Your board of directors continues to be very actively involved in the Village even though we’re off-site until fall.  Here’s the President’s update for June. 

1. Please join me in welcoming Kelly Hicks from Schofield Wisconsin to the village. In May, Kelly purchased unit 2038 from Tom & Liz Yuzer who moved to unit 28 in January.  
    
2. As most of you have heard, the contractor that we’ve been using to trim our trees, Pedro Aguirre Gomez suffered a fatal fall on June 4th while trimming palm trees in Apache Wells.  The 39-year old business owner was survived by a wife and four young children.  The VAW board of directors donated $500 to his family on the behalf of the residents of our HOA.
    
3. As I mentioned in a previous update, Flat Iron Electric will be replacing the electrical panels in the clubhouse in the closet where we keep the folding chairs.  The panels that were used when the building was built are no-longer approved by our insurance company.  This project is tentatively scheduled for Tuesday July 1st. Bicycle locks will go on the North pool gates the evening of the 30th as the required chemical levels cannot be maintained without electricity to run circulation pumps.  Beginning Tuesday, July 1st, there will be no electricity in the clubhouse for a day or two.  That means no TV, no AC, no fridge or freezer and worst of all, no coffee. 
    
4. In response to unauthorized use of our pools, the keyed locks were reinstalled in the seven gates around our pools.  Unfortunately, the locks are in addition to the required latches at the top of the gates. This results in the need to use two hands to open the gates. Homeowners (or their representatives) can continue to stop in the office and pick up one new key from Cheri. These keys are not to be duplicated and are not the same as those needed to access the clubhouse. Our long-term plan is to budget for re-manufacturing the gates to hold locks at least 48” off the ground so we can remove the latches. 
    
5. As previously shared, the board has accepted GigaPower’s offer to run fiber-optic internet lines throughout the Village at no cost to us.  The contractor that GigaPower hired to install the lines is called “Fullerton Engineering” and is currently getting permits from the City of Mesa and expects to start the work in 3-5 weeks. Most of the lines will be installed using a boring machine which will drill horizontal holes 3 feet underground.  The majority of the lines will be run within a foot of the roadways in and around the Village. Once the lines are installed, homeowners will be given the option to purchase high-speed internet service from AT&T.  Del Schmidt (0051) has volunteered to be our on-site liaison with Fullerton Engineering. 
    
6. Irrigation issues were discovered and repaired in our “green space”. It should be back to a lush green look in the next week or so. 
    
7. Village Finances: 
    
   • The Village is currently running slightly under budget but recent increases in utility costs will most-likely present challenges this fall.  The City of Mesa, for example, announced increases in non-residential natural gas rates of between 9% and 25%. We are currently on track to run as much as $10,000 over budget on utilities so we’ll have to find ways to save money in other areas.
      
   • One of the reasons that our insurance premiums keep going up is that the value of the buildings on the VAW property have been increasing over the years.  You may be surprised to learn that the total valuation of all of the 39 insured HOA buildings is just shy of 25 million dollars.  
      
   • Our current reserve balance is $455,578. Of the $270 that each homeowner pays for HOA dues each month, about $73 of that goes into this savings account.  As mentioned in my April report, we will be having our reserve study updated this fall to give us a better picture of our financial position regarding future capital expenditures.
      
8. I’d like to remind homeowners that you have the right to attend our monthly Board of Directors meetings. These meetings are held on the second Tuesday of each month at 8am Arizona time. During the summer, we use Zoom to meet virtually and in the winter we meet in person in the library. In order to make this more transparent, we have started recording our monthly board meetings.  If you have an hour to burn sometime, you can watch June’s meeting by clicking here:  The passcode is: FbE92ng^
    
9. As you should have seen in the e-bulletin sent out on 6/15, that the Village experienced a fire in unit B-9 of Phase 1. Unit B-9 appears to be a total loss for the homeowner but the building and common elements for the rest of the owners in the building came through the event fairly unscathed.  Fire Inspectors and Insurance Adjusters will be crawling in and around the property over the next few days.  We expect the investigators will be done with their on-site work by the end of the week so that we can begin repairs on the outside of the building as early as next week. 
    
10. And the biggest news of the month…
     

Cheri Maniz, our Community Association Manager, has announced plans to retire after 4-1/2 years of service to the community.  She has indicated that her end-date is flexible but her target would be to retire in October.  Cheri has been an invaluable member of our community and will be tough to replace.  To show our appreciation for her work, the board is planning on having a retirement party for her sometime in the fall in the clubhouse.  The board is beginning the process of looking for candidates to fill this position and will be seeking volunteers soon to help with the selection process. 

Steve Patton and your Village at Apache Wells Board of Directors