News

You should have all received your ballots for the BOD election by now. If you have not voted please take a few minutes to fill it out and mail it in. How this association moves forward and interacts with homeowners depends on homeowners casting their vote on how this will be done. There are four qualified candidates for three positions so please vote.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Connie DeLarge for serving on the BOD for the past six years. She has chosen not to run this time and the community owes her a big thank you for the time and effort she has put forth being a BOD member for six years. Thank you Connie.

Fall is here and the dogs and homeowners are enjoying the lower temperatures for their walks. Hopefully this will also bring out more people to the monthly Block Party/Food Truck Roundup at Windmill Park. There has been a consistently good turnout of people in attendance and the climbing wall at last month’s was a great success. Hopefully we will see you there in October.

The Thanksgiving and Christmas food drives to help those less fortunate are still planned, as is the holiday lighting contest and caroling at Windmill Park . A Santa food drive is being organized with free pictures with Santa for a food donation with times announced next month.

Enjoy the cooler weather and consider attending a committee or BOD meeting. This community is only as good as those willing to donate their time to make it better that way.

The new cool decking at Windmill pool has been completed along with the repainting of the Windmill office and ramada’s. The fencing at both the community center pool and Windmill pool have also been repainted. The repainting of the fences is required to be done every three years by the Reserve Study due to the oxidation (rust) of the metal from the chlorine in the pool. The study is a valuable tool for long range planning to meet the financial requirements to keep our assets in top condition and not have surprise expenses from lack of maintenance. There were some questions raised as to why the Windmill pool had to be closed in July for the work and the reason being that the work needed to be done with higher temperatures than those we have later in the year.

A number of rumors have been floating around about the survey sent out to all homeowners on closing the pool for the winter months. The only votes counted in the tally were homeowner votes – period. No commercial votes were counted toward the total count with 71% of homeowners voting to close it. If you have questions please feel free to ask management for the answers rather than listening to the “rumor mill”.

With sunset earlier and temperatures more comfortable after the sun sets the monthly food truck rally might be a good choice for something different for the family. It is nice to see the families coming down and enjoying the grass at Windmill park and there will be a few more reasons to bring the family starting this month. There will be a rock climbing wall for the kids to try (no charge) and a balloon artist will be there also. We are hoping to add a movie in the park in the future. So come down and enjoy the beautiful park we have and meet your neighbors along with having a great variety of food.

To the people writing anonymous letters to the association- if you have a valid concern please present it at the BOD meeting or with a name so that we can address those concerns directly with you instead of just filing them in the round file can. 

Another school year starts on August 5^th so watch out for the children going to and from school. They’ve been on summer vacation and may not be as attentive to traffic around them. Speaking of school, the Marana High School marching band will be holding a rummage sale fundraiser at the Community Center on August 9th to help purchase accessories like hat boxes, suit bags, gloves, etc. for their NEW uniforms.The band participates in the Rodeo Days Parade, the Marana Founders’ Day Parade, as well as dedicating every Friday night during football season to play at the games. This is a great opportunity to pick up used treasures and school clothes as well as support the local high school band. Last year they were able to acquire a director’s observation tower with proceeds from their sale.

The Windmill pool deck repairs should be complete as well as the repainting of the office building, ramadas, and pool fencing as required by the Reserve study. Keeping our assets up to a high standard is the goal of the BOD and through careful budgeting and contributions to the Reserve funding we have been able to do this while not having to increase assessments. With the required increases to the Reserve contributions each year there will be some choices to be made in the next few years.

The survey sent out to the homeowners concerning keeping Windmill pool open in the winter months has been tallied. There were 620 homeowner surveys returned. 442 homeowners (71%)  wanted the pool closed in the winter and 178 homeowners (29%) wanted it open. The BOD will follow the majority opinion in this matter.

Hopefully the monsoons will kick in this month as we can surely use the rain.

As I mentioned in last month’s newsletter a number of Palo Verde trees have been infested with witches’ broom. The landscape committee toured the property recently looking at the condition of the Palo Verde trees. While the committee feels that trees add shade and are a real asset to the community it was with great reluctance that the committee has decided that removing the infested trees is in the best interests of the community. In an attempt to try and get ahead of the infestation and try to keep it from going further the committee decided to remove 24 Palo Verdes from Coachline north of Twin Peaks and replace them with 36 inch boxed trees. This was not something that was planned for but by careful management of their budget they will be able to achieve this goal while staying in budget. The committee will be looking at other infested trees when they have a new budget in November.

On a happier note the new play structure was completed at Windmill Park and if the amount of usage is any indication I would venture a guess that it is being warmly received by both the parents and the kids. It is a great addition to Windmill and continues the mission of this BOD to keeping our assets up to highest standard that we all deserve.

I find it quite interesting that the kiddie pool at the community center has far fewer problems keeping the pH level correct while the hot tub/spa at Windmill pool has constant issues in maintaining the proper pH levels due to urination. You would think that little children would be urinating in the pool while adults using the spa would not be. Apparently this is not the case and can cause very serious consequences for anyone using the spa. Chlorine interacts with ammonia from urine to form chloramines which have been associated with lung and nasal problems. It is really sad that the little children have better control of their bladders than adults in this case.