Manager's Report

Today we have 922 spaces full with 140 renters and 782 owners.  This is comparable to last year at this time when we had 139 renters and 774 owners for a total of 913.

I’ll start today by thanking John Falk and the Election Committee for all of their hard work last week.  They folded all the Notices, candidate resumes and ballots, stuffed the envelopes, stamped the return envelopes and the privacy envelopes, put labels and stamps on them for mailing.  My thanks also goes to Wanda Alsup who helped every step of the way, even working on the labels themselves and to Pat Galyardt who helped with typing the labels.  All of these volunteers worked hard to assure the association met the legal deadlines for ballot mailing.   The ballots were mailed on January 18^th, which was last Friday and I understand many of you received them on Saturday.  I encourage you to read the candidate resumes, talk to the candidates and attend the forum.

The Nomination Committee deserves thanks and a lot of credit for a great job recruiting candidates and advertising the Candidates Forum the 29^th of January.  As usual we have a ballot full of good people running.

As soon as the forum is over, the ballot box will be placed in the lobby for voting.  Residents may place their ballots in the box anytime until the start of the annual meeting on February 19^th at 1:00 pm.  The ballot box and the election committee will be in the small card room on February 18^th for anyone who cares to vote that day.  As John as told you, the votes will be counted at the close of the election on Monday, February 18^th.  On Tuesday all final votes received that day will be added to the count.  It is really very exciting.  Fortunately, we don’t have television ads!

The big dig by the wood shop is the result of major phone service loss south of Nightdigger Dr.  When we traced the problem back to the frame room, we discovered damaged cable.  It appears that when the sewer was installed, the pipe split the cables going north to south.  The cables were tangled around the pipe.  We found rusty nails in the trench that had poked through the drain pipe from the upstairs sinks.  The leak, a steady drip, fed the tree roots which in turn grew around the cable.  Several roots had cable in them.  We could see the cable sheath still in the root.  Water then got into the cable and eventually damaged it enough to cause problems. Our solution is to replace the eleven 50 pair cables with 7 100 pair cables.  This will give us spare pairs which can be used where we need them.

Even with all the repairs, the telephone company pays for itself.  It has actually made $73,000 profit for the park since we purchased it.

Yesterday I met with managers from Venture Out and Greenfield Village to discuss problems facing our respective homeowners associations.  Water consumption, sewer costs, and electricity increases are plaguing us all.  Venture Out has 1750 spaces, 8 bath houses, two 90,000 gallon pools and 4 hot tubs.  They have 140 acres to irrigate.  They used 57,700,000 gallons of water last year compared with our 35, 600,000 we used.  Their studies show that 67% - 75% of their water does not go into the sewer.  Their sewer costs change every month but are higher in the winter months, $17,000, than in the off season.  They pay less on average than we do. Our sewer bill is figured on a formula that uses 80% of the water we use goes into the sewer.  I think that is as far off as it is for Venture Out.

Greenfield Village is smaller than we are with 973 spaces. Their sewer expense is smaller too, $7000 a month on average. Mesa provides both water and sewer for both parks.  Our sewer provider is a private company, but they work closely with the city of Apache Junction.  They provide the sewer company with the total gallons used per year.  Road Haven’s manager reported to me that their sewer bill in $8400 per month.  They have a treatment plant so they only use the sewer company during the season.  He also told me that they lowered their sewer bill from $9300 to $8400 in one year with a strong conservation effort. 

I’m wondering if volunteers from here who are interested in conservation might be interested in meeting with the Road Haven folks and jump start our conservation program.  If anyone is interested, please contact me or one of the board members.   There is a great IBM commercial on TV “Stop Talking and Start Doing”.  I think that is a good idea.

I will be meeting with the Superstition Mountain CFD next week to discuss options.  If we meter our effluent for a year, will they honor the results?  What other options are there?  I think it is time for them to revise their formula.

The big pool heater is working again.  The heat exchanger had a hole burned in the corner which was causing the problem.  Bruce from Davis Pools was here last week with the parts and fixed it.  Swimmers are smiling again.

We have had a report of golf balls getting out of the netting in the driving cages again.  Please watch to see how this is happening.  Last season a resident’s car was dented from an escaped golf ball.  We don’t want this to happen again.  I have called Dave Bang and Associates for advice and am waiting for a return call.  They are the experts on golf cages and other sports equipment facilities.

Closing the showers by the pool for one hour every day for additional cleaning is having a huge effect on their cleanliness.  We have eradicated the mold that persisted in that moist environment.  Even the air conditioning and fans didn’t seem to dry the shower rooms out during the day.  We are spraying them down with anti-bacterial and mold fighting cleaners and scrubbing them down now twice a day.