By Don Unruh
This is an email I sent to the ArrowCreek Board of Directors. I would urge anyone with an opinion on this subject to also communicate with the board.
ArrowCreek Board Members, October, 8 2015
I attended the board meeting on Tuesday, October 6, 2015, at the ArrowCreek Resident’s Center. I came away with some fairly strong opinions regarding the issue of our HOA management company.
I think the board should change management companies and hire FirstService.
Granted, I am not a member of the board, and don’t know all the ins and outs of managing a community like Arrowcreek, but please consider the following reasons why I think this change should occur.
First, the issue of complacency. Associa has been managing for eleven years and I think it was obvious during their presentation that they have become complacent. Responses to questions and issues were frequently, “No one told me to do it” or “No one asked me for it”. In fact, at one point an admission was made that “I used to be more proactive but no one was interested so I gave up” (Not an exact quote but the gist of what was said).
While during the presentation by FirstService, the focus seemed to be on continually improving customer service to the board and the residents and being proactive in improving the quality of life in the Arrowcreek community. Maybe it was all a sales pitch, but at least I don’t think FirstService would start out complacent.
Second, while it was revealed that the manager from Associa devoted at best 80% of her time to Arrowcreek and is very seldom on site in our community, FirstService committed to having the manager on site five days a week, year round, accessible to the board and the residents. This is important to me and probably a lot of other residents.
There are other reasons but I will keep this short. One other recommendation I will make is that if FirstService is chosen, please consider allowing them to manage our employees. They have professional HR managers that would do that job with more efficacy. I will give three examples where I think the process of human resources management could improve in our community.
It was stated by Associa that they perform annual reviews of employee performance whereas FirstService said they do monthly reviews so that they can offer tools and/or resources to improve performance and eliminate any surprises for employees that need discipline. All too often when I see three employees, one is working and two are watching.
I have tried several times over the last few years to contact the Facilities Operations Manager for various issues that required some communication. I have called his phone many times at all hours of the typical workday. He has never answered the phone. It always goes to voicemail and even though I have left multiple messages, I have never received a return call.
Finally, this anecdote is personal but I think it shows a level of professionalism that could use some improvement. Last December, the shed containing the tennis ball machine was destroyed in a wind storm. It was not replaced until August after much nagging by several tennis players. Not that big a deal since it did get replaced and the new shed is very nice indeed. However, I noticed right away that the shed floor is about 8 inches off the concrete deck. I reported this to the Activities Coordinator at the Resident’s Center because I could not reach the Facilities Operations Manager, as usual. After some time, I built a small ramp myself and took it over for all to use. It may sound trivial but, not only could that $2000 machine have been damaged taking it in and out of the shed, someone could have been injured doing so. It would have been a simple matter for whoever installed the shed to resolve this issue instead of ignoring it and causing a resident to resolve it.
Again, please consider hiring FirstService as our new HOA management company.
Please take this email in the spirit of positive criticism and an effort to help make Arrowcreek a better community and please reply when this email has been received.
Respectfully,
Don Unruh
See also Some Thoughts on the Current State of Affairs
ArrowCreek411 
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Although I could not attend the HOA meeting on 10/6/15, with the help of a detailed report from my neighbor and postings on the AC411 website, I had a stunning realization. The reason why we as a homeowners association have been stuck in a rut is because nobody really feels responsible. Our Vice President, Robin Rakusin, apparently declared that she is just a volunteer, and does not respond to shareholders. She is correct, that in the legal sense, HOA board members cannot be held accountable, except in the case of malfeasance. Was this statement meant in this narrow sense, or could it be symptomatic for the entire HOA board and boards past?
Jeanne Tarantino stated that the HOA board is managing our employees, but that Associa has been doing annual performance reviews and site visits. If anyone had been doing site visits, there is no way that they could not have discovered over the years that the Residents Club activities director Brenda is never to be found in her office. People don’t even know that someone is supposed to be in this office from 9:00 to 5:00. If they would have done random phone calls to her office, they would have found that it takes an average of 48 hours to get a return call. Repeated inquiries to previous HOA Boards as to what exactly the operations manager, Jeff Anderson’s job is and requests for productivity reviews have been ignored. I don’t know who is responsible for monitoring our grounds, but it takes days for major water leaks along AC parkway to be repaired. If anyone had visited the pool, they could not have missed that the weeds that grew to be waist high this spring are now brown and dead. That is 6 months of neglect. Year after year the Activities Director gets a handsome salary of about $40,000 and the Operations Manager about $90,000 for this kind of service. Last year’s bonuses for our employees were bigger than ever. Who decides on the bonuses and based on what criteria? Years back Jeff Anderson got a bonus of $5000. What warranted that for a management (salaried) position in a non-profit organization?
A good managing company might have assisted our boards to improve our community over the years, and ensure that we make the best use of our money for the benefit of all. Instead, we had to pay for an expensive demographic study to tell us what is important to our community – – the amenities we already have. Doesn’t Associa manage other communities? Shouldn’t Associa consequently have been guiding our boards to better our community based on their years and scope of experience? Or is Ms. Tarantino correct and the board has ignored Associa’s expert advice to the point that Associa now only reacts when approached by the board?
A good managing company should have recognized well before it had gotten to a critical point, years ago, that we were underfunding our reserve funds. Now, the “temporary” increase (about double of what the HOA fee was in 2005-6) established to replenish our reserve funds remains in place 8 years later, and we now routinely have an annual surplus. In fact, because this is an annual occurrence, instead of recalculating the monthly assessment or determining what can be done with these funds to better the life of those living here, the board decided to create a new account into which the annual surplus would be deposited at the end of each year. As the professionals, the managing company should assist those who volunteered to become the HOA treasurer or budget committee members to recognize such things, but instead, business has gone on as usual. One must ask, what all could have been accomplished with our HOA fees and reserve fund surplus over the years to truly enhance the quality of life for all homeowners? Because the board is of a volunteer nature, made up of people with varying backgrounds and skills, direct daily collaboration with a competent and committed professional management company is paramount. It appears as though there has been a serious lack of this between the current managing company and the board, present and past.
Personnel management is a hands-on game, and with past and present boards, the homeowners have been on the losing end of this game. A community cannot be managed reactively, at arm’s length from an outside office. We need a new, more effective approach to managing our staff and our community.
The contract for a managing company is up for renewal/renegotiation. They are paid by us, the shareholders, and should work in our best interest. We are entitled to know the details of what Associa and First Service have to offer, and at what cost prior to a vote by the board. We should then know which company got the contract and, most importantly, why. I support Mr. Unruh’s request to the board to opt for a new management company.
First Service offers to be on site 5 days a week, offers HR services and training as part of their basic, standard contract. First Service Management Company also does perform budget management in 80% of their communities. Would this level of service be an additional cost to our current contract with Associa? Good reason for a change.
We have board elections coming up. Three board positions, including that of the current vice president are up for election. We deserve people who have a sense of responsibility and financial accountability towards us, the homeowners.
It’s time for us to move in a better direction, and moving to a new management company with new ideas and new approaches and demanding an effective collaboration with the management company by our elected board members is a prime place to start. The only good thing about the golf course debacle is that it has made us look at things with a critical eye. Does that mean there actually might be reason to hope for change?
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Add me to your list of supporters.John Ryanw6loa@sbcglobal.net
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The best thing about FSR is not their people, but their computerized financial reports. Used to live in a FSR managed associaion.
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There has been a transition in the management of community, residential, and commercial property from real “management ” to properly “administrators “.
What we have in Arrow Creek is an off site office function at a cost that is not of good value to the property owners.
I may be criticized for not attending meetings, as I wanted to give the current administration an opportunity to function on their own.
As a retired developer, manager of both residential and commercial property, I am very disappointed in the past 3 years of Arrow Creek operations. With the risk of condemnation of my opinions, I also feel that the aquisition of the FOA ILL ADVISED PURCHASE OF THE CLUB AT ARROW CREEK SHOULD NOT BECOME THE LIABILITY OF THE ACHOA.
Respectfully,
John Ryan
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