Oct/Nov 2020 Where to Pay your HOA, POA, and Swim Team Dues

For now, homeowners must continue to make separate payments to three separate management firms:

Shavano Rogers Ranch Crosstimber HOA: The ‘Crosstimber HOA’ is managed by Diamond, and they will bill you 4 times/yr. 

Diamond Association Management & Consulting (DAMC)
14603 Huebner Rd., Building 40, San Antonio, TX 78230
Phone: (210) 561-0606 • www.damctx.com
Greg Heaton (Greg@damctx.com) Community Association Manager

Swim Club: The ‘Swim Club’ (not to be confused with Swim Team and not technically an HOA) runs the recreation area (pool (access cards), bball and tennis courts, and clubhouse) and is managed by Real Manage, who will bill you 2 times/year. 

RealManage Property Management
12500 San Pedro Ave, Suite 325, San Antonio, TX 78216
Phone: 866-473-2573 • www.realmanage.com
Steve Brown (SHAVSWIM@CiraMail.com) Community Association Manager

Rogers Ranch POA: The RR Pkwy POA (Property Owners Assoc) is managed by First Service and they will bill you annually. 

FirstService Residential - San Antonio Property Management
3424 Paesanos Pkwy, Ste 100, Shavano Park, TX 78231 
Phone: 210-829-7202 • www.fsresidentialsa.com
Mona Schneider (mona.schneider@fsresidential.com) Community Association Manager

Oct/Nov 2020 Election day is nearing: United We Stand, Divided We Fall

 It’s 60 days out from the national election and we are in the midst of our annual HOA board elections. A few days ago, a nearby neighbor replaced his American Flag with a rather prominent “Blue Lives Matter” banner flag. There are a lot of nextdoor.com postings about people stealing political signs mixed in with random comments like “Positivity, pass it on.” Sign stealing is a form of intolerance that has to stop because Hate should have no home in the Crosstimber Community. Otherwise, our children will learn to become intolerable adults. Frankly, I suspect that we are going to need to give each other a little breathing room during this 2020 election system. Let’s try to give each other a wide berth.

In closing, I believe the COVID-19 global pandemic and the resulting 200K death toll in the US is the universe saying the same thing twice: “What affects one of us directly, affects all of us indirectly.” - MLK. This is on all topics: Race, Religion, and Politics. Until we (all of us, not just Americans) start respecting points of view that differ from our own, political signs will keep getting stolen and home owners will squabble. Let’s keep it classy. It would be nice to be the one neighborhood that doesn’t have to post anything on Nextdoor about stealing each others signs this year because nobody decides to do it. It would be really nice if we just chatted with our families (husbands, wives and children) about what behavior we expect from them before someone else’s right to free speech gets trampled.

Oct/Nov 2020 Four Board Member best practices that will build a vibrant HOA community

“Back to basics” never gets anything done

This “back to basics mentality” is a toxic narrative that excuses laziness and defends incompetence. It is lazy to rationalize all of home owners requests down to “the basics”. It is incompetent to ignore the very prescriptive feedback gained from the thirty or forty members who attended the 2019 Annual Home Owner’s meeting. We asked them why they came and they shared their concerns as we cycled through the room. Their responses overwhelmingly indicated that they wanted the HOA to level up to solving problems that we have in 2020 rather than continuing to nurse problems that we have had since 1997. The homeowner wish list included an list of 8 major initiatives: 

1) Ensure our actions are ethical and transparent, 
2) Modernize HOA bylaws, 
3) Host virtual meetings, 
4) Replace our communication platform, 
5) Expand the number of board members
6) Increase our return on investment, 
7) Significantly lower our gate maintenance costs, and  

8) Enable electronic voting.

Competence matters most to home owners

Our team of 4 new Crosstimber HOA directors successfully with the exact same professional management advisors that other previous HOA leadership teams had for years. A realtor, an accountant, a doctor, and a computer engineer completed all 8 initiatives in only 9 months from January to September of 2020. This begs the question: How come prior board directors didn’t get any of this work done between September 1997 and September 2019? That is over 22 years of board leaders. We believe that recruiting competent home owners with diverse skillsets is the key differentiator. So is empowering home owners to work on specific problems that they are personally committed to resolving. We proved that a board of directors and home owner led subcommittees with diverse skills can work collaboratively towards the same goals and solve problems faster. The positive results show we have exceeded expectations with less meetings in the middle of a pandemic largely because diverse thinking can often solve problems more quickly. We also stopped debating and simply pull in the same direction once a board majority decision was made.

Do or do not: There is no try

Arguing that “we have never done that before” when now is 2020 and before was 1999 is not acceptable. Several concerned home owners have contacted the HOA board for solutions to problems that only exist because HOA, Swimclub & the ACC do not coordinate better with each other. We specifically picked new crosstimber.com software to enable the HOA, Swimclub & the ACC to work hand in hand together for the betterment of the community. EX: Our new crosstimberhoa.com software has an online reservations system that easily solves the problem of non- home owners using our tennis courts without permission but it cannot work if only the HOA home owners use it without any support from the Swim Club or the ACC.

Oct/Nov 2020 HOA Community Goals to Move Forward

Accurate and Positive Outcomes

Up to date, bylaws are important to guiding our mission. Our Association of Home Owners demands accurate and positive outcomes that will increase the value of our property and whenever that is not achieved, we members (whether we be homeowners or board of directors), have an obligation to correct it. Larger, expensive neighborhood wide initiatives like power washing/repairing sidewalks and resurfacing streets should be delivered on time and on budget as a rule without exception.

Accountability and Truth

Directors are required by Texas law to act as fiduciaries. Therefore, board members should be committed to two things: accountability and truth. Accountability because we must always strive to make wrongs right and be held responsible for the success of this non-profit corporation. And truth because if the truth is never discovered then the community cannot evolve into a diverse, inclusive community for modern families.

Board members may not knowingly misrepresent facts

The Board is aware of a campaign letter sent to all homeowners by a single Board member. The letter includes an opportunity for you to give your proxy vote to elect 5 Board members to Donald Oroian. The remaining Board members: Brian Kinlaw, Tracey Lammert, Dr. Pratik Parikh and Cynthia Silman, do not support the contents of his letter as it is not factual and requires clarification. In a recent series of Special Board meetings, we provided the following clarifications:

• None of the complaints in the Oroian letter was ever a formal proposal. There was never a vote by the board and the discussion never went any farther than a spitball conversation.

• In particular, the Oroian letter stated that the Board is moving in the wrong direction. The specific example cited was an ethics code AMENDMENT that our HOA lawyer didn’t recommend and never came up for a board vote. Instead, the board majority opted for an ethics code PLEDGE. We recently held a Special Board meeting on August 11th to vote on it that only was only attended by four of the five board members. All four board members present agreed to sign it.

• The Oroian letter also left out the original basis for the entire ethics conversation began three years ago when background checks were first suggested. Background checks are standard for any director with a large fiduciary responsibility. In 2019, the board majority looked at the +800K cash assets balance and finally agreed It was prudent to ensure that board members have no conflicts of interest, and no motivating factors with a background screening.

• The Oroian letter also takes a November 2019 conversation about how to improve security conversation completely out of context. At the time (over 10 months ago), It was noted that $50K for our current 4 hour patrols + the FREE 24/7 ring app would be significantly cheaper than 8 hours of patrol @ $100K annually. 
  NOTE: The completely FREE Ring App is recommended by the Bexar County Sheriff’s organization and does not require the use of a Ring Device. Any home owner can download it to their smartphone (via iOS or Android here: https://download. ring.com/bexar). The app is used to: monitor neighborhood activity; share crime and safety-related videos, photos and text-based posts; and receive real-time safety alerts from your neighbors, local law enforcement and the Ring team.

• The ethics code is a work in progress. The proposed amendment was already dead and a non-issue long before the time the Oroian letter was sent because our lawyer didn’t recommend it. We recently aligned behind an optional pledge while our Ethics committee continues working towards a more permanent solution.

Establishing Director and Committee member qualifications and mandatory requirements

The Ethics Committee was formed a few months ago to establish qualifications and mandatory requirements for HOA BOD directors and committee members. One of our Crosstimber HOA Board of Directors objectives is to inspire home owners with our example and thus guide positive changes to move the community forward. Unfortunately, there is no law that explicitly establishes qualifications for persons wishing to serve on the Crosstimber HOA board of directors or one of its subcommittees. The provisions established in our bylaws merely “encourage” adherence to stated qualifications. Where mandatory requirements are entirely absent from our governing documents, there may be circumstances where any unethical person may be eligible to serve as a director and/or appointed to a subcommittee.

Oct/Nov 2020 Letter from the President - Security gates don't secure your home.

 Getting to know your neighbors is step one to securing your home

My wife and I moved here because we wanted our kids to grow up in a scenic, planned community and it was zoned to some of the best reputed schools in the area. We bought into this gated community are because it made both of us feel safe. Then someone “egged” our garage door almost as soon as we moved in and took our peace of mind. Me being me... I thought it was wrong for someone to instill fear in my family so I decided to track down the culprits myself. We connected to share information as needed with neighbors, the HOA and the authorities. They informed us that other families were also targeted that same night.

Three sets of parents were horrified that their tweenagers were involved but they were also honorable. We were offered and accepted sincere apologies so we chose not to press charges. Seasoned police detectives will tell you that it is usually going to be someone who feels comfortable. Someone you know. Someone in your peer group. Of course, the culprit could also have been someone random. Perhaps someone passing by saw a convenient opportunity that was not to be missed and targeted our home? This is why getting to know the neighbors helped me in my example but so did contacting the authorities.

Leveraging 24/7 technology is key to securing your home

Coordination w/ Law Enforcement and Surrounding Neighborhoods is a must when there is evidence of any crime. The Bexar County Sheriff’s office has recommended that home owners download the free Neighbors app to their smartphone (via iOS or Android here: https://download.ring.com/bexar) in order to join their digital neighborhood and use the app to: monitor neighborhood activity; share crime and safety-related videos, photos and text- based posts; and receive real-time safety alerts from your neighbors, local law enforcement and the Ring team.

Experts say that security should always be a default state and always on if it is to be effective. This approach requires cameras. Generally speaking, the facts are that community managed cameras in each vulnerable blindspot will save more money than they cost but they are still expensive. So are guards and patrols. When my family’s peace of mind was stolen, we called the guard patrol. It was not helpful for them to show up and offer to call the police after admitting that they had not seen anything or anyone walking around. That’s when I realized that one home owner installed and managed random camera at the front door or garage of our home was cheaper than guard patrols and much more effective for my family’s need to stop worrying that it could happen again or escalate.

Arguments against cameras center around the idea that a career criminal would never arrive in his own car and would wear a disguise and maybe even be armed. While that maybe true, hiring guards to man the front gates for a few hours a day is not helpful without cameras throughout the neighborhood. Think of it this way: when a guard patrol is cruising by my house or manning the gate, they are not watching yours because they cannot be in two places at one time without cameras. Best of all, modern cameras can be motion triggered and always on. This creates notification events that will help to alert you of suspicious activity near your home and help the HOA monitor our common areas VIA text messages. If you just don’t like cameras, well behaved dogs are as good if not better than state of the art messaging technology.

Let’s secure it all together now

We recently completed a survey that shows people tend to agree that Patrolling Crosstimber for only 4 hours a day costs $50K and doesn’t deter crime in a neighborhood of 650+ high dollar homes. Many different Crosstimber home owners have shared several problem scenarios:

• Guards who they rarely show up during an emergency.

• Guards who “help” the home owner call 911 but didn’t see a thing.

• Guards who are not here for 20 hours every day.

• Guards who take power naps.“I pulled into the North Gate entrance on 1/24/2020 at 8:30PM. I noticed our Security patrol truck parked on my left facing the exit with the guard inside and an interior light on. I quickly pulled over to the curb on my right and got out to thank him for his presence and inquire if I could get him a water or anything. I was a little afraid he might have a gun but then I noticed that he didn’t move as I approached and stood outside his window. I could see that he was busy playing “Candy Crush” on his phone before he fell asleep. As I moved toward the front of the car and looked back into the truck cab, he still didn’t move. I knocked loudly on the hood and I saw him jump and his eyes fly open. When he opened the door, I explained that it is harder to sleep if you are moving around.”

In conclusion, the intersection/layering of different forms of security is best so that home owners have no single point of failure:

• Guards who stay awake when they are here

• HOA managed cameras in each vulnerable community area blind spot

• Getting to know your neighbors

• One home owner installed random camera at the front door or garage of each home.

• One security alarm system

• One well behaved dog

• Using the free Neighbors App from Ring and Nextdoor to say something when you see something

• Joining the Security committee to come up with other innovative ways to improve security in the community.

PLEASE NOTE: The HOA can only manage/control the guards and cameras. The bottom six methods are actually the most effective and all of them are entirely up to you. There are problems with relying entirely on any one of the methods.