PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE

By: Dave Peterson, Board President

My message is a little different this month. I’ll close with a quick update of what’s happening, but I want to start out with a couple of big topics.

Old Age. This subdivision was built about 60 years ago, and much of what you see and what is in the ground is original stuff. When things are new, operation and maintenance are easy and cheap, and replacement needs are non-existent. Reserve studies look out into the future and estimate future major repair and replacement costs, but it’s often hard for people to take those projections seriously, especially as the reserve fund balance gets large. So, the natural tendency is for boards to reduce/defer adding to reserve accounts in order to keep dues low. Then one day, we look up and everything; EVERYTHING; is suddenly old, and needs to be replaced yesterday. We passed that milestone years ago, and we are playing catch up. So the dues are escalating rapidly, and unfortunately, they will keep going up. Replacements and major repairs are expensive; much more so than the original costs. Everything is way more expensive now; you’ve seen it in your households and businesses.

I’m not asking you to like this situation; only that you understand it. We are going to have to replace 60-yearold steel waterway bulkheads, do a major modification to our 60-year-old water system, implement a longterm aquatic weeds management program, tackle our waterway nutrient buildup, move our corporate yard from the Dover site to somewhere else, and deal with the other 200+ projects on the to-do list. The Townhome subdivisions are especially affected by this ageing.

As I noted last month, our reserve funding need is only 7% funded, and the finance committee and board are working on a plan to get our fiscal house in order. Much of our expensive infrastructure is at or beyond its design life, and we really don’t have the option of delaying much further. We have to address these issues. And this will cost us all. That’s just an unfortunate fact of life, I’m afraid.

Lawsuits. Things happen, and some people decide they need to sue TKPOA. The Association gets served with several lawsuits a year, so this is not a new thing for the board. What I want to say here is this: lawsuits against the HOA are lawsuits against your neighbors. Legal fees, settlement costs, and judgement costs not covered by insurance are paid out of your dues. And if the lawsuit involves a smaller subdivision of the Keys, such as a particular townhome subdivision, all of those costs must be borne by that smaller group of members. My plea is that members think of this before filing suit, and attempt to negotiate a resolution of the issue first, preferably just an accelerated fix of the problem. Please talk to your cove advisor or the General Manager if you see deferred maintenance or deferred replacements being a danger. Let’s use our limited money and time and energy on fixing problems, and not on grievance redress. Please.

With that off my chest, here is an update on key topics that the association is dealing with:

Winter. It’s still winter, and there’s still a lot of snow. Keep shoveling, and keep smiling! And please watch for pedestrians and cars nosing out from behind a snow wall. Let’s drive just a little bit slower for a while.

Spring. We’re in the process of soliciting bids from landscaping companies to maintain the common areas. We will no longer do that with in-house staff. The board thinks this makes more sense from an efficiency and performance standpoint. We’ll also be ramping up outreach on our new landscape guidebook and watering time restrictions. I saw many of you reimagining your landscapes last summer, and it’s looking good! And water and fertilizer use are dropping, which are important in addressing our drinking water system and water weeds problems. With all this snow on the ground and skiing being so good, it’s hard to think about landscaping, but I’d encourage you to get in the queue early with landscape companies, as they’ll be very busy in the spring and summer!

We’re also gearing up for the summer waterways program -- CMT Year 2 without boating restrictions and an expanded harvesting effort. We will have one new “dragon” harvester this spring, which is good because the others are old and difficult to keep running. A bigger challenge is recruiting the large seasonal harvesting crew. We are excited that this year we will benefit from our new Water Quality Manager (Kristine Lebo) plus the recruiting tools that FirstService Residential brings to the Keys.

The water is rising, which means that the lagoons will be wider and deeper this year. Everything goes better when the water is up! In fact, there are a couple of bulkhead replacement projects that went on hold when the water level dropped because contractors couldn’t physically get close enough to the wall; those projects will be able to go forward this summer. Progress!

Professional Management. TKPOA employees are no more; they all continue to serve you... but now work for FirstService Residential. This will simplify our administrative and HR load. Shane Gillaspie is serving as General Manager until we recruit an onsite General Manager. We are holding interviews as I write this, so by the time you read it, we should have someone on board. Mark Madison will be staying on until at least March to smooth the transition. The other key recruiting activity is for a Facilities Manager. I’ll have more on all that next month.

As always, I’d like to close with a giant thank you to all of our staff, contractors, and member volunteers! This old Keys is a “Project”, with a capital P. And in terms of challenge, It’s a “double black diamond”. But we’ve got great people working on it.