Dear Resident of Mountain Cove,
This year we opened the pool at the usual time although we were concerned as usual about the slow payment of dues from the members. After taking a poll of the members that had paid their dues it was apparent that the majority of those members wanted the pool open. We hoped more residents would pay their dues seeing the pool open but the dues are still trickling in. Some of you had lost your jobs and it was understandable that you had difficulty paying but that was only a few so it shouldn't have impacted our budget. We did have a couple of additional expense brought on by Gwinnett County by a new ordinance that required us to install a new main drain in the pool and the cost of refilling the pool. The good thing is that allowed us to do some cosmetic work on the pool and it now looks better than it has in years. So here we are in July and it looks like we are going to be short paying our bills at the end of the year unless we either get at least 25 more members or close the pool. Last year this was the reason we opened it late - so many of you waited till late to pay dues we didn't have enough money and the board thought it was prudent to wait till we made sure we had the funds to pay the bills at the end of the year.
At the board meeting last week we explored the problems with the pool and the lack of interest in paying the dues. This Board has tried everything to get the residents of this subdivision to realize how important it is for all of us to help with the expenses. Not just the pool, but all of the expenses. The pool is part of the subdivision and it should be maintained or filled in. It's your choice. The bottom line is we need all of you paying $16.67 a month or $200.00 to make our budget. The reason we came down on the dues to $200 from $350 was we thought it would encourage more residents to pay, but that has not happened with the enthusiasm we had hoped for. It's always the same people paying for the rest and in the Board's opinion, we don't think that will change anytime soon enough for us to solve our problem with paying our bills for the rest of the year.

That leaves us with the only choice, closing the pool early and taking a vote to decide whether to keep it closed for good. If we decide to close it, we will need to eventually drain it and have it filled in. We can't keep water in it as it will breed mosquitoes and if it's not swimmable then why pay for chemicals. If we are going to continue to maintain it we will need to increase the dues to $300.00 in order to make our budget, even though that will not keep it open this year.

I want to outline all of the ways this Board (and I'm sure Boards in the past) have attempted to encourage residents to pay their dues.

• Threatening letters - didn't work
• Nice letters - didn't work
• Calling on phone - didn't work
• Going door to door - didn't work (most people didn't answer door)
• Begging at front entrance - (why should we have to do this)
• Having a membership drive - (few residents came unless we stood out front and stopped them)
• Invoicing (residents paid but - not before March 1, when it was needed to know our budget for the year) this is costly as it takes at least $135.00 to mail to entire subdivision.

What this Board has done for the community to encourage residents to pay dues and take responsibility

• Set up an email newsletter program so that homeowners could be kept up-to-date on all of the issues.
• Tried to encourage the attitude of "All of one, One for All" so that we all assume responsibility for our share in the expenses and keeping our subdivision safe.
• Listened to the complaints of the residents and tried to solve them in a timely manner if we could.
• Tried to implement a Neighborhood Watch Program but not enough residents would sign up (what does that tell you).
• Set up a security team and a security blog and let the local police precinct know about it so we can take an active role in maintaining our security here in Mountain Cove. (thank you guys)
• Set up a communication blog where anyone in the subdivision can post comments and hear the latest news.
• Developed and maintain a website to direct and inform residents where to find information and have the ability to pay dues on-line with a credit card or in split payments.
• Been generally upbeat and positive about our community and hopeful about future cooperation.
• Completed front entrance landscaping and hired a landscaper to mow common areas.

This is not meant to be threatening we just want you to know all the facts. Our main problem here is apathy; we don't have enough residents that care about keeping the facilities maintained. An example would be, someone asked me when they were paying their dues if they had to pay for the front entrance landscaping and another asked if they had to pay for the pool since they didn't use it. There were a lot of complaints about the front entrance but now the front entrance is done and those who complained are still not paying dues. Some of the longtime residents aren't paying because we opened the pool and they think we shouldn't spend money on that. Others threatened not to pay unless we opened the pool. Well, how can the board be expected to please everyone here when our goals are so different. We are a community by the very fact that we are in the same community so why can't we pull together an act like one. A community cares about not only its individuals but takes responsibility for maintaining it's assets. It still amazes me that $16.67 a month is too much money to ask for to solve this dilemma.

We have scheduled 2 meetings- one on July 23 at 7:30pm and the other on Saturday July 25th at 10:30 so we hope to get one member from every household at least at one meeting. If you can't be there you can do an absentee vote if you contact me via email personally.

The vote will be taken on:
1.Increase the dues to $300 payable before the end of 2009 or $350 payable by March 1 2010. (If we don't have the funds next year by March 1 we will not re-open the pool.)

Even if we agree to increase the dues for next year, if we don't get 25 new members by the end of the month, we will still have to close the pool this year so we will have enough money for our 2009 year end expenses.


Or


2.Close the pool for good starting July 31 of this year.


These meetings are meant to allow the residents to have a voice in this decision and also have the ability to give your opinion on how to solve our issues. Please don't come to the meeting with suggestions on how to solve the issues unless you plan to personally act on them...we are all in this together.

Pool Security and Complaints

I have had some complaints about the pool gate being left open and the doors to the bathroom as well during the day when people are using the pool. Since we don't have the funds to hire someone to monitor the pool I suggest you remind your kids about not leaving the gate open and closing and locking the bathrooms when they leave the pool. You could also ask them to put the umbrellas down so they will remain in tack and not blow off into the woods.

This is our community and its not just the board members duty monitor the pool area and keep your kids in line. Those of you that are complaining it might be good to say something directly to the kids that are doing what you don't like or get their names and call their parents. We are going to continue to have this problem always unless we get enough money to be able to afford a lifeguard.

This summer has been a relatively quiet one as far as vandalism is concerned...there has been no vandalism and some climbing over the fence. I have gone down to the pool around 8:30pm to close it down for a couple of weeks now and the kids that were in the pool area were very cooperative in doing what I asked them to do to close it down. I think we need more communitcation with the kids and we need to include them in understanding this is our community and if we want it to be better then all of us have to participate, not just complain.

Pool Party a Success!

A big shout out those of you that helped with the pool party yesterday, it was a big success. You can view the pictures here and they are compliments of Dale Burgess of Dalbu Visual Productions
https://cid-f7a069160413bd5e.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Mtn%20Cove%20Pool%20Party?ct=photos&sa=877283548

The weather was perfect aside for some umbrellas that took off into the woods a few times. Hot dogs were perfectly made by Jim Edwards. Cheryl Grattan showed up early to help set-up and Lisa Worley came a little later to help with serving lunch. Marty Barrett brought a cheesecake that we somehow managed to turn into more slices than we could eat and there was a wonderful plate of mouth watering watermelon from Tafee and Steve. Gale Burgess brought some cookies and Cheryl brought the brownies. We are still trying to figure out who ate the most hot dogs.
Our decorations were provided by the artistic family of Deborah Simmonds.
Pool security was provided by Qualmi (sorry if I spelled that wrong) Simmonds who promised me he would lock up after everyone went home later that evening.

A big welcome to all the new members and the old members who came for the first time. Were glad you're here!

All in all it was a great day!

That "Somebody" is YOU!

Marc McQuary writes...

Have you ever noticed a house on the way into the neighborhood that has been abandoned, the yard is grown up, shrubs are a mess, and trash is everywhere? If you are like me two thoughts cross your mind. First you think I wish somebody would clean that place up. Second you think, that makes this neighborhood look horrible. I hope no one coming to visit me sees it.

Well if you want to wait on that "somebody" to clean these abandoned yards up you will be waiting for a LONG time. On the other hand, if you have pride in where you live you can be proactive and be that "somebody". Think about this, ask your neighbors what they think about the place. Chances are they are as disgusted with it as you are. Then see if together you can all pick a date and time, bring along some yard tools and tackle the job of cleaning up the property yourselves. I bet you will find that in 2-3 hours you can make a run down residence look much nicer.

I know this works because I have done it on at least three occasions by myself, most recently today at 3860 Mountain Cove Road. It took me about 4 hours but I feel much better about it now. If you get this far into the subdivision take a look at the property. I think you will see what just one person taking a few hours of their personal time did to make an improvement.

This is our community. Waiting for "somebody" to do things to fix the eye sores is an exercise in futility. Complaining about it makes you as much of the problem as the problem itself. Why not take the high road instead and stop complaining and be a change agent and make something happen. Mountain Cove is where you live. If you want it to look nice it's up to you. "Somebody" doesn't care at all.

Pool will open this month

Thank you all for participating in the polls on the right. It looks like 72% of the residents that paid their dues want the pool open this year so we are opening the pool, however we will have to increase our community income so we don't have to close the pool earlier than expected this year.

You can all help by letting everyone you know about our pool memberships and telling them to contact us for more information via our website www.mountaincove.org I will be glad to send you a flyer to post at your churches and community centers so send me an email and I will send it out to you. Look for updates on the exact date for pool opening on the front entrance sign and here.

The pool is not the only reason to pay dues!

Yes, the pool does take up a large percentage of our budget but there are many other reasons to pay your full dues. We have major repairs to the clubhouse that we will have to build up funds for, replacing the roof, repairing the structural components of the deck surrounding the clubhouse, the wiring for the security lights is not to code, and I could go on but you can check it out for yourself on our main website in the clubhouse inspection report we had done a couple of years ago. We will never have enough funds unless we start to get the financial participation and commitment from our residents. Its one thing to have to close the pool down but if we continue down this path of apathy our facilities will become unusable and our community will suffer the consequences.

I cannot figure out why $16.67 a month is such a burden for the residents in this community. If everyone paid that figure we would have plenty of money in our yearly budget to do all of the repairs on our existing facilities without any special assessment.

Once again why is it fair that 40 residents pay for the other 160......it's a depressing situation.

Dues count as of today

There are 40 of you that have helped to support the community this year so far but that is only half of the usual support we have had in the past. It's unrealistic to open the pool with that kind of commitment. I will make one more attempt to email those of you that have not responded to my plea for an update about whether you plan to support the community this year to see if I can increase participation, otherwise you leave the board with no other recourse than to keep the pool closed this year. It's been said before that if we close the pool one year it makes it almost impossible to revive the interest in opening it up in the future. I feel sorry for the future residents of this subdivision if this happens, but the board cannot be irresponsible with the money we do have and we don't want to use the money found from overpaying the taxes for the pool. We need a reserve, however small, in case we have an unexpected expense. I would feel good about trying to keep the pool open at least one more year and see if we could get outside memberships but with the economy the way it is and the internal support lacking, its not a good bet that we will be successful with either task.