Nutritional Supplements (by Judy Currier)
At some
point many of us find ourselves in the position of having a
friend, family member, or loved one that needs an augmentation
to their diet to maintain their weight and health. The
normal recommendation is Ensure or one of the products that
are similar to that. Unfortunately many find these drinks
to be less than palatable, and no matter how you try to hide
it, it does not seem to help very much.
A caring resident at the hospital introduced us to Mighty Shakes.
These are delivered frozen and perhaps the fact they are not
canned is what makes them tastier. I looked everywhere
for a distributor in our area and finally called the company
(yes, I was desperate!). They gave me the name of a Florida
based distributor who I used as needed over the last couple
of years. It turns out that there is a similar product,
Nutra-Shakes, and various puddings, ice creams, and juice drinks
that also fit the bill. You can visit the distributor's
website and check out the various products http://4webmed.com
or call 877-4webmed. They let you do mixed cases so a
variety of flavors can be ordered. They also have various
other products for those that can't swallow, are lactose intolerant,
etc.
A real favorite in our household was the cappucinno mighty shake
-- Starbucks, your days are numbered!
I hope this information helps others that find themselves in
this situation, and if anyone else knows of other sites, distributors,
or products, I'm sure people would like to know about them.
President
's Message (by Leona Taylor)
Highlights
of December board meeting:
1. A few complaints on the snow removal for
the first storm of the season were received from residents.
The snow contractor will be contacted regarding the level of
service provided. We are using the same contractor as
in the prior year, so the apparent decline in service was surprising.
2. Due to work and other demands, the annual
notice of the assessment increase was not mailed out prior to
the thirty-day deadline. Therefore, there can be no increase
in the assessment for 2003. Based on the 2003 budget that
was approved by the board, the current assessment charge of
$135 was not going to change. However, the board was going
to increase the amount that can be charged without a special
assessment from $161.57 to $165.77. It is the second potential
increase that will not take effect.
3. We had twenty homeowners delinquent on
paying their assessments, two of which had been turned over
to the attorney for collection. A third case is to be
sent to the attorney. In response to the last delinquent
notice, some have paid. Please try to stay current so
that your account does not have to be turned over to the attorney
for collection.
4. We will be reviewing portions of the reserve
study to ensure that the engineer has included the appropriate
common elements. Once this work has been completed, the
engineer will issue the full report for review. The board
then has six months to make any changes to the report.
5. The 2002 budget contains monies for new
plantings for the common areas. Due to delays from contractors
solicited to provide landscape design proposals, we were not
able to get the fall planting in place before the first frost.
Since we do have the funds budgeted, we will purchase plants
this year (with right of substitution and replacement) and then
have the plants installed in the spring. In this manner,
we can use the budgeted funds, beautify the community, and also
have the risk of plants dying over the winter stay with the
landscape contractor. The landscape contractor will bill
us in December for the plants, and we will pay the contractor
sometime in 2003.
6. The November financial results were reviewed.
On the revenue side, we are below budget on investment income.
This is due to the lower than expected interest rates during
2002. On the expense side, we are currently below budget
on a few expense items. Most of these variances are due
to fact that we have not yet paid for the services. This
includes the audit, the reserve study, some grounds maintenance,
and tree & shrub purchases. We are also below budget
on the fence replacement; however, this just means that we have
more funds available in the reserve fund for future repairs
and replacements.
7. The board and parking committee reviewed
a draft notice that can be used to notify vehicles that are
leaking automotive fluids onto the parking area. More
discussion is needed to finalize the notice.
8. The board approved the 2003 grounds and
maintenance contract. We will be using the same contractor
in 2003. There will be no increase in fees for 2003.
9. The board and parking committee discussed
the installation of stop signs at the major intersections within
Leewood. Earlier this year, the fire marshal inspected
the community and indicated that stop signs should be installed
in a few locations. The various sign designs and colors
were discussed. The parking committee has been charged
to review the height requirements for the signs and the specific
locations for the signs.
10. The board reviewed the current bids for
sidewalk and curb repair. The next step is to review references
on the contractor that has been initially selected. It
is expected that this work will be completed in the spring.
In connection with the common area work, Pam Stover is coordinating
with individual homeowners that would like to have their sidewalk
or back stoop repaired. If you are interested, please
contact Pam Stover.
11. The board and parking committee also reviewed
a draft of the revised parking ticket to be used when cars are
parked illegally or are not properly registered and are parked
within Leewood. There currently is a form in use that
requires that the person issuing the ticket to have carbon paper
on hand or find a copier to make the copy needed for our files.
We are looking at a pre-printed two-part form so that we have
a file copy without having to deal with the messy carbon paper.
Assuming that the two-part form is not cost-prohibitive, we
will switch to the new form.
12. The parking committee presented a proposed
parking regulation to the board. The proposed regulation
refines the current parking regulation. It also provides
a mechanism for board hearings to review alleged violations
in certain circumstances. The board has approved a review
of the proposed policy by the association attorney to ensure
that the regulations are not in violation of the Leewood bylaws
and that the proposed regulations are reasonable and potentially
enforceable.
All in all, a lot of material was covered at the December meeting.
Highlights of October board meeting:
1. ARC hearings were held. There were
five cases up for hearing. The board ruled on follow-up
action to be taken on each case based on the evidence presented.
2. The draft 2003 budget was reviewed.
We are still awaiting the draft reserve study to determine if
the proposed contribution to reserves for 2003 is on target.
3. The financial results were reviewed.
Positive expense variances show in a number of categories; however,
additional spending is scheduled for the remainder of the year.
Highlights of the November board meeting:
1. The 2003 budget was approved by the board.
A copy of the budget will be published in the newsletter.
There will be no increase in homeowner dues for 2003.
A reserve contribution of $23,000 is budgeted for 2003 based
on the new reserve study.
2. The financial results were reviewed.
Positive expense variances continue to show in a number of categories.
The expected expenditures for the remainder of the year were
reviewed. Additional expenditures are expected for tree
& shrub, reserve study, and the audit.
3. Bids for sidewalk repairs are currently
being obtained. The bids received so far were reviewed
by the board, and some additional questions were raised.
At least on other bid will be obtained.
4. The snow removal contract for 2003 was
approved. We will be going with the same contractor from
the prior year with no increase in fees.
5. The fence on Backlick road was cleaned
and resealed. Based on a recommendation by the contractor,
an additional coat of sealant will be added to protect the fence.
Parking "Solutions" (Opinion by
Judy Currier)
I must admit
I always have a hard time correlating Tony's ideas with reality.
In the November issue of the newsletter he proposed two reserved
spaces/unit. That proposal was couched in terms where
it appeared that Leewood would reach a kind of parking Utopia
with the proposal. I envisioned all our parking worries
having gone up like a poof of smoke and the residents dancing
in the streets, led by the now carefree board. In December
the same idea was further refined, and all those with only one
car would be rewarded with their reserved space and no assessments
to pay. People with two cars would bear the brunt of our
trash collection, snow removal, grounds maintenance, street
maintenance (as opposed to parking area maintenance), etc. by
paying a parking fee which supported all activities of the association.
Those with three or more cars plus anyone who ever has tradespeople
or guests visit their house would be up the proverbial creek
without a paddle.
Now, the claim is made this would put Leewood on a "business
- like" course as most of our assessments go to reserves which
in turn are mostly spent on street maintenance. Would
you consider 21% of our assessments "most"? That is the
amount that is currently budgeted for reserves. Of that
21% that goes into reserves, about 12% goes to maintaining the
shared parking places. In other words, approximately $13.68
out of the yearly assessment goes into maintaining shared parking.
Clearly those with two or more cars would be giving the one
car folks a free ride by eliminating their assessments. It is
hardly a "pay for use" scheme at all, just a way for a few people
to be able to get out of paying their fair share of the cost
of running Leewood. Of course, the one car people might
want to spend $540 so that they might be able to have a guest
over occasionally.
The thing that is overwhelming about both of these proposals
is they benefit a very small minority of Leewood residents
namely those that have one car, no guests, and preferably live
on Bradwood Ct. where there is public on-street parking nearby.
Of course if those in the single family homes ever get fed up
with all the Leewood cars parking in front of them and petition
the County for a special parking district, Bradwood Court's
situation would start paralleling the rest of Leewood a little
bit better. (It is important to note that most one car owners
that I know do not support these schemes, so I do not want to
imply that all one car owners do not have Leewood concerns at
heart even one car owners on Bradwood Ct.).
It is alleged that somehow parking problems will disappear with
either of these proposals. Quite the contrary has been
the experience of associations who have tried using virtually
all their parking spaces by marking them as reserved spaces.
Imagine for a moment what it would be like if only 11 houses
in Leewood could have a guest or tradesperson visit them at
any one point in time. That is the number of spaces left
if we assign or sell two reserved places/unit. Isn't it
logical to envision a great increase in illegal curbside parking
in Leewood? If all the guest places are put in one location,
as proposed, your guests will first have to know where to look
for the guest parking. Then, presuming they can find the
area and that a space available, if you live on the circle area
of Leestone Street they will have to walk around three blocks
to your house. Do you think that they will? Historically
where we have the most illegal parking is in those areas where
shared spaces (non-reserved spaces) are not plentiful. That
should be a harbinger of things to come to anyone who can think
their way out of a paper bag if we virtually eliminate guest
parking. Added to this is the problem of what constitutes
a guest. Why wouldn't a person with excess cars park in
the guest only spaces? We do not have the facilities to
hand out guest parking visas day and night, so essentially there
is no way to stop this. The only way to do it would be
if someone would hand out guest parking chits 24 hours a day.
Count on there being NO spaces for your guests if this proposal
would ever be implemented.
What seems to be very hard to communicate is that shared spaces
actually create "virtual spaces". Not everyone is using
a space at the same time, thus the shared spaces may be used by
more than one vehicle throughout the day. Mr. and Mrs. Hungry
go out to dinner, leaving a shared space open. Ms. Sociable
stops by and sees a friend she parks in that same space.
The space has served two vehicles without any inconvenience for
anyone. That one space has been like two. Two reserved
spaces per unit or any variance of that concept gets us down to
a "what you see is what you get". That is why things would
go from being reasonable with respect to parking to being
a nightmare if you took away all our shared spaces through assigning
them or selling them to residents. Yes, people who jockey
their cars around so they can "save" a shared space, and those
who park in a shared space leaving their reserved space open,
rob us all of that $5000 virtual parking space and increase any
parking difficulties that Leewood might have. We don't,
however, have to formalize the concept. We can hope that
there will continue to be well socialized Leewood residents that
work to make the parking accessible to all by leaving shared spaces
as they are meant to be open to the first person who shows up.
Seldom have I seen such a bad idea presented with a straight
face. Of course, I wasn't there when the articles were
being written, so perhaps it was all tongue-in-cheek anyhow.
Leewood Website Shortcoming (Opinion
by tony mc sorley)
Before the
rise of the Leewood website, Architectural Review Committee violation
hearings for those homeowners who received notices, but did not
do the requested work or tell ARC why for whatever reason they
didn't correct the violation, were required to attend a special
CLOSED board hearing to explain themselves before having to go
to court. Closed to prevent any possible embarrassment to the
unconvicted homeowner. His address was not published for the same
reason. This kinder gentler noble sentiment has been thrown to
the wind by the website by fully publishing the violation and
the homeowners address even before both the board and court hearing.
Gone is this kinder and gentler care shown homeowners found previously
before the website. This on top of the lack of passwords to allow
only homeowners access. Homeowners now are paying for website
accessible by anyone worldwide for lack of passwords and publishing
of ARC violators before any hearing on the right or wrong of it.
They are now listed and held up for embarrassment before not after
trial. A prime example of this total disregard of homeowner's
privacy before judgement is the December 10, 2002 board meeting
agenda under committee Reports (IV) on the Leewood website.
Response from Judy Currier
As the agenda had been removed from the website already, I had
to look in my files to see what Tony was referring to in this
article, and perhaps I should re-post that December agenda so
the rest of you can see it. It must be confusing not to
know what is being referred to in his articles, as they always
seem to refer to something no longer there.
First, everyone must realize that privacy concerns are balanced
by legal requirements for openness and "sunshine". Thus,
the law requires that agendas be made available to anyone in Leewood
that desires an agenda, and that the hearings that are held by
the board, although held in closed session, have the results voted
on and put into the minutes in an open session. In the December
agenda, there were listed follow-up items from hearings that had
been held. Thus, the "day in court" had already occurred,
the closed session had been held, and the matter discussed in
open session -- not exactly what Tony is implying in this article.
There were also ARC items concerning matters that had been sent
to the attorney. Again, these had already been through
the process of hearings and had reached the stage of openness.
All items were mentioned extremely tersely, just enough for the
board to know what they were to discuss at the meeting.
The law requires Leewood to throw out secretiveness after the
hearings, it is as plain as that. Although it is true that
in theory, an outsider who is not required to have this information
could pour over the agenda, recognize addresses, thereby somehow
embarrassing someone I seriously think this is stretching the
imagination a bit.
I wonder why Tony doesn't worry about Fairfax posting court cases
on their bulletin board; that is done before the case has even
been heard by a judge.
In fact, for those whose cases are going to court, that is exactly
what will be done by Fairfax. Certainly it seems to me this
holds more embarrassment potential than posting information on
our website that is required to be available. Could it possibly
be that Tony is just a little biased against the website and that
his bias is overtaking his logic?
Judy Currier
Correction: Free Prescription
Cards (by Tony Mc Sorley)
With the
large increases in prescription medicine in the last few years,
many without prescription coverage have been looking for ways
to cut these high costs. Available now are many FREE prescription
drug cards offering a minimum of fifteen percent off but usually
achieving twenty percent to forty percent. Income level for
single must be below $28,000 - $38,8OO.
MatureRX.com
1-8OO-511-1314
TogetherRX.com
1-8OO-865-7211
AdvanceRX.com
1-800-238-2623
