Holiday Cheer

Letter from Mission Hills Apt. Developer

Here is the response to questions we asked the developer after the Town Hall Meeting.

From: Kurt Goll
Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2008 5:30 PM
To: Robert F. Colunga
Subject: Mission Hills Site Plan

Robert
In regards to your questions about our site plan and location of buildings I wanted to offer the following comments.
The closest apartment building to the West property line is 35 ft. Regardless of what is being excavated or staked the building is 35ft from the property line. The building you have referred to which parallels this property line is a two story building. The previous site plan showed this building as a three story but it is now a two story. This has been submitted and approved by the Stone Oak ARC. There are a few parking or drive areas that fall closer than 35ft. All exterior building and site/ parking lighting will be a low level lighting scheme that meets the newly adopted Bexar County Dark Sky Ordinance. We also have two other buildings that we have put two story ends on. The ends of these buildings are not directly adjacent to the property line but since they faced the houses there we made them two story anyway. It is our intention to provide a landscaping buffer between between the two story building and its neighbors in the form of Monterey Oaks (6) on top of a landscape berm. We also intend to replace anyone’s open fence with a solid fence if desired or a row of native shrubbery (Privet, Sage, or similar) in the event they wish to keep their open fence. You will also note that the areas currently left natural will remain so and all cleared open areas will be revegitated to a native state where possible.
I hope this answers your questions and if you would like any more clarification please let me know.
Kurt David Goll
President, Residential Development

Happy Halloween!

What is going on!

Champion Springs Home Owners your board has been working hard on a number of different projects let me go through them now and I will also talk about what we are in the process of.

1. YARD of the Month - we implemented the yard of the month program and as we tour our neighborhood we have found that we have homeowners that take great pride in the yard and home and inspire others to do more with there homes great job! We are giving a $50 gift card to Home Depot for our winners every month. For the October winner it will be a combination of the yard and HALLOWEEN Decorations that we will award for and the same for December.

2. Newsletter and Stickers - Your newsletter will be going out shortly with information concerning the Community Yard Sale to be on October 25 as well as our Town Hall meeting on the same day. We are doing it on a weekend in the hope we will have a greater attendance then in the past. All current homeowners will be also receiving two sticker for their vehicles that identifies them as Champion Springs residents, this is a voluntary sticker. The stickers are for our neighbors to recognize our vehicles and hopefully show more community spirit.

3. Front Entrance - We have hired a new landscaping company as most of you know and we have had them trim the trees and shrubs clean out the landscaping and add new mulch. We hope find the entrance much more pleasing as we do. We are also looking into replacing the old wood signs that are warping and deteriating with a stucco one to match our rock fence, more to come soon on this.

4. Security - We know there has been a rash of vandals lately egging vehicles and dragging trash in the streets. We have notified both the SA Police and Bexar County Sheriffs office and asked for more patrols. We as you may have noticed installing a security camera system at the front entrance. These cameras are the same ones used to identify license plates from people who run red lights and give us clear clean pictures. We will not be monitoring this cameras unless there is an issue in which we can provide time frames to the police for up to 30 days back. So no Big Brother. We looked at the possiblilty of a front gate and we were approved to have one by the city but when we loooked at cost estimates, maintenance of both the gate and the streets in our community it would cause us to have take in more then double the association dues we currently have. We felt this was not anything we could even get close to a vote on.

5. Park, Pool, Clubhouse, etc. - We know this is the big one everyone is concerned about as well. We have been moving forward with the project and trying to get more and more information as to what we can actually build in the area we are going to be allowed to build into and what is cost effective for the community. No true decision has been made until all the information is in and we have all the cost and variables so we can move forward the right way. We have fired Benny's Pool and Spa's and demanded the return of the $81,500.00 which they were paid a while back(two boards ago) based on the advice of the HOA's attorney's and we will go into much more detail at the Town Hall meeting on this issue and update all on the status.

6. Mission Hills Apartments- We having been speaking with the owner and developer of the apartments going in on Evans road next our community and the Stone Oak Archetictual Committee and they are being very cooperative and we will speak about this issue in detail as well at the Town Hall Meeting or you can contact us directly.

I apologize for the long list but there is a lot going on and I know many of you want to know more and we will go into more detail for you or you may contact us and we will talk with you directly.

Thank you,

Robert Colunga
President- Champion Springs HOA

Stop the Yard Sale ?

It is appears there has been a flurry of response to the Yard Sale request for this weekend.
Most have responded to the email account with a suggestion to move it to past the start of the school year and a cooler period like September, or the agreed upon October timeframe.

If it appears the weather will not cooperate with us, as well, then we will postpone to September.
Thank you to those of you who replied to the poll. We appreciate your input.

Friendly Reminder and Personal Apology

We are scheduled for a September 4, 2008 meeting with the Attorneys and the Mediator for our lawsuit against Benny's Pools. It is binding mediation and we are encouraged about the opportunity to get back that which was the homeowners to begin with.

We gave away the 1st Champion Springs Yard of the Month and the $50 Home Depot card to the winner, by using the $60 we were paying Procomm for their website.

We personally aplogize, to those individuals who have taken a personal offense to the most recent update, and our fellow neighbors. This was not the intent of the response. None of us are perfect and all of us are trying.


Thanks for your patience, and our sincere apology once again.

Please lend a helping hand.

Neighborhood Yard Sale!

We've been approached by at least a 1/2 dozen neighbors about holding a neighborhood yard sale. We are currently contacting the city about authorizing it for the August 23, 2008 timeframe.

Each participant must register and the fee is $17 per permit. The board would like to purchase the permits on behalf of all the interested parties. You must register with us so that we can send in the paperwork.

Please email the board at championsprings@gmail.com if you are interested in participating.
P.S. also tell your neighbors and pass the word around so we can continue to get current email addresses and keep the News Vine going.

Safety First Program - Coming Soon!

To our Fellow Neighbors;
The board has been working on some ideas with other associations, police, and local government officials. We have seen recently an increase in crime in our neighborhood. We have had people who have had their vehicles broken into, egging and vandalism as well as an increase in garbage in our community areas. We are looking at implementing the following programs to help curb these issues.
1. COP Program: The Cellular on Patrol program is compiled of persons in our neighborhood who have taken training through the police department and given access to our local police officers so we are more observant of what goes on in our community. Signs will be placed in our neighborhood to let people know we are part of the COP Program. Please contact the board if you wish to help out.

2. The board as part of the safety program is looking at implementing a community vehicle ID system. This would entail two vehicle stickers per household for current HOA members. This is to allow everyone in our community to easily identify vehicles that belong in our neighborhood and would assist local police as to vehicles who are out of place in our neighborhood. If additional stickers are needed they would be available at a small fee. More information to come!

3. We are currently looking at putting IP Video Cameras at our entrance to the community to help in the security of the neighborhood. This may be a more cost effective strategy then putting in a gate system as it would cost more and there would be more maintenance and we would then become responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of our streets. If this is implemented we would also include this monitoring system in the community areas such as the park and parking lot, along with signage notifying others that they are under video surveillance!

Based on the input we have received from a variety of reliable sources the board feels these measures will go a long way to help prevent future incidents. Please any constructive input is welcome as well as volunteers to help keep our community stay safe.

Champion Springs Yard of the Month

Congratulations to the Herder Family, our

August 2008 Yard of the Month winner (with HOA Pres. Robert Colunga). Even in this difficult time of keeping green grass, much less any grass, we are pleased to announce that our neighbor has kept a consistently well kept lawn and landscape. Of the 408 individual homes in the community our Yard of the Month Committee traversed streets they never knew existed and saw at least a dozen potential winners.

Three homes were selected as the final candidates and the ultimate winner was chosen from those three. The final candidates were: (in no particular order) on Quitman Oak, Mandolin Wind, and Cheyenne Creek.

The winner will receive a Champion Springs Yard of the Month sign for their yard; to be proudly displayed for the duration of their month and a $50 Gift Card to Home Depot, to keep up the good work. Congratulations!

We will be adding names to the Yard of the Month Committee and will take requests from this posting. By submitting your name and email address we will contact you for 1 or more committees we have instituted for the community affairs.

Depending on participation we would like the following committees at this time:

1) Yard of the Month Committee- select candidates and vote

2) Architectural Committee- ACC Requests for home & lawn projects

3) Block Captains- coordinates with neighbors, newsletter distribution, block issues

4) Social Events Coordinator- special holiday events, Halloween, 4th of July, COP Program.

More information to follow.

Where's the Money?

January 2007 a contract was signed and a check for $81,750 was issued to Benny's Pool and Spas for 50% payment on work to build a Community Pool. By January 26, 2007 the HOA Board was informed the City required platting and permits. By March of 2007 that board was replaced by a board willing to communicate more with the neighborhood generated surveys to decide again what should be done in our area designated for a community area. Even though there was great consternation over the multitude of choices to pick from and rather heated exchange at the Park Town Hall meeting, the board moved forward with the options most selected and began their negotation with Benny's Pool and Spas.
After being told the contract stipulated a 30% of the total bid buyout fee if the work was not done by the contractor (Benny's Pool and Spas), the board decided to evaluate the plans with the selected contractor doing something other than a pool for a Phase I implementation. The process of platting, and the engineering concerns was time consuming. By the June 23, 2008 meeting, the city had not granted the permits yet, and the contractor still intended to build the Phase I plan and gave his basic description at the June meeting.
The plan was lacking much specific or concrete detail and a vague understanding of what happened to the $81,750 that was given to the contractor was the sentiment. He clearly stated the money was in a bank account in escrow and was not earning interest, just waiting on the permits to begin working. Many people in the front row described their concerns with the significant amount not earning interest for the HOA because it was in not in our accounts anymore.

The 3 board member positions were up for election, because the existing members were not going to continue for various personal reasons. The 3 new Board Members were elected and final proxies were submitted post meeting pursuant to the bylaws for a quorum to exist.

The new board has done an audit of the financials with ProComm finance and accounting representatives. The new board has consulted legal advice from the legal firm hired by the Management company. They have not been consulted concerning any contracts for the Park/Pool project and were surprised previous boards had not consulted with them for such reasons. The contract was not valid anymore, because the contractor had a partner at the time and it specifically states they could not assign the contract to any other entity. Their partnership broke up in 2007. The contract also does not specify a 30% fee to get out of the contract, as the contractor had told the previous board when they tried to get out of it.

On July 21, 2008 the board met witht the contractor at the ProComm offices to discuss repayment of the entire $81,750. At the time the contractor brought his files to discuss what we would do next. He admitted the contract was no longer valid since he had incorporated after his partnership and was the only one able to get to the money. He expected that the board would amend or write up a new contract. After he continued to sidestep why he felt he should continue after what has now been 16 months with no real tangible work done he was given the termination letter and a demand for the entire $81,750 due payable within 7 days or we would sue him.
On July 28th, we were informed only to deal with them through the attorney and to enter into binding mediation. His attorney submitted 2 judges for the mediation and we rejected those two and submitted two of our own.

It's only been 30 days but what a ride......more soon.

Proposed Park Area

Dear Neighbors,
Our General Contractor from Pittman Builders has been hard at work. We have architectural plans being drawn up in anticipation of the final permits and platting from the City of San Antonio. We have instructed them in this pre-construction phase to bring us plans that are designed specifically to incorporate the following:
* all wheelchair accessible
+ video surveillance throughout

1) A Clubhouse that will anchor the property for all Champion Springs HOA business and neighborhood festivities. It will be available to members for party rentals and it will also house the facilities for the neighborhood pool.
2) A Pool built to city standards for our size neighborhood and membership. The pool membership will be voluntary and used only during the normal swim season starting approximately mid-May through mid-September.
3) A Playscape along with the normal playground amenities.
4) A Parking lot that will be on the Hardy Oak Blvd. side with minimal grading that allows for water run-off.
5) Basketball goal on far side of the parking lot.
6) Crushed granite walking paths throughout the park area with picnic tables and grill sites.
7) A man-made bridge to walk over the mandatory drainage run-off.
8) An area designated along Hardy Oak that the city should build as a buffer to traffic.

No previous plans accounted for the Hardy Oak Blvd. with Methodist Hospital Opening in Summer 2009 it will need the auxillary route, mandated by the Unified Development Plan.

The previous plans suggested breaking the project up into multiple Phases. This would not be prudent based on current cost of materials, mobilization of equipment and labor and would balloon with future costs and remobilization and labor again.

In the coming months we will be inviting you to several functions for ground breaking and community informationals. These will be update meetings and future event planning sessions.

Thank you for your suggestions, your confidence and your support,

The Champions Springs HOA Board

Robert, Brian, and Marty