Unfortunately, due to the Coronavirus, our Homeowners Association (HOA) meeting scheduled for May 26th is cancelled due to Broward County restrictions.
We would like to summarize what has taken place in our community since our February HOA meeting. Hopefully, by the time we are ready to meet again in the next quarter, we will be able to meet as a community.
Our Board of Directors (Board) team, led by our President Melodie Savoca, have worked very hard this quarter putting forth many accomplishments that we are proud to announce to you as well as some news that affects the community.
Our dear neighbor, Billie Schaeffer (C3U2) has gone to be with the Lord on May 11th after battling cancer. Billie has been an anchor of our community with her ability to always smile, show kindness and help many of our residents as well as being a member of our Board for many years. She will be missed!
Mary Jane Grunes resigned from being a Board member and did Maintenance for many years. She is now a snowbird and is missed by our association! David Horvath was voted in to replace Mary Jane. He resigned from his position due to family obligations. Currently, Joe Reul (C3U3) has filled the position as Maintenance and will continue working as an independent contractor. We want to thank Ralph Brandenburg, who has volunteered to help with Maintenance through all the changes and continues to help our association when he can.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
We have contracted a new lawn service which started May 1st. They have promised we will see an improvement in our lawns. Now that the canal is filling up again, we will turn on the sprinklers very soon. (They had to be turned off when the canal dried up during our dry season.) After we check out all sprinklers and make sure they are working properly, we will turn them back on to be run regularly.
Garden Patio Villas (GPV) now has a website for anyone to see. You can find beautiful photos, Board of Directors information, GPV news, Board Meeting Minutes, and our calendar of events. All Realtor and New Buyer Documents have been brought up to date and available on the website. If you do not have online access and need a printed copy of any of the documents, please call our office and we will get any form you need. Take a look at our new website at: http://www.gardenpatiovillas.com
At our mailboxes, we have posted an updated Mailbox Residents list for our Post Office woman, in addition, a “take one information box” that includes monthly City of Margate Newsletters. New bulletin boards have been installed over mailboxes. The left side contains HOA Information and the right side contains information that residents may add for others to see. Tacks are included for your convenience.
The Board created a database of Resident Contact Information. This will make it easier for us to contact you either by email or phone for concerns or problems you may have. We are still trying to update it! Many residents have not given us their contact information. If we do not have this information, we will be knocking at your door as soon as it is safe for us to get your information. We also want to make sure all residents have the association’s business card with our association’s main phone number, email address and website address for you to keep for your convenience.
Melodie is currently sending out sporadic emails with updates to communicate with all of our residents. For those who do not have a computer, we are printing out important updates and posting them on the bulletin board above the mailboxes.
The Board has decided to find a new attorney to handle our legal matters. Our present firm is extremely expensive for what they have done for us. We have found a new attorney that specializes in HOA’s; they are located in Coral Springs and seem very competent at a much better price so we can save money. We had our first conference call with them on May 19th
Our By-Laws (Our governing documents of the association) are over a decade old. Several items in these documents are not applicable to us today. We plan to update the By-Laws and Rules and Regulations in the next few months. These documents will be made available on our website. Everyone will receive a physical copy when completed. We will also email out a digital copy. We will translate the Rules and Regulations document into Spanish for our Hispanic residents.
As the Board of Directors, we have been trying to listen and attend to everyone’s concerns. Please understand that we are not always able to correct everything promptly; we do the best we can to answer your questions and take care of each matter in a priority manner. In many cases, problems have to be taken care of by an outside vendor, depending on the need. That can take time. In addition, funds available are a variable in all decisions.
AVAILABLE POSITIONS
There are two positions we need to fill. One is available right now. This position is NOT a Board Member position. This position will be considered an independent worker. If you are interested in filling it, please contact us. This position is the following:
Clubhouse Cleaning – Weekly partial cleaning and one time per month full cleaning. A list of Cleaning Responsibilities will be available to you if you have any interest. Compensation for that position is $50.00 per month.
Our second position is for a Board Member that needs to be filled by officially voting during our annual HOA meeting in February 2021. The position is the following:
Treasurer and Board Member. Marshall Hyman, our present Treasurer will be retiring in February. Marshall has done an outstanding job taking care of many facets of the Board members’ responsibilities including invoices, accounting and legal concerns of the association. His position will be available for voting at our annual meeting in February. Compensation for this position is deducted from the quarterly maintenance fees. Marshall is willing to start training a person now for his position. If you are interested and have some financial experience, please contact us!
COMMUNITY POOL AND COVID-19
As you may be aware our Governor has opened up Phase 1 in Broward County on May 18. We re-opened our pool with county restrictions. It is imperative that anyone choosing to use the pool follow these guidelines. To help everyone with these temporary restrictions, we have 3 helpful volunteers that will be available at the pool to assist doing this; this is the only way we can open during this phase. See pool signs by the Clubhouse area for specific restrictions. The clubhouse will not be open for activities during this phase with the exception of use of bathrooms during pool time. We will update everyone when the Governor shifts to Phase Two.
LOOKING AHEAD
We look forward to future months when we can use the clubhouse again! We still plan to have future quarterly HOA meetings in addition to social activities as soon as county restrictions are lifted.
This next quarter, we hope to continue implementing new plans and work as a team serving our residents in our beautiful community! Our next HOA meeting will be held on August 25, 2020.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask and contact us!
Thank you,
Garden Patio Villa Board Members
President – Melodie Savoca
Treasurer – Marshall Hyman
Secretary – Barbara Reul