Cathedral Canyon Association 1

We have some great news. We’ve been working with the new golf club management, and they have finally received all the necessary software to program the Main Gate entry system. In addition, at the urging of our board and others in the complex, they have updated one important feature on the phone line used to dial the resident.

Residents are now able to have the entry system dial not just local 760 numbers, but now numbers all over the United States, Canada, Mexico, and other international locations, both land lines and cell phones. So if you maintain a cell phone with a Minnesota area code (or Toronto, or London), and you would like that to be dialed to control entry to the Main Gate (by pressing 9 to grant access), you may now provide that number to the Golf Club, and the system will have no problem dialing it.

Kendall Palu, Head Golf Pro at the Cathedral Canyon Golf Club, will be the point person for handling additions and updates to names and phone numbers in the entry system. Please contact him at the Club (760-328-6571) or by email (KPalu@jcresorts.com) if you need to make any changes in the system.

It is with sadness that we report the passing of Al Bushman last month. Mr. Bushman was a Partner in Falcon Lakes Properties, the entity holding our condominium subleases and master lease. Bushman was involved in developing both Cathedral Canyon Country Club and Desert Princess Country Club. From my few meetings with him, I’d have to say he was probably the best-dressed man in the Coachella Valley.

Thank you all who attended this year’s Annual Meeting. The results of the Election were:

• For Board Member:
  Bill Messersmith – 30 (winner)
  No write-in candidates
• IRS Resolution:
  Yeas – 28 (winner)
  Nays – 2
• Minutes from 2015 Annual Meeting
  Yeas – 30 (winner)
  Nays – 1

Several ideas were shared regarding general landscaping direction, specific landscape Continue reading →

Well, that got your attention. First of all, relax, there is no such planned increase (even if it was proposed, you’d all have to vote on it anyway). But there have been homeowners discussing the board’s decision to not overseed this year due to the state and CVWD’s drastic mandatory water conservation target directive. And that amount is potentially what it could have cost to ignore the CVWD’s directive and to pay the extremely stiff penalties. Continue reading →

We would like to remind all residents that, while you are responsible for landscaping within your Exclusive Use Common Area (that’s your patio behind your gates, and subject to CC&R rules on placement and height), you are prohibited from trimming, cutting, pruning or maintaining in any way anything that is outside the walls of your unit (separate interest). Residents are allowed to pick fruit from our fruit trees for personal (non-commercial) use.

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The Board is considering bids for the repaving of its internal streets, to be done either this year (or planning for next). During the median project, we pulled original surveys and documents from the city to determine once and for all which entity (Association 1, Association 2 & Welk/CCGC) was responsible what parts of streets that are in and adjacent to our leasehold.

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The Board has approved the next phase in its Lighting Improvement Project, addressing selective spotlighting in various areas to improve both aesthetics and ambient light levels, as well as at some visitor parking spaces. This project is expected to take place over the next two months.

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This month, our water bill came in as “Efficient” from Coachella Valley Water District. That’s good, meaning we are meeting the District’s very tight water reduction standards. There are HOAs who made a decision to overseed and keep watering, and they have had thousands to tens of thousands of dollars in penalties. When our Board made the decision to comply with the emergency standards, it’s because we didn’t want to have each unit to have between $80 and $240 in emergency assessments per month. In retrospect, we definitely made the right decision.

Like all of you, we’d love to see this tight water situation go away, so that we can have beautiful grass again. No one is sure if El Nino will save us, especially since rain has been largely scarce this month. But everyone we’ve spoken to says we should definitely plan a long-term solution to water conservation. It’s no longer 1976 water-wise. We are continually looking at several long-term solutions. These are difficult decisions, as landscaping is one of our most important resources.  Our decisions are not made in a vacuum, nor are they arbitrary. If you are concerned about landscaping, come to board meetings to learn the real costs of everything, and express your thoughts during the open forum segment of our monthly board meetings.

As you may (or may not) know, the State of California is experience once of the worst droughts on record, . We posted an article regarding this several weeks ago giving the details and what our watering plan would be to avoid significant water district penalties.

While we have been successful staving off the stiff financial penalties, our turf is not doing so well. Continue reading →