Nabbing a Fugitive - Our Blockwatch In Action!

Hello Neighbors:

Just wanted to pass on our experience on Sunday AM where the keen eyes and ears of our neighborhood did their job in protecting our blocks within RM.

I got a knock at my door about 8 to 810 am.  A young man...16 at the most was panting, bent over in catching his breath and very sketchy.  He said he was being chased by several people and needed to come inside to hide.  I asked him to leave my property since I did not want a fight in my driveway.  He said no and crouched down behind my cars to hide himself from being seen by the road.  I told him maybe we needed to get him some help from the police.  I went inside to dress and look around from the 2nd story.  I did not see anyone coming down the street or looking for anyone.  I asked my wife to call 911 as I went back outside.

The young man asked again to come inside.  I said no.  I asked why he was being threatened.  He told me some lady had her kids after him.  I told him to go and hang out by the pier where people were fishing and leave my driveway.  He would not and kept hiding around my cars...again walking towards the front door and saying he needed to go inside.  I went back inside to look around from the back yard to see what may be coming down the street. 

I stayed inside while he was skittishly walking around our driveway and dirt lot just next door.  Within about 5 minutes a Maricopa PD car pulled up to my driveway.  He talked to the young man and asked him to get into the car.  I came out and asked what was happening.  He took my contact info and explained that a person fitting this description was just reported jumping a fence a few blocks away...possibly robbing a house. 

When I got to church I was met by a member that lives 3 streets behind us on Merced.  He (or his neighbor) apparently heard something coming from a home that is typically a winter visitor home.  Knowing this they kept watch and saw someone jump a fence.  The police were called related to an attempted robbery.  The suspect showed up at my home wanting to hide.  Not believing his "story" I did not help him...but hope that he will get the help he needs to change his ways.  I felt that I had missed a "Dog" moment (referring to Dog the Bounty Hunter, TV Show) to talk to the teen and help him realize this was not a good path in life.  My prayers are with him to choose to change.

Please keep an eye out for those homes around us.  We all need your help.  Thanks for being great neighbors...and thanks Maricopa PD for responding quickly.

4 Peaks Grass Cutting - Please Stop the SCALPING!

The attached document is the field report that I prepared to document my inspection after 4 Peaks cut the grass in our development. It is my professional opinion that the issues that we keep seeing in our development related to the grass is because the landscapers cut it too short. This creates a uncomfortable surface for our children as well as many issues related to runoff...stormwater erosion...overwatering to keep alive...etc. See below for the report:

10 0825 Site Visit Report

This document was provided to David Wisnowsky of AAM as well as the Shea Representative (Mr. David Garcia) and to date I have yet to hear any response.

HOA Meeting...the Day After.

First thing Wednesday AM I got an email from Dave:


Good morning Emery,

I was hoping to talk with you at the meeting either before or after, but didn’t get the chance. I have attached you list of questions along with answers. You list was too long to present at the meeting with the time constraints we were under. Please let me know if you have any questions regarding the answers and I’ll do my best to clarify where needed.

Best regards,

Dave Wisnosky
Community Manager
AAM, LLC
(602) 288-2609 (direct line)
(480) 821-2334 (direct fax)
(602) 957-9191 (main line)
www.AAMAZ.com
“Setting the Standard of Excellence for 20 Years”


Below is the response to my letter of items to be discussed at the HOA meeting:

HOA Meeting Question Response by AAM

I was surprised to find a list of my questions answered with short brief comments...I felt that it was mostly saying "this is not our problem" or "this is not a problem". Below is my response to his email:

David,

I am available anytime you are in the neighborhood. A courtesy call the day or 2 before to set an appointment would be best instead of stopping unannounced since I do travel to job sites on random occasions.

I did not feel that yesterday's meeting was the right place to discuss my concerns. The room provided was very uncomfortable as well as you and most of your staff (representatives) were very defensive, abrasive and in some ways just spreading non-factual backed "opinions" as reasons for the mis-management within our community (except for the times when you quoted my information). As a professional that is in the field of development I can see through the propaganda of "mis-information" spread at last nights meeting and was not about to reduce myself to arguing with a company that has little concern for the homeowner...as long as our dues are being paid. Since the role of a builder managed HOA (whose customer is the developer / builder...not homeowner) it is your role to "protect" and "serve" builders to be immune from the frustrations of homeowners in the name of cost savings, reputation protection and headache management.

I find it sad that you answer to our concerns of water management and GW fee increase is to do nothing till we see what GW will do. Who will this benefit? Definitely GW...Definitely not us (homeowners). Why are you willing to perform your business and our community in "crisis management" mode? How effective could we be (if you were really concerned about the cost increases of water) if we decided to team with all HOA / Communities across Maricopa and have a 1 week, no water day. What message would be sent to GW if we as a city could team together and cut our water use by 50 % for the coming month. What would we say to GW if we decided to not water most common areas and allow it to go dormant now before winter overseeding in Oct? What would GW see in their sales if we decided to only water trees, bushes and winter grass and forget having summer grass except for the entry way and thus cut our water bill significantly since it is too hot (and 4Peaks cannot cut it correctly to allow it to grow right) to enjoy right now anyway.

What would GW do if a majority of the HOA / Communities came together and had a "water flu". Would they not realize that we are their customers and they cannot charge a 6x increase in water (by the way why would a 6x increase [$0.33 to $2] in water fees create a annual budget increase of 7x [$60k to $420] instead of $60k x 6 = $364k???). As a professional in the field of water / wastewater treatment I know that we are a necessary "customer" of GW and they need us for disposal of their wastewater treatment effluent. Thus we have rights and more importantly we have power to say no we will not accept such a high rate / cost for obtaining your water.

Not to mention why have we not worked to secure additional irrigation rights? Wouldn't it be beneficial to be the "first in line" to talk with Maricopa-Stanfield irrigation District? They have wells right across the street from our lake that could be rehabbed and used to provide water. There are wells currently on the Rancho Mirage property that are available, with water from the previous ag activities here. Don't you think this would be best to do before "everyone else" wants water too since they played the "wait and see" game on the GW rates.

As I previously discussed it is this type of what I call "mis-management" is what proves to me that AAM HOA is not here to serve us the homeowners...only the builder and other "big guys" such as Global, Orbitel, etc. by being their "bean counters" and "enforcement officers" of us "little guys".

I have attached my field observation report of your landscapers grass cutting today. As discussed last night it is obvious that the grass is being cut too short. This enhances evaporation, creates more need for water to keep the grass thriving, encourages run-off from sloped areas by decreasing the runoff coefficient of the ground...which then requires more watering creating more runoff, and the grass does not create a mulch bed or root zone which further decreases water retention, increases evaporation, and increases runoff, etc... It is very easy to observe. I would suggest that you come with me some day after mowing (without their knowledge) such as Wednesday about 8-9am near my home / pier area.

An additional concern that I have is the AAM mis-representation of the quality of reclaimed water. For this water to be used in lawn irrigation it meets ADEQ Class A standards for reclaimed water use. Within my profession we are working hard to help the public understand that this is a viable and safe alternative to using drinking water for irrigation, car washing, animal water, etc. Question...do you play golf? Did you know that most all golf courses in AZ are watered with recalimed water. Do you see the same issues as cited today on my field report on the golf courses you see? Due to the status of Phoenix, Tucson, Prescott, etc AMA's (active management areas) establised due to our water shortages and high use in specific areas potable water for golf course irrigation. The technology used to clean the water to Class A standards is top of the line and used effectively and efficiently to remove the "sewage" from the water. Yes there is a bit of extra nitrogen that creates some algae growth in the ponds but that is another issue that is related to the low circulation of the lake and thus mis-management of the lake resource to maintain low cost energy bills. To have you and your staff comment that they refuse to let their dog drink the reclaimed water is nothing short of a uneducated scare tactic. This is not a professional nor technical opinion or correct comment that should be uttered in a professional meeting. If anything the water quality poor nature is due to 2 things. 1. The poor quality of the initial groundwater used in our homes that is high in TDS (i.e. salts). and 2. The crap that homeowners flush down the toilet / sewer as well as the salt from softeners and RO reject water that concentrates these already present salts. If there was a need (i.e. water shortage) I would and could make a quick sand filter from some PVC pipe, play sand and small gravel to quickly filter the water to remove the algae and add a few drops of bleach to chlorinate (as our drinking water systems already do) to remove any fecal bacteria from the wildlife and use the water for drinking / cooking use.

I appreciate you sending me the responses to my questions. I will review your responses more closely but most of them seem to be quickly put together poor reasons / excuses from my first read through.

It is pretty frustrating that we are still asking for resolutions to the same issues now for 2 annual meetings in a row. If you need we can provide a better (and much cooler) meeting location for future annual meetings as well as refreshments.

If I have any questions I will follow up.

Feel free (as I stated several times) to contact me directly for further discussion.

Thanks,

Emery

--

Engineered With Layton, P.L.C.

Value Engineering through Reasonable Fee's, Attention to Detail and Honest Hard Work.

N. Emery Layton, P.E.
480.244.3355
www.engineeredwithlayton.com

The field report from the grass cutting discussed in the above email will be in my next post.

Mr. Layton's HOA Meeting Questions

As requested by AAM we provided a list of questions regarding our community. See below:

10 0816 HOA Meeting Questions

Interesting enough after this document was provided I could see evidence of several trades in our community addressing our complaints. Thus I felt my time was somewhat worthwhile. I was however interested in how AAM would address our questions. Unfourtantely as discussed later we felt ignored.

HOA Annual Meeting Coming Up

All homeowners. This is the letter sent from our HOA regarding the annual meeting.

Hoa Meeting Question Request