President’s Report – IPCCA Board Meeting – 9/17/19
Hello, everyone! Welcome back to our Board meetings. It always seems like the September meeting is the beginning of a new season, and I look forward to an enjoyable and productive year for all of us.
Our Community Manager, Shelly Ruegsegger of PPM, will be giving an update on our summer projects later on. I won’t duplicate her report here, but will just say I think everyone will be pleased by the number of things that have been accomplished.
Here is a report on the status of some of our major issues:
Lakes. We are working on renovations of three lakes (Royal Vista, Enchantment, and Reflections) that were determined to be the in most needy condition (leaking and pump problems, etc.) during the Lakes litigation process. In addition, we had an unexpected failure at Fields 3 Lake (collapsed spillway causing severe deterioration of an adjacent hill), and were forced to drain the lake immediately and instigate emergency repairs. The process is basically the same for the four lakes and there are some cost savings benefits gained by combining certain parts of the process: We must work with a qualified architect/engineer for design determinations, a qualified contractor to rebuild the lake per the architect’s specifications, and a landscape architect to handle that aspect of the surrounding area. Once this is done, we can get cost bids for the specifics of the project. We have identified the three professionals needed for this phase of the project and are currently in the design phase and hope to ratify the initial engineering designs at today’s meeting for all four lakes. Fields 3 has been prioritized because of the emergency draining, and we will also consider the landscape architect’s plans for that lake today. Once the construction drawings with landscape and lighting details are complete for a certain lake, we will hold a “town hall” meeting with owners who want to see what is planned.
Many of our lakes were built 20+ years ago and are beyond their expected life. This is a complex process and there are limited professionals with the expertise to do this type of work. The design and engineering process takes time – detailed plans must be submitted to obtain needed permits. All sorts of things need to be considered – water conservation, maintenance needs, utility costs, irrigation and surrounding vegetation, pleasant design aspect, costs, to name just a few. The actual “shovel in the ground” phase has to bescheduled well in advance because of permitting, crew availability and seasonal issues. Thanks in advance for your patience and I am sure we will have beautiful and sustainable water features here for all of us to enjoy when the project is completed.
Parking Patrol. I thought you might be interested in some details about our Parking Patrol efforts. For privacy reasons, we do not share details of specific violations, but I can give an overview of the situation. In August 2019, we had a total of 26 safelist requests from 16 homeowners (some for more than one day) and 65 citations (overnight parking, unauthorized vehicles like boats or trailers, missing or switched plates, etc.). There were no tows.
Patrol Masters provides additional services beyond parking patrol and they have an excellent relationship with the Indio Police if they have to call them. Among other things, several times each night they check for homeless problems; check doors and locks at the LSC pool, restrooms, gym and courts; check for trespassers, after-hours use, gate locks and
restrooms at satellite pools; and do general vehicle patrol looking for suspicious activity. They are a security resource for homeowners when they are here. They provide extra services as needed during the festivals and when certain other security issues arise at the LSC and elsewhere. There seem to be fewer car prowls/vandalism when cars are not parked on the street overnight.
Having professional and systematic parking patrols has eliminated the problem of selective enforcement depending on availability and location of Rules committee volunteers. We have professional records and procedures that sustain towing decisions if we are challenged in court. Parking rules violations have decreased from 80% to 20% of the total number of violations reported. Towing seems to be a very effective deterrent to rules violations and only affects repeated violators. Effective parking enforcement is also a deterrent to over- occupancy, where there are more vehicles routinely associated with a home than can be accommodated in available off-street parking for the residence. Enforcement from 1 am to 6 am allows us to limit the patrol to one shift, not cause difficulty for people with evening party guests, and effectively deal with the problem of overnight parking violations. We also appreciate the safelist procedure offered by Patrol Masters because it gives needed flexibility to our homeowners for more houseguest parking.
The Board monitors the effectiveness and necessity for all HOA expenses and believes Patrol Masters is well worth its cost to our homeowners.
- Pool Security. This is a growing problem after hours, particularly at the LSC. (Patrol Masters is not always there when staff is not present.) We are also concerned about security at the satellite pools. Finding a cost-effective solution is a challenge, but we believe better security cameras will help. This issue will be discussed more at a future meeting.
- 2020 Budget. This process is starting in October and I urge all of you to email Shelly at PPM ([email protected] ) with suggestions for things you believe should be addressed next year. We thank you for participating in this project – unless it is an emergency, we need to budget for things if we are going to do them.
- Board Members. It is never too early to consider becoming a Board Member. Elections will be held early next year and we anticipate needing more people. Talk to Shelly at PPM if you have questions on this.
Thanks for coming to the meeting. We appreciate your support and interest.
THE NEXT REGULAR MEETING WILL BE ON OCTOBER 15, 2019, 5:00 PM, PTR.