Annual POA Meeting 2010

So, the prettier, politer half of YPS and I went to the annual POA Board meeting last night. Really, the Board should sell drinks at these things. It would be a way to help out the budget and make the meetings more bearable. The Board should also see about holding the meetings in a place with some lights, too. People were, no joke, using flashlights to read the programs. Whoever designed the auditorium at Oak Ridge High apparently felt lights weren't necessary.

Anyhow, the usual suspects were in attendance. Brandi Leal, some other PCMI minion, the social planner (Jennifer?), Linda Houston, Rick Gadd, Greg Grant, and Roy Hailey. I guess Bliss Roberts resigned from the board, since she wasn't there. As always, our fearless leader Al Brende didn't show up. They also had the new MoCo deputy who is our contracted patrol leader.
The big news: meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Greg Grant got booted off the board. Sebastien Moulin and Kenneth Brown are now our resident board members. Kenneth has been involved in the community as Traffic Safety Chair ever since we moved here. Now that I can associate a face to a name, I've seen Sebastien at just about every meeting I've attended, so he's obviously involved as well. Whether or not they'll do a good job is the next question. If not, we can boot them next year.

Of course, given the Board is still controlled by Land Tejas, I'm quite sure there's a hard limit to what Sebastien and Kenneth can accomplish if Al and his minions are against it. In any event, I wish them well, right up until they try to do something I don't like. Then I will call for their removal from the Board, banishment from polite society, and ostracization from the community. If it comes to that, any of you who might be members of polite society or the community shall have to let me know how that works out.

Greg gave a lovely little speech about everything he had done for the community, and it may all be true. I dunno. Given the crappy summary notes the Board puts out for meeting minutes, you'd never be able to tell. However, he flat out admitted he doesn't answer emails. I think his lack of response may have killed his reelection. People may accept that nothing can be done about a situation, but they don't like feeling their concerns are ignored. I get a sense a lot of residents don't feel anybody listens to them. Perhaps our new resident members will do a better job at communicating with the rest of us. Again, we shall see.

What was more interesting to me was the budget numbers presented. The subdivision has run in the red every single year since the community was built. Maybe I'm dumb, but this indicates a problem to me. You can't run any organization over the long term with continual deficits unless you're the federal government. Last time I checked, we weren't. We're also supposed to be maintaining a reserve fund to pay for the expenses we're bound to face in the future for things like road maintenance and clubhouse maintenance. I asked about it. We have nothing in our reserve fund, we owe our builder 200 large, and the Board is out spending money on speed bumps. This makes no sense to me, and the snide dismissal by Brandi does absolutely nothing to endear her to me.

Our budget is the biggest problem we, as a community, face and nobody seems to be doing anything about it. Instead, everybody demands funding of their little pet issue and stubbornly resists any cuts to the pet while insisting everything else be discarded. It doesn't help that we're still $500K short from all the dues we should be collecting. Something has to give, and sooner rather than later. I don't want my assessments to be raised every single year because the Board is incapable of managing our money responsibly. Since Al and his employees run the Board, I'm pretty much blaming Al and Land Tejas for this one. They built a bunch of amenities that are expensive to maintain, and then set the assessments too low to adequately cover them and a reserve fund. I guess it's easier to pitch your nice, shiny community if it has low assessments.

I also blame Al for the people who won't stop bitching about the golf course. Yeah, Al gave himself a revenue stream for his golf course out of our POA dues. Yes, it was sleazy and unethical, but we got it stopped and it's over. Unless you can figure out a way to make Houston National Golf Club give us our money back, have a cup of STFU and let it go.

We also spent a whole bunch of time listening to people nattering about speed bumps. People are for them, people are against them, they're too high, they're effective, they're not effective. Whatever. Somebody explain to me how an organization that can't adequately fund ongoing operations can find the money to install speed bumps. I'm not seeing it. You can desire speed bumps all you want, but you need to figure out how to pay for them. I don't see where the POA has the money.

I'd comment on what Officer Friendly had to say, but he rambled so much I'm not entirely sure. Something about double edged swords, and gangs, and how he drives his own truck around to be super-ninja cop or something. He was marginally more coherent than a head trauma patient, but only just.

I'm beginning to feel these meetings are more or less political theatre to keep the residents partially mollified. Al and his cronies are going to do the minimum possible to keep the subdivision an attractive marketing opportunity until they can close it out. Once they hand over the POA, we'll still have the same budget problems, but it'll be our problem and we'll have to raise assessments or slash services. The future looks pretty bleak from where I'm sitting.

Traffic Light Solution

So, as I mentioned last week, the county will at some point be putting up a stop light at the intersection of Rayford and Legends Ranch. People have been complaining for some time about the apparent lack of progress. I think I may have a solution.

Monday morning, shortly before 7:15 AM, someone t-boned a school bus at the intersection of Birnham Woods and Riley Fuzzel. By 6 PM Tuesday night, the county had put stop signs up at the intersection. I was quite surprised, since normally it takes a bit more time to get MoCo to do anything.

So, if you really want the county to act on the traffic light, run into a school bus there. It seems to get them moving quickly.

The Pains Of Community

So, there was a POA Town Hall Meeting last night at the intermediate school. I'm still vague on the distinction between an intermediate school and a junior high. Since the two complexes are next to each other, I assume there is one. Anyhow, the POA situation is not changed terribly since last I posted on the events o' the subdivision.

Last night's meeting was attended by Brandi Leal, our PCMI manager, Sarah Hudson, who also works with PCMI, Roy Hailey, our POA attorney, and Linda Houston and Rick Gadd, two of our non-resident board members. Not in attendance were Bliss Roberts and Greg Grant, our two resident board members. As always, Al Brende wasn't there, either. Has anyone actually ever seen him? I've been to several of the POA events in the last year and he never shows up. In the cheap seats out of front of them were about 44 residents, give or take a few.

The most important news: The POA is still broke. So far this year, we've spent just over a million dollars. There's $44K left in the operating account. I sincerely hope much of the expenses for the year are paid upfront, or else there's a problem. My math suggests our burn rate is right at $112,800 a month. As a side note, that seems a trifle excessive. In any event, $44K isn't enough to cover three months at that rate.

The attorney explained (again) what is being done to collect the money we're owed by delinquent builders and homeowners. Unfortunately, you simply can't get blood from a stone. If the entity in question does not have money, you can't get it from them no matter how many nasty letters you send. Having said that, the POA is foreclosing on 32 houses in the next two months. As builders sell properties, they are paying the POA the past due amounts. I guess if you want the POA to be current, you should be extolling the virtues of our humble community to everyone you meet. Push that real estate, folks!

We are going to go overbudget paying for the constables who spend 4 hours wandering aimlessly through our subdivision. So far we've spent $31K of the $35K budgeted for the year. The more numerically inclined among you can see that's not going to work. Given we're so broke, why we continue to pay for a Constable to do... do... okay, I'll be honest. I have no idea what the hell the constables do for their 4 hours in the subdivision besides hang out at the Splash Pad scoping out MILFs. Since the Pad is closed for the fall, they won't be doing even that. I know they're not enforcing traffic laws. I'm sorry, but giving the more scatter-brained among us a warm fuzzy feeling when they see a police car just isn't worth $35K.

On that note, we pay $160K a year for the guards at the front gate. That's guard service alone, not any of the infrastructure to support the guards. I have no idea if that's excessive or not.

So,the next topic of conversation was the pool hours. Let me be upfront with you: I don't care. I don't go to the pool. I don't know what the hours were. I barely read what the proposed hours are. Some of you, quite obviously, care a whole lot. In fact, I get the impression that one or two of you could give a rat's ass about anything other than making sure the pool will be open when you want to swim. Here's an observation: the pool hours are always going to be one of the first things to get axed when the POA goes broke because pool hours are one of the few discretionary items in the budget . Again, other than my desire to not see my assessment increase and to see the POA remain solvent, I don't care. Fight amongst yourselves about when the pool stays open and get back with me.

Anyhow, if you really like to swim, the pool will be open from 5AM to 10Am throughout the fall for you to swim at your own risk. I note, however, that the pool is not heated. It's going to be a wee bit chilly come January. Having owned a pool until recently, and having had to jump in it in January, I can verify this from personal experience. I ain't that hardcore. More power to you if you are. Go sign the waiver at the clubhouse and get on with yo' bad self.

After finances and pool hours was the best part of the meeting: Open Forum. Some of what I have mentioned above actually came out in the Open Forum. You know what an open forum at a POA meeting is? It's an opportunity to bitch. Whee! Or, for those of us who don't really have any complaints, it's an opportunity to see what everybody else is complaining about this month.

First up is the most annoying complaint: Spring Trails property values are apparently higher than ours. Let me be the first to say: so fucking what? Don't come to the meeting and complain about a fact. This is like coming to the meeting and complaining that Riley Fuzzel is only two lanes past Rayford. Yeah, and your point would be? There's nothing the POA Board, or anybody else, can do to magically make property values in Legends Ranch increase. A quick run through some of the builder websites and the properties for sale at Spring Trails tells me houses start out priced higher in that subdivision. I can buy a similarly sized home in Spring Trails for $100K more than I can buy one in Legends Ranch. Of course they're gonna be worth more on resale! They were worth more in the first place. If it offends you that much, (and since this is the second meeting I've heard this complaint, it must), sell your house and move to Spring Trails. Quit complaining about the real estate market. It's not susceptible to change by the POA Board no matter how much you bitch about it.

There was also an amazing amount of discussion about how other people keep their lawn. I'm sure none of the good citizens in attendance ever get letters about their lawn care. Well, except for me and the guy that admitted he gets them. Not being at all anal-retentive about lawn care, I just can't get fired up over this issue like some of y'all do. Having looked over the deed restrictions carefully, I'm willing to bet money a large number of residents are in violation of the landscaping guidelines and don't even know it. I'm equally as willing to bet Brandi isn't checking for some of the things in the deed restrictions. It seems to me if you keep your lawn mowed, nobody cares. Well, that's not entirely true, but it's a good rule of thumb. Some of your neighbors care a whole lot about the way you keep your lawn. Some people apparently don't have a lot to do except find fault with their neighbors.

While we're on the subject of lawn care, let's discuss untended builder lots. The POA is not going to force mow the builder lots and homes. I know some of you will be unhappy, but it's the right decision. If the POA force mows, the lawn service has to be paid. Remember the part above about the POA being broke? Yes, the money can eventually be recovered when the property sells. But in the meantime, the POA is out the money, and with things as tight as they are, that's not an optimal situation. The POA can't afford to kick out $17K once a month to force mow and wait some indefinite period to get the money back.

The traffic light at the front entrance came up again. We're on the list and have a nice day. After the goatfuck that was the traffic petition, the Commissioners' Court isn't inclined to do any favors for us. So someday, we'll get a traffic light out there. One person in attendance thought the way to get the traffic light was to call and complain to the Commissioners. Hmm. Maybe I'm missing the subtle nuances of the political process, but isn't BS like that what got them pissed off at the subdivision in the first place? I'm thinking continuing to antagonize the Court isn't likely to win us friends at the county. We may want them to think kindly of us at some point.

Some enterprising soul also asked about speed bumps. Apparently, speed bumps are in the budget for next year. These will not be the cheesy little bolted POS ones, either. Brandi is talking full on strips of asphalt and everything. Now I'll have to go back and look, but I seem to recall the survey on speed bumps from one of the community newsletters came back with a resounding NO. If that's the case, why are we going to spend money on something the residents don't want?

There were more complaints and blather, but at some point I had enough and left. Frankly, listening to people bitch about mind-bogglingly trivial bullshit gets old fast for me. Shockingly, I'm not a customer service kind of guy. Instead, I'd like to propose a good rule of thumb for these meetings. I know everybody thinks their problem is the most important one in the whole world. Surprisingly, the rest of us don't much care about your petty individual problem. If your issue doesn't affect a significant portion of the rest of the community, a town hall meeting probably isn't the time and place to bring it up. Brandi and the rest of the Board have contact info posted on the official website. Call or email them and bitch instead of airing your personal problems in front of the rest of us.

Tasteful Cards

Okay, maybe not so much tasteful as funny. The fine folks at Bluntcard are full of mirth and good cheer to send your fellow man. Given recent discussions about Independence Day fireworks in our subdivision, I found this one particularly appropriate. Although to the best of my limited knowledge, no houses were destroyed during the festivities.

If you prefer something a little more subtle, because this isn't, perhaps you could try the folks at Someecards. Of course, this isn't all that subtle, either. Hmm.

Does Hallmark do e-cards? Maybe you can find good taste and subtlety there.

Legends Ranch POA Board June Meeting

I’m not going to give you an exhaustive breakdown here. I’ll just throw out my primary takeaways and thoughts. First off, our Board seems like a reasonable group. They appear sincere in trying to address resident concerns. They do seem to be a get a tad exasperated because every resident has one particular hobbyhorse they want to beat to death. Or several, depending on the resident. Me, I just went to observe and see the dynamic in person.

The first big issue is the construction entrance. A whole bunch of people point out the subdivision is not really a gated secure community with that entrance still open. Also, the deed restrictions specifically prohibit any entrance that isn’t secured. Not living near it, I don’t have a dog in that hunt except as it concerns security. Everybody by the construction entrance seems to hate it, it’s a security hole, and it’s prohibited by the deed restrictions. So, the construction entrance has got to close.

The only question is how we do that and still allow for construction equipment and heavy vehicles. Neither of the existing controlled access gates is suitable for heavy truck traffic. Mesa Valley is too narrow, and we’ve already had problems with drivers of big vehicles clipping the guardhouse. The most feasible solution seems to be widening the Easy Tag lane at the front, but that costs money. Guess what? The POA is broke.

The POA is also pursuing speed bumps, even though it appears a majority of residents don’t want them. This strikes me as bizarre, but the speed bump question was essentially tabled until executive session. I didn’t get to attend that, so I guess we’ll all see what the Board comes out with when the minutes are posted. I don’t see how the Board can justify spending money on speed bumps when we’re in violation of the covenant with an unsecured gate. However, I’m not on the Board.

The POA also has budget issues. Everybody had some suggestions for how to trim money and which services are unimportant. Unfortunately for the Board, every service someone wants cut is another resident’s favorite thing evar. My suggestion? Get rid of the security patrols by the Constables. If they can’t write tickets and are only there for 4 hours from 5-9 PM, what good are they doing the community? The only time I ever see Constable patrol cars, they’re hanging out at the Splash Pad parking lot. I guess that deters crime at the Splash Pad, but I don’t see that as an issue. Maybe I need to reread the police reports for the subdivision and I'll find out the Splash Pad is a hotbed of crime.

If everybody was paying their dues, maybe the budget wouldn’t be an issue. The number being tossed around for the dues shortfall is $330K. I don’t know if that money would completely solve the budget issues, or if there’s deeper problems. However, the economy being what it is, you can’t get blood from a stone. If residents are getting foreclosed and builders are going bankrupt, I’m pretty sure the missing money to make up the budget shortfall just ain’t there. Budget cuts seem the only way to go, but I'm sure someone will bitch about those, too.

Finally, there is the traffic petition. The county now wants a majority of resident property owners to approve the petition, which is a death knell in my opinion. That means they have to get 625 property owners to agree. According to the POA manager, they can’t even get 20% of the subdivision to pick up the windshield stickers. I’m feeling doubtful they can get the numbers. Since the county doesn’t really want to do it in the first place, the Commissioners’ Court is going to use every excuse they can to not pass it.

However, at this point, I’m baffled by the point of the petition. The county has told the POA there will be no patrols even if the petition passes. What I’m taking away is we will get the level of police protection we are willing to contract. So the traffic petition is asking all of us to have the POA pay the county so the county can give us traffic tickets. Wait, what? You want me to pay to get ticketed? That’s a resounding screw you from the back row, thanks. I’ve heard dumb ideas, and that certainly qualifies.

In any event, the meeting minutes will be out sometime in the near future. Feel free to peruse them and draw your own conclusions if you weren’t there.

Open Letter To Fellow Residents

If you're going to go forth and place yourself out in front of everybody and try to demand change, you have to be prepared for a little blowback. Not everybody will agree with what you're trying to do, no matter how clear the case may seem to you. If you can't handle the blowback, perhaps you shouldn't be placing yourself in front of everybody. Criticism comes with the territory. If what you're trying to do is really important, you should be able to shrug off a little criticism to reach your goals. If you can't handle criticism or opposition, than either you and your fragile little psyche shouldn't be out there, or it's not really worth it to you to suffer through the process.

Furthermore, spending all your time complaining about how people treated you does nothing to advance the goal you're ostensibly working towards. To be blunt, it also makes you look like a thin-skinned whiny little bitch. Presumably you have some coping resources that don't involve putting your pity party on open display on the internet. You might try using those in private.

In short: Man up, nancy. People aren't always nice. Fucking deal with it.

Sincerely,
Adulthood

Community Involvement

So, the taller and grumpier residents of YPS Manor went out to see about the concerns of our fellow neighbors and community residents here in Legends Ranch. I even took notes! So in my attempt to be more of a social creature and less of a misanthropic hermit, I'm actually going to try to be polite. It didn't work so well last time, but today's a new day.

Anyhow, a group of concerned residents are not satisfied with the POA and how it's being run and the response to their concerns. So, they all got together and decided to organize the residents to try to pressure the POA into compliance.

As a side digression, one of the problems is the current makeup of the POA. Our POA, since the subdivision is not completely built out yet, is still controlled by the developer. The developer has different goals and concerns than the actual residents. This is not, in my opinion, something susceptible to change quickly. Best option is to wait until the remaining 200+ houses are sold. Tedious, but the alternatives are time-consuming and expensive. Expensive, as we shall soon see, is an issue for the residents.

Anyhow, the concerned residents have two major issues. The first issue strikes me as legitimate, the second one far, far less so. Issue the first is the finances of our POA. Some numbers were tossed out yesterday that frankly, looking at the financial statements posted on the web, don't make any sense. I'll have to do some digging and see WTF is really going on here. However, if we are collectively ponying up over a million dollars a year to the POA, the POA had damned sure better be exercising some fiduciary responsibility. I have no problem with anyone who wants to understand the disbursement of the monies, especially with an eye to improving how the money is spent.

The next major, and to my mind illegitimate, gripe is the traffic petition. Mommy & Daddy Busybody can't keep their precious snowflakes out of the street. Polite, dammit, polite. Let me try that again.

Some of my fellow residents are concerned about the lack of traffic enforcement within the subdivision. Since the roads in the subdivision are privately owned and maintained, the county has no authority to enforce the Texas Transportation Code. Apparently, this is unacceptable to certain folks in the subdivision. So they have started a petition to allow the county to come into the subdivision and enforce the law. Anybody want to guess my position on this? Anybody?

Man, you people aren't any fun. Coming as a complete shock to all my loyal readers, I think this is the worst idea I've heard since...well, truthfully, since the n00b opened his yapper last time. Repeat along with me one of the painful lessons of history: if you pay the Danegeld, you never get rid of the Dane. If the County Commissioner's Court accepts our petition, they will decide whether or not we pay for the privilege of allowing the cops in to write us tickets. If they agree, we will also never be free of the agreement. Gee, a commitment to help fund the county that we can never break and have no control over! Wow, this sounds like a spectacular idea! Umm, not so much, thanks. How about no? Does no work for everybody?

Now, maybe I missed it in amongst the comedy over at the Yahoo group, but I haven't seen anybody provide me with any statistics that justify the need for traffic enforcement. I get a lot of anecdotes about people not stopping and driving too fast. Since I doubt many of these people have radar guns, I have to question how they know how fast people are driving. Since we're apparently paying a fair sum of money to have constables sit around and not enforce the traffic laws for 4 hours every night, maybe they could gather some data on how many vehicles they see breaking the law relative to the total number of vehicles. Why not? They're apparently keeping a list of the "problem drivers" in the subdivision. If they're already doing the work, let's see the data.

Frankly, the meeting last night was not to "provide information". The meeting was to convert everybody to the positions the organizers held. The information presented was cherry picked to portray the organizers' position in the best possible light. Anyone presenting an opposing viewpoint was dismissed as "ill-informed", even when the organizers had nothing but hand waving to support their positions. All in all, I have to say we got off to a rousing start at engendering bad feelings and creating acrimony. If this is what a POA is good for, I'm glad I've missed out all these years.