Ramada and Tennis Courts there are now timers on all the lighting fixtures. Garbage Recepticles Please do not put trash barrels out prior to the evening before pick up and remove barrels by the evening of pick up. Speeding Speeding within our community is a safety concern we all share. The posted speed limit within our community is 15 miles per hour. Message From The President Those of you who live in the northern half of Arboleda (phase 1) may have noticed a great deal of deterioration on the surface of the streets. We are lucky to have a homeowner, Sam Huddleston, who is Bituminous Laboratory Manager at MACTEC Engineering and Consulting. In Sam’s expert opinion, the deterioration is more serious than normal wear and tear and was probably caused by faulty installation of the side roads back in 1999. He believes that either the roads were not compacted sufficiently or that the material laid down was not hot enough. In either case the result is air gaps that allow water to penetrate and cause serious erosion under the surface. We have been discussing this problem with Toll Brothers for almost a year. For many months, while they still controlled the association, Toll wanted to re-seal the roads and we had to persuade them not to, as this would just hide the problem and be a waste of money in the long term. Toll then proposed that an engineer complete a full survey and offered to pay half the cost of the survey if we used an engineer acceptable to them. They requested that we choose five engineers and provide the names for them to select one. As this kind of survey is expected to cost between $5,000 and $8,000, we decided to work within this proposal. There are not a large number of qualified engineers of this type, and fewer still who are willing to work for homeowners associations. We couldn’t use Sam himself as he would be considered an interested party as an Arboleda homeowner. After many weeks Sam was able to find 5 engineers willing to do the work and submitted their names to Toll Brothers. After several weeks delay, Toll responded that they didn’t find any of our engineers acceptable. Instead Scott Coleman, Toll Brothers VP, suggested a different engineer who worked for the same company, Western Technologies, as one of our five. This concerned us greatly, so having taken advice from Jomar Associations, our property management company, we formally wrote back to Toll Brothers and asked them again to select one of our five engineers. Many weeks later, their response gave us the same answer – they were still not willing to help pay for an engineer that they were not already familiar with. We consulted again with Sam on this, and his advice was that the engineer that Toll Brothers wishes to use is not really qualified for the sort of work to be done in Arboleda. However he does consider Western Technologies a reputable company and he is confident that even if we engage the engineer that Toll Brothers prefers, the actual survey work will be done by the engineer we selected, Armando de la Rocha, who is an expert on these types of surfaces. As a result the survey report should still be accurate and reflect the true situation. The board has agreed to proceed on this basis. Sam is helping us by writing the draft scope of work which we will then need to get agreed with Toll Brothers, so that Western Technologies can start the survey. Sam will keep a close eye on the survey work and keep duplicate core samples. Once we obtain the report we will determine how to proceed. If Sam’s opinion is confirmed, then major remedial work will be required for the northern streets. If the damage is due to faults caused during original installation, we will ask Toll Brothers to pay for the repairs. The southern streets will no doubt require re-sealing, a normal maintenance expense that will need to be funded by our reserve account. There is no point in re-sealing the northern streets if they will need more substantial work on the lower layers. These layers will need to be replaced properly first. We will keep all homeowners up to date on progress at forthcoming meetings, and in the meantime I’d like to thank Sam Huddleston for his very valuable advice and expertise. Mike Orr President Arboleda Community Association News From Jomar The new property manager from Jomar is Vikki Morley. Jomar Association Services 1514 West Todd Drive, Suite B103 Tempe, AZ 85283-4846 (480) 892-5222 VMorley@JomarAssociations.com Homeowner Contribution A Window of Opportunity It is no surprise that the main topic of concern at our HOA meetings centers on preserving the safety and privacy of our gated community. Unfortunately, increasing accounts of malicious intruders climbing over the perimeter wall into our backyards are well documented at the Mesa Police Department. Another problem is the growing traffic along McKellips and Val Vista roads, making some days nearly intolerable for those of us whose homes back into these busy streets. Our Board recently decided that we should explore the idea of increasing the peripheral wall from 6 ft to 8 ft; the maximum allowed by our City’s Building Code. This past December I visited the City of Mesa Building & Permits Department seeking information about this matter. I happen to stumble upon news at the Department of Transportation that is timely and exciting because it presents an opportunity for us to seek the collaboration of city officials. The Mesa Department of Transportation has been surveying our area and will be presenting a street improvement project to our City Council in weeks ahead. This project proposes to reduce traffic noise by resurfacing roads with rubberized asphalt, improve traffic flow through road expansion in each direction, including dual left and right turn Lanes for the McKellips/Val Vista intersection. I was told that no provisions were made in the proposed budget for an 8 ft sound barrier wall, such as the ones erected by the Department of Transportation for residents west of Gilbert Rd. Of course I asked: why not? The initial response to my question was that the height of our wall was at discretion of our builder. Nevertheless, here is our opportunity to raise concerns and propose solutions at a public forum. Public hearings will be held sometime in March before our City Council votes on appropriating funds for the Mckellips/Val Vista Rd improvement project. Notice of the hearings will be mailed to homeowners towards the end of February. It was suggested that we contact our District Council representative, Claudia Walters (who is also Vice Mayor) It is important that all homeowners at Arboleda share their opinion on the need to heighten our perimeter wall; whether we should approach city council with the prospect of our wall being included as part of the public work project or should we consider making this a private endeavor for our Homeowners’ Association to handle and bare the financial obligation. What do you think? Let’s have an informal meeting at my home, 3550 E June circle, to brainstorm on a strategic plan, Saturday, February 10th at 7:00pm. Or you can send remarks to my email: casamia1@cox.net (or email any of our association board members). My home phone number is 480 924-4513 and mobile is 480 283-7143. - Doris Ramos - Lot 16 Litigation Update Dear Arboleda Homeowners We have an update on the legal case which has been in progress between the Arboleda Community Association (plaintiff) and Nick and Linda Mazzola (defendants) for several years. The trial took place between Oct 31 and Nov 2 and the judge issued her decision on Dec 14. The Board received notice on Dec 20 The judge ruled as follows: 1. The defendants violated the CC&Rs by leveling their front yard landscaping in 2002. 2. The plaintiff denied in a timely manner the defendants’ architectural application to install artificial turf. 3. The notice of denial indicated the wrong date of denial. 4. The plaintiff could have but did not respond to defendants’ letters in 2002 claiming that the decision was untimely. 5. Because the plaintiff could have clarified the facts or corrected the defendants’ misunderstanding of the date of denial, the plaintiff must pay for the reinstallation of the lawn with mid-iron sod. 6. The defendants must correct the elevation of the lawn at their expense. The court also reiterated its former decision that artificial turf is prohibited and must be removed. In essence, the court was persuaded that the denial letter was not properly drafted and was concerned with the Association’s failure to respond to the November letters and offer some explanation that the application was denied on October 1. Since this was during the period when Toll Brothers was in complete control of the association, the Board intends to recover the costs of replacing the artificial turf from Toll Brothers. Clearly the landscaping elevation will need to be corrected (at the defendants’ expense) before mid-iron sod can be installed (at the plaintiff’s expense). The next issue to be resolved in this case is: who is the prevailing party for purposes of attorneys’ fees. Given the split decision the court may find that neither party is the prevailing party (i.e. each side will be responsible for their own attorneys’ fees). That remains to be seen. The judge will not rule on this until an application for attorneys’ fees and costs and a form of judgment are filed, objected to, a reply is done, and a hearing is conducted. It will still be a few months before a final judgment is rendered. We will pass on further information as it is received. A copy of the Minute Entry from the Superior Court is attached below. Best regards Mike Orr On behalf of the Board of Directors of the Arboleda Community Association