[Nhhoa] VOTE YES

Thu Apr 2 21:58:15 CDT 2009

My name is Jamie Reynolds. I live at 35 Harbor Ln. with my wife Kimberly and our 15 month old boy, Luke. I believe in the power of the monologue and I would like to communicate WHY I VOTED YES.....and you should too.......

1. Leasing restrictions help protect our home values. 
Are renters bad? Not always. But on average they do not keep a house up like the owner would. Why? Because a. they're not obligated to, b. it's not their home anyway, c. they are likely to be in this neighborhood for only a short while.....just passin through man.....Do you want a bunch of neighbors who are "just passin through" and have no ties to the resale value of the house they occupy? I don't. We need a neighborhood full of people who are accountable to their neighbors-whether they are renters, owners, leasors or lessees. The changes in the documentation promote that ideal. For more info. on this topic see:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/361649/uncontrollable_factors_that_will_decrease_pg3.html?cat=54

2. We need $$ - "HOA Financial Liquidity" is legal jargon, but the change made to our documents is simple, it requires our HOA to have a "capital reserve". In other words, if our HOA needs $$ in an emergency, it will be there. What's not to like? When my washer breaks do I want to put it on a credit card? NO!! I want $$$. Stuff happens. Life happens. If you want to see what happens when an HOA doesn't have a "capital reserve", look around...when we were house shopping we found a great neighborhood, great houses.......but there was a problem.....we couldn't figure out why the lawns in front of some houses looked like the Vietnam jungle until someone told us the HOA had "run out of money". Well I guess accoutability matters, and so does having money when we get in a pinch. It is just good sense.

3. We will be able to vote electronically. No one is required to vote electronically but the changes make it possible to do so. Perhaps more would have voted already if it was permissible to do it this time electronically? I don't know, but I do know that our HOA had our best interest in mind when they included this idea. Who wants to snail mail anymore? Not me. But I know there are some who do. There's nothing wrong with that, but there's also a whole lot right with speed, efficiency, less expenses, and paper used. Electronic voting is a great ideal that our HOA thought was in our best interest and I agree.

4. Amendment changes can be made if there is a 51% yes vote rather than a 2/3 vote. The low number of residents participating in this vote is an indication that 2/3 is an unreasonably high number of votes to expect anyway. Furthermore, this change would prevent grid lock from happening, a problem that can easily be avoided with this change. 

5. Dead Beat Owners Need to be Held Accountable - It is not fair to the 99% of us who follow the rules, maintain our properties well, and pay our mortgages on time when we have to drive by a house that is not being kept up. The person or persons responsible for that lack of upkeep should be held accountable!! The changes insure that our HOA will be able to act on our behalf to enforce what we already want. The way things are stated in the current bylaws our HOAs hands are somewhat tied. It would be like me paying my lawn service, Trugreen, to keep my lawn looking great year round and Trugreen having my $ but not having the legal right to enforce the servicing of my lawn. Maybe that's a bit of a stretch or a bad example, but it's not that far off either.......Think about it.....It doesn't make sense to not empower our HOA to enforce the bylaws that we have all agreed to and want to see enforced. On the flip side, we DO want to see all the homes
 in our neighborhood looking great. The change in the bylaws promotes homes looking great!

I'd just like to close by saying that NO, the bylaws are not perfect. Will they ever be perfect? NO! That's not the point. The point is to protect the hard working homeowners in this neighborhood. I know there were a lot of questions asked about these amendments and I think that is great. I also think the HOA board members listened with open ears and minds and DID SOMETHING ABOUT THE CONCERNS by taking action at meetings regarding those concerns. The least we can do is vote YES. We owe them that much, and really and truly we owe them a whole lot more than that. But voting YES would work wonders for their morale after the countless hours theyve spent on our behalf. Let's remember that these board members do not get paid and they have sacrificed on top of sacrificing for the betterment of this community....to not see these bylaws pass would be a major disappointment to me....but think about how THEY feel. Our board members have worked so hard to ammend
 these outdated documents on our behalf. It would be like a volunteer children's play director at church who has labored off and on for months to get a play rehearsed for the church and then the play is never performed.....ever.......or worse yet, more than half the cast doesn't show up on the day of the performance because they just didn't care enough........or like writing a 50 page research paper and having a power outage and losing everything........maybe my examples are bad, but they are not so bad that I am not getting my point across....Our HOA has our best interest at heart and they have proven it by going above and beyond to make changes that were brought up to them at meetings. We are blessed to have these folks serving and we should show our appreciation by VOTING. And in my humble opinion, you should vote YES! It is in our best interest!

If you like to read, trade books for FREE at www.paperbackswap.com 

http://jamiereynolds.com 

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