Las Vistas Blog – Fall, 2016
Hello Fellow Bloggers,
Greetings from sunny Florida where the weather is now sublime with gentle breezes and warm (not stifling) temperatures in the low to mid-80’s. If you are not here yet, you are in for a treat! We gratefully weathered a hurricane this summer with very little stress, and the relentless rains of summer have quieted down.
I did want to mention, however, that we have a new traveling resident, whom I have unofficially named to myself, Henri. He is about 15 feet long and has been seen by many of us cruising down our Middle River tributary – yes, you are right if you guessed that Henri is an alligator. Don’t know if he will be a permanent resident, or has just been visiting, but thought you might like to know about him! It is picture of Henri that I have highlighted for this blog.
On another note, I am sure that you are wondering why I have not been in communication with you over the last several months and that you also know by now that we had a complete crash of our e-mail capabilities this summer due to the server going down at the firm that takes care of our IT needs. I was finally able to send out some test e-mails last week to our special “group” of all the residents at Las Vistas with e-mail addresses. This is a huge group and restoring it was an enormous challenge and we are still tweaking what they downloaded. Some of you may be getting e-mail messages at more than one address that you provided, and we hope you will contact us and let us know which e-mail address you prefer us to use.
That being said, we managed to get out to our e-mail unit owners the 2017 Draft Budget for our Association, and we have placed in the mail the copies for those without e-mail. We first attempted a hand-delivery of the draft budget and we are grateful for the Directors and volunteers who assisted in this delivery and lessened the number of packets that we had to mail. We were also able to send out our First Notice of our Annual Meeting and Election by both e-mail and snail mail, and hopefully you have all received this as well.
Notwithstanding the e-mail crisis, we still ran the Association and it was business as usual, including the sales and rental activity. I can report that the following units were sold since my last blog and include: in the A building - a three-bedroom for $60,000, and a two-bedroom for $75,000; a two-bedroom in B for $65,000; a two-bedroom in P for $65,000; in the F building, a two-bedroom for $81,000, a two-bedroom for $56,000, a two-bedroom for $55,500, a two-bedroom for $94,500, and a two-bedroom for $106,000; and in the R building, a two-bedroom for $94,500. We also renewed six annual leases and approved 8 seasonal leases in a variety of buildings.
At a special meeting in August, we approved the renewal of our insurance policies for Las Vistas, and have renewed several contracts with service vendors such as our landscaper, etc.
In my President’s Report for our Board Meetings, I try to report about the very many projects that our janitorial and maintenance staff have completed during the summer months. I have a running update week by week of the “non-everyday” activities of our staff – tasks other than cleaning our buildings, removing dumpsters for garbage pickup, handling bulk pickups and their aftermath, cleaning the grounds and buildings, etc.
During this summer, we made some changes in the routine workday for our maintenance men who are now assigned to specific buildings whereby they go around first thing each morning and pick up any garbage, large branches and twigs, and any debris they can see to clean up the area. The second chore they have is to attend to the pools, skimming, cleaning the area, etc.
The projects worked on included having all of our laundry rooms cleaned and repainted, the popcorn ceilings taken down, the windows cleaned and the light fixture covers replaced. All of our building downspouts have been cleaned, the chicken wire removed and replaced. Shuffle board courts have been repainted and relined with the exception of one by pool # 3 that needs repairs. The canal pipes have been cleaned at least twice this summer and extensive water vacuuming has taken place in the low areas of our property due to the heavy rainfall we had all summer long. All the building outside air conditioning lines have been blown twice. The pool furniture and parasols were cleaned after we put everything back from the hurricane preparedness, and the furniture was deep cleaned. We are aware that the parasols are in bad shape, a situation which we hope will be remedied with the new budget.
All the doors to our unit doors have been cleaned and all the globes throughout the complex and on the catwalks have been cleaned and damaged ones replaced – but, as you know, this is an ongoing issue given the number of bulbs required and the outside globes around our perimeter need to be cleaned yet again! We extended a ramp on the side of the clubhouse and refurbished the shed. A much needed new door was installed and our men painted and built a side panel and it looks really nice.
I wanted all of you to know how hard our janitorial and maintenance staff has worked this summer. You can see from my recent blogs the number of projects completed and that this was not a quiet nor slow summer by any means, even with sweltering and rainy weather experienced most days. I have a weekly planning meeting with our Maintenance Supervisor and we set goals for the staff for the week and review what has been completed or what needs more time, etc. This has proven very helpful and has become a normal part of the work routine. I for one, have appreciated their loyalty and hard work and feel we are very fortunate to have this staff working for us.
Regarding security, I met with our Security Committee and we will be reviewing our experience over the summer months with the car decals and guest passes and will keep you abreast of movement in this area.
In my last blog, I mentioned all the proofreading that was being done to the latest editions of our governing documents. Emily Sudine-Wynter, our Secretary, and I have completed much of the proofreading and we are now digging up exhibits and entering the final phase of production. We have the binders in house, and hope that we will be able to complete this project in the next month or so. As I mentioned before, the document binder will contain a new telephone directory, the Articles of Incorporation, the Declaration of Condominium, the By-Laws, and the Rules & Regulations.
On a final note, I am happy to report that Brenda White, our receptionist, is back at work after hip surgery and you will once again here her cheerful voice over the telephone.
As usual, when closing this edition of the Las Vistas Blog, I extend my wish that the sun shines every day for all of us.
