January 25 Update
By Jim Hilker, President Caribbean Village HOA President
Capstone Surprise
We on the HOA Board have been through a whirlwind of change this month. We started January with a brand new HOA Management Company, and we were super-excited knowing we were transitioning from Associa, a large national firm based out of Texas, to a small, husband-wife owned and operated company based here is Sarasota County. We knew that going local was going to eliminate the struggles we have been facing for the past two years with Associa, and before them, RealManage. On January 9th, just nine days into this new contract, we received an email from the owners of Capstone announcing they have been acquired by a national firm, Property Management Inc (PMI). Yep, your reaction right now is similar to ours on January 9.
My initial emotionally-charged reaction was that we need to cancel our contract immediately and just bring it all in-house and be self-managed by our Board and committees. We talked about this as a Board and realized we have no option at this time but to stay with PMI-Capstone, because the very complex transition from Associa to Capstone was fully engaged yet incomplete, and disrupting that right now would be the worst thing to do. We all agreed that we have to ride this out through the first quarter, but as we do, work on positioning ourselves to be fully organized, state certified, and prepared to become self-managed should we decide that is necessary come April.
This past week Joani and I attended an Open house at PMI Capstones’ office in Sarasota where we listened to, and shared our concerns with the President and Sr. VP of PMI along with many other local HOA Board members. Joani and I were fortunate to have several minutes of conversation with the president of PMI by ourselves and he was very interested to hear we are their newest client and are very concerned that we could “fall through the cracks” as they work through their own organizational acquisition maze. After the general Q&A session we received personal assistance from the new Capstone Director of Operations where she set us up in their online management system with the full access that we needed. We have notice a significant increase in their attention to us since that day, so this is encouraging.
With such challenges as this early on in our new 5-Member HOA Board, I want to share how blessed I feel, and which we are to have such amazing people on the CV Board. Joani, Ramona, David, and Karen are such wise, level-headed, and experienced leaders and we all work together seamlessly to arrive at great decisions that are balanced and sound. I am relaxed in the comfort of knowing that “we got this” and will bring CV in the right direction and outcomes, regardless of what comes at us in the coming weeks and months.
MULCH!
I have arranged to get a date scheduled for our annual mulching of planting beds. The last week of February the mulch will be delivered and the crew will spread it beginning March 3rd. We’re discussing whether to stage the pallets throughout the neighborhood as done in the past, or to just stack it all in the Clubhouse parking lot where our security cameras will enable us to watch over it. We’re leaning toward the parking lot option at this time.
Please be sure that anything you need to do in your own planting beds in preparation for mulching is taken care of before March.
Flash Poll Result
This past week, your HOA Board member, David Lingard, met with the owner of our pool maintenance vendor at the pool to discuss issues and needs. Here is a brief summary of that meeting:
Only 1 of the three pool heaters is functioning .We’re getting competitive quotes to replace all three.
They were surprised that we were trying to heat our pool during cold periods in January and February, and stated that it is more expensive to maintain heated pool water temperature during cold spells than it is to return the pool water to temperature when the weather warms up. He added that most pools in communities go un-heated during cold spells as few, if any, people use the pools during those cold days regardless of the water temperature (hence the Flash Poll of this week).
They have assigned a new weekly pool cleaning staff-member for us effective immediately (YAY!!!)
Did You Know?
Joani suggested that I add this piece in my Weekly Updates - what a great idea!!
The primary rules that govern what we as residents are required to abide with are written in the “Declaration of Covenants”. This is the document that should be read FIRST and most often.
The second most-important document for residents is the “Rules and Regulations”, which is basically our Architectural Review guide and drills down to more specific details of the Covenants.
The third guidance document is the Bylaws. These are specific to the legal functions of the Board, meetings, voting rights, etc. and do not contain any guidance on what we can or can not do with our properties.
Download all three of these documents below:
That’s all for this week. Have a great weekend and week coming up!