In February, I was elected as the new President of the Village at Apache Wells Board of Directors after the 2025 Annual Meeting.  This is a role that I do not take lightly. I’d like to first thank the past 30 years of presidents including Roger Borgwardt, Martin Hayward, Dick Warren, Marian Grider, Bill Patton, Del Schmidt and Herb Bonin for their service to the community. Secondly, I’d like to announce that I plan to share a president’s report on a regular basis that should give homeowners more insight into the work being done on your behalf by your elected volunteer Board of Directors.  

Here are some of the actions taken by the board in the last month: 

1.    Due to health and safety concerns, the dumpster by Building 2 was moved to the south side of Building 9 and power-washed. We purchased more granite rock and piled it where the dumpster was previously near Building 2. Homeowners are welcome to use these rocks to fill in areas around their unit as desired. There is a wheelbarrow and a wagon in the storage area for your use. These tools can be checked out in the office. 

2.    At the advice of arborists, four trees growing in the garden units on the West side of building 2 have been removed. The trees were interfering with the proper functioning of the drainage systems as well as creating potential structural issues with their invasive roots. 

3.    The five air conditioners (5) on the roof of the clubhouse were serviced. It was decided that unit #2 needed to be replaced. Bids have been reviewed and a unit costing $8095 was selected to be installed. 

4.    Roger Borgwardt is helping the board with keeping our HOA property insured.   The annual cost of our property insurance was under $10,000/year as recently as 2018.  This upcoming year our cost will be in the neighborhood of $100,000. Roger has done a great job getting competitive bids and negotiating with sales-people and underwriters.  Our HOA deductible was increased from $25,000 to $50,000 to save costs.  As mentioned in VAW e-bulletins, if you have loss-assessment coverage, your insurance would cover your share of the deductible in the case of a major claim.  If you do not have insurance, you could be personally liable for your share of the deductible. 

5.    We have completed a changeover of the office phone and internet from CenturyLink to T-mobile along with converting the office land-line (and our 480-830-2180 phone number) to a mobile-phone. This change will decrease our monthly office internet and telephone cost from $115 to $60/mo while allowing Cheri to carry the phone when she is out of the office as well as making it easier for emergency coverage when necessary.  

6.    Roof drainage issues were investigated on Building A 9-12. The company that roofed the building (Pro West) has agreed that it is a warranty issue and will repair it at no cost to the HOA. 

7.    The cement bridge between buildings 1 & 2 was deemed to be unsafe so it has been removed and replaced. 

8.    There has been a fair amount of discussion regarding the timing of chemical additions to the pools. We have worked with the vendor to rearrange their schedule so that they can service our pools earlier in the morning.  The goal is now that the pools are serviced starting between 7:30 and 8am on Mondays and Fridays. Due to the possible addition of Chlorine, the pool will be closed for 30 minutes after any treatment. 

9.    Our Pest Control vendor (Ky-Ko) has completed a survey of our bait boxes and concluded that there is almost no animal presence in phases 2 & 3 and only minor activity in phases 1 & 4.
 
10.    On February 23rd, an open forum was held in the clubhouse to discuss over-seeding the “green space” in Phase 4.  This is an annual process which involves planting a crop of Rye grass over the top of the existing Bermuda grass. Due to city and county recommendations, the board has voted to not over-seed the space for the last two years. Many homeowners, especially those around the space, would like to see the space restored to the lush green grass that we had in previous years.   The total cost of over-seeding was estimated at roughly $2000 including the seeding, maintenance, and increased water usage.  The Board of Directors discussed this request at the 3/11 board meeting and decided not to act on the request at this time. The city of Mesa has an online tool for HOAs to determine appropriate water usage amounts.  The tool was just released to HOAs this week so we will work through the calculations and revisit the issue once we have the results of this “online water budgeting portal”.

Upcoming work: 

1.    We have purchased two devices for automatic-monitoring of pool chemistry levels.  Currently, we have volunteers who test the water daily as per the Mesa City requirements.  The two auto-testers will be set up in the South pool as a trial.  If successful, we will add similar systems to the North pool. 

2.    We have started an annual review of the VAW Rules and Regulations.  This document is a further clarification of the approved “Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions” (CC&Rs) document that the Village has already approved.  For example, when the CC&Rs say that this is a 55+ community, the Rules and Regulations can define the conditions in which minors and guests who are less than 55 years old, may visit the Village. If any homeowner has a suggested change to the Rules and Regulations, please bring your concern to any board member.  The current Rules and Regulations document can be found here. 

Sincerely, Steve Patton, VAW HOA President