March 8 - Weekly Update
By Jim Hilker, Caribbean Village HOA President
Smoke in the Air
By now you’ve all noticed the smoke smell when the wind is coming out of the south. This is due to the burning of piles of trees and brush generated from the land clearing on the other side of Venice Ave where they are beginning construction of the 280 +/- apartment units and a new Publix plaza on the corner of River Rd and Venice Ave. I reached out to our neighboring HOA Boards of both Stonewalk and Stoneybrook to see if we might be able to make a cohesive inquiry to Sarasota County to examine if there is any grievance that we could launch on this pile-burning. The county said that the developer secured a burn-permit from the state. The county said they are monitoring those daily burns to make sure they follow they state requirements. Therefore, unfortunately we will have to deal with smoky air now and then during this phase of that project. Let’s just hope that the winds are favorable for CV and keeps the smoke blowing away from us.
Men’s Night, March 18th, 5:30 - 8:30
Guys, since the ladies are having their “Ladies Night” on March 18th at a local restaurant, I thought it would be a great opportunity for us to have a “Men’s Night” at the same time. Our Men’s Night March 18th will be a corn hole tournament at the Bocce Ball court behind the clubhouse. It is a “BYOB” event, and also a BYBG (bring your best game), because you all might have a tough time beating your HOA president at this game.
Please open the form and sign-up if you plan to attend. Even if you don’t wish to participate in the tournament, it would be great for you to come and just hang out and chat with everyone!
Work Orders
You’ll notice that the website navigation at the top of the page has a new “Work Order” link added to it. This is because we need you all to use the form on that page to submit any issues you see related to CV community that the HOA Board needs to take action on. Such issues would be related to irrigation, gates, safety, street lights, community pool and clubhouse amenities, etc. Any work orders submitted on the Capstone Portal will take MUCH longer to get to the HOA Board, which severely delays response and action time on the issues, so please use the form on this website.
Landscaping Company
As announced, our new Landscaping Company, Mint Condition Services, will begin their contract soon. I had previously announced they would be starting in March, but that was my error in reading the communication from Brightview which I initially read it as they were stay until March, when in fact it read staying with us through March. Sorry for my miscommunication on that. I feel compelled to let you know it is likely that Brightview’s last month of service with us will be missing the mark on good service, but then that is their status-quo regardless, so we can just expect one final month of more of the same from them ;)
April can’t come soon enough!
Gate Access System Update
The Venice Ave gate access system update (Key Pad and Fob segment) is rather complex. There have been many different hands in there over the years changing wires around in attempts to “fix” past issues. We’ve been working this past week to re-organize the wires and get a fresh and clean re-do. Thanks for your patience as our neighborhood experts volunteer their time to work this through.
Please note than when this is completed, it is expected that all fobs will work again, and the new keypad will open the gate using assigned codes. The main change is that the keypad will not call out, it will simply open the gate instead.
Clubhouse Door Locks
As you all heard, the Clubhouse meeting room and fitness room door locks developed an issue with the magnetic locks not releasing, causing folks to get locked inside. This issus still persists and we’ll be pushing hard to get it remedied in the coming days.
Did You Know?
Our irrigation system is setup in a system of “zones”, which are controlled to turn on / off by two separate timer devices. The timers cycle through zones on the days set in the system. The timer device sends “ON” and “OFF” signals to a decoder at each zone, and the decoder opens the valve of that zone allowing the water to irrigate the lawn and plant beds. If you walk out front of your house in the morning before the sun hits your sidewalk, you will know if your irrigation came on or not by whether your sidewalk is dry or wet. If you find that your next-door neighbor’s sidewalk is wet but yours is dry, then that tells you that your zone valve did not open to allow the water to irrigate your property, and then you need to report that on the Work Order form.