Hello CCHOA Members and Residents,
As we continue to recover from the recent ice storm, I want to ensure that you stay informed and up-to-date on how the HOA’s storm cleanup and recovery is progressing.
In a case of terrible timing, let me start by apologizing to our Westwood Band members and boosters for competing with your mulch fundraiser. It was never our intent to undercut your fundraiser by offering free mulch from the HOA community center. It just worked out that we had an over supply available and wanted to offer it up as a service to the neighborhood and that announcement unintentionally coincided with the start of your sale.From the looks of it, the HOA’s pile at the community center isn’t getting smaller very quickly so hopefully we’ve had little to no impact on your sales.
On a more serious note, by now you should be noticing various parts of the common areas being cleared and debris hauled away. For now, the Board has chosen to let our landscaping contractor handle the majority of the cleanup. Unlike many of the bids we considered for cleanup, they chose to continue to charge what in our view is a very reasonable day rate rather than engage in predatory pricing. Dividing their time between us and their other customers, they have been able to provide us one or two crews a few days each week. At this rate, the cleanup progress will be slow but steady. We have been targeting cleanup around the community center and near the school where most pedestrian traffic is located and will spread out from there over time.
After a review of our insurance coverage we expect that almost 100% of the cleanup costs will be covered by our policy. Regardless, the Board made the determination early on that it did not want to rush into damage cleanup and reward contractors that chose to engage in predatory pricing by overpaying. We felt it would not be in the long term best interest of the Association (or future boards), to gain the reputation as being fiscally reckless or uninformed and easy to take advantage of. If this were to happen, we felt it would be difficult to get bids on future projects that reflect true market rates. While our insurance policy is covering cleanup costs, we’re not expecting it to cover aftercare for the extensive work we need for the long term health and recovery of our trees. I do expect this amount to be significant and for that reason, I will reiterate that we should be prepared for the possibility of a special assessment to cover some or all of this expense.
Our intrepid trail volunteers continue to make progress on reopening the canyonland greenbelt trails. At the present time, the trail is open from the Savannah Ridge trailhead, past the majestic oak to the Brimfield fire road trailhead. The trail from the Cinnabar trailhead to the majestic oak is still impassable. In addition, the lower and upper trails from the Brimfield trailhead to Trailhead Park is still impassable. Many thanks to John Abrams, Kyle Pool, David Diaz, Dean El-Baz and Jessica Kirker (and any others I may have missed) for their efforts in safely reopening the trails. Another scheduled cleanup effort is planned so if you’d like to participate, please e-mail trails@canyoncreek.net to coordinate.
IMPORTANT: If your property borders the HOA greenbelt or other HOA common area, please read!
If a tree located anywhere on HOA property has broken limbs or other damage from the storm where it could later fall and hurt someone or damage your property, please e-mail board@canyoncreek.net right away so that we can get it looked at. If a tree in the greenbelt is already down, or has broken limbs that are not a threat to anyone or anything you do not need to report. Please include the address and a photo of the damage if possible.
And finally, just a quick reminder about the annual meeting to be held on Monday Mar. 6 at 6:30pm at Peace Lutheran Church just outside the neighborhood on 620. If you do not plan to attend in person, please remember to complete and return your proxy or use the online voting service.
On behalf of the board,
Brett Funderburg
President, CCHOA