President’s Report – IPCCA Board Meeting 1/21/20
Thanks to all of you for coming. I want everyone to know the annual meeting will be held February 25, 2020, in the Palm Terrace room; ballots will begin to be counted at 3:00 pm (residents are welcome to come and observe this) and the regular meeting will begin at 5:00 pm. Our next regular Board meeting is on March 17, 2020, at 5:00 pm, the Palm Terrace Room. Please take the time to vote and attend the annual meeting. Encourage your IPCCA friends and neighbors to vote and come to the annual meeting and regular Board meetings as well.
My update is a little long – we have not had a meeting for two months so there is a lot to report:
- We expect to hold a town hall meeting on the plans for the Fields 3 lake rebuild soon – hopefully before the annual meeting in February. Everyone will receive a letter with details. This will be an opportunity to see what is planned and ask questions about the project. It will be during the day on a Saturday and we hope many people will be able to come.
- Check your mail carefully – important HOA information has been mailed or will be coming to you soon – rules, volunteer nomination forms, ballots, the budget, the annual meeting and lake meeting, etc. You can also check our website (ipcca-hoa.com) for information.
- We are continuing with the exterior landscape upgrade and are now converting the entrance area of the 50th gate to desert scape. This should make the gate entrance more attractive and reduce irrigation expense for that common area.
- We have updated the HOA Election Rules. This involved relatively minor changes to comply with new legal requirements. Check the website for detailed information on this.
- We have had two unexpected major repairs at the Lifestyle Center: The gas line to the pool was replaced after three leaks were discovered and the pool heater failed and had to be replaced. We have worked hard the last few years to raise our LSC reserves to adequate levels and I am happy to report we were able to make these emergency repairs without a financial problem. We also have sufficient reserves to begin updating some of the gym equipment in 2020. Certain machines, especially on the “white” weight side of the gym, are so old we can no longer get parts for them. We will be consulting our maintenance specialist to evaluate the present equipment and establish priorities for replacement. We are also considering various lease/purchase options. The new pool restroom project continues. I urge people to attend the LSC Open House in February to check out the facilities and activities offered – I am sure there will be more on this in the LSC Committee Report. The flyer for this event is on the back table.
- We have many seasonal residents in IPCCA and we value their input. In order to facilitate their participation, we are looking into ways for people who are not year-round residents to serve on the Board via electronic attendance at some of the meetings. We could really use some help on this from residents who have technical expertise. Please let us know if you would be willing to volunteer – contact information is on the website.
- This leads me to an associated goal for 2020 – we want to use social media (Facebook, Nextdoor, etc.) as proactively as possible to increase positive communication with our residents. People post a lot of questions about HOA matters (who handles what on exterior landscape, what HOA am I in, what type of security are the gate people responsible for, how do I get an overnight street parking pass, who do I contact with a particular issue, etc.). We want to respond with helpful and accurate answers to these inquiries and also let people know other important HOA information in a timely manner. Snail mail is not always the best or only way, especially for our absentee owners. Again, volunteers are needed to work with us with this.
- Unfortunately, HOA dues rose this year because of increased expenses. The major reason for this is the increase in the minimum wage, which went from $12 to $13/hour. This affected
landscape costs dramatically and landscape costs are about 80% of our expenses. Further increases will continue as California has mandated a $15/hour minimum wage by 2023. We also approved a 2-week trim rotation for shrubs year-round. We tried a 3-week rotation for several months last year and there were a lot of problems. There were other expense increases as well: We had to raise our budget for utility costs $9000/year. Last year’s reserve budget was only $1000/month because we were able to transfer $300,000 in excess operating funds to reserves. This year we must go back to funding the reserve account from current revenue – an increase of about $19,000/month. Our goal is to keep the dues as low as possible while funding services we must have to maintain property values and ensure a safe and pleasant community. We also want to avoid unexpected and dramatic monthly increases and/or emergency assessments. HOA dues actually decreased by about $5/month last year, but LSC dues rose about that same amount, so they netted out for the majority of our homeowners who pay for LSC membership through their HOA dues. LSC dues remain the same this year. Sadly, inflation and the consequent increase in expenses cannot be avoided.
Thanks again and see you at the Annual Meeting on February 25, 2020.
THE NEXT REGULAR MEETING WILL BE ON MARCH 17, 2020, 5:00 PM, PTR. A GREAT WAY TO SPEND ST. PATRICK’S DAY!!