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.

Just to remind you.

Dues payment this year

If you have not already paid your dues and intend to please let me know about it so I can figure that into the equation ASAP. Even if the poll suggests most of you want the pool to stay open ( as it does now) if we don't have enough of a financial commitment from enough residents we can't keep it open. Unfortunately the few that do pay are controlled by the mass that don't. We need at least 80 members to pay $200 to make our budget...right now we are sitting at 40. Its not realistic to expect 1/4 of the subdivision to pay the expenses for the other 3/4. Would you accept that in your family or work situation....

Another longtime resident's veiw

The Oliver's has left a new comment on your post "Spring News":

All, I want to be sure everyone is making an informed decision about whether or not to keep the pool open. The fact is that the pool needs major and extensive repairs made to it to keep it open past this year. If we choose to keep the pool open we will basically deplete the funds that we have (including the windfall we received from overpaid taxes) and still have no guarantee that the pool will remain open. Unless we receive 75% participation from the neighborhood for the next 3-5 years the pool will need to be closed regardless of what we do this year. Let me tell you we have not had that type of participation for the last 5 years and I don't see that there will be a drastic change in the years to come. The fact is the board has had to beg the homeowners for the past 5 years just to get by with 40% participation and the other 60% just don't care and haven’t and will not care in the future. Sooo...do we deplete our funds now to keep the pool open and then have to close it in the future?...or do we stop the bleeding and put the money we have towards fixing up the amenities that can be more easily maintained. We could fix up the clubhouse so that it would be available to members for parties and gatherings, possibly sponsored by the homeowners assoc. Repair the tennis courts to ALTA standards so that we could again have tennis teams play out of Mountain Cove. Provide nice landscaping to the front entrance to make our neighborhood more attractive. Have piece of mind that we have money to pay to maintain the common areas, keep the lights on and pay the taxes. All these repairs are non-seasonal meaning that there is no timeframe in which they would need to be completed which means we could perform them as we receive the necessary funds keeping the required money in the account to pay the mandatory fees. Yes it will be a sad day when we fill in the pool (its not a matter of if its a matter of when) but we need to be realistic here. You also need to ask yourself is it right to keep asking the board to beg the neighborhood to pay their dues? Are you willing to do the begging? I know I'm not and that is why I am voting to close the pool so that we can again begin to enjoy the neighborhood without the financial burden of the pool.