2006 October Newsletter

Our August 22, 2006 meeting of the Board of Directors was held as scheduled. Attendance included all five members of the Board of Directors, the Chairpersons of our Budget, Landscape, Maintenance, and Parking Committees, Jon Spragle , Architectural Manger from Pulaski Arita Olsson, Inc. (PAO), Charles Jeffries , Association Manager from Optimum Property Management and a dozen association homeowners.

Homeowner issues raised at this meeting included exterior renovation project issues, the requirement for an enhanced Architectural Committee, parking issues, and earthquake insurance. Reports of issues and activities were reported by Chairpersons for our Budget, Landscape, Maintenance, and Parking Committees. A major presentation was made by our Parking Committee Chairman, Robert Stand, which was the summation of almost a years worth of work by that committee recommending to the board an updated set of parking regulations that they encouraged the Board of Directors to adopt and implement immediately. This has been a subject of much discussion for the past year and will be discussed at our September Board of Directors meeting. The committee's recommendations include many parking rules such as parking two cars in the garage that we have always had but not enforced, registration of all vehicles with the Management Company, a permit and decal system, and an enforcement policy which will include the use of a Security Company, fines for violations and eventually towing for non-responsive situations. Should you be interested in voicing an opinion on this subject please join us at our September meeting or write Charles Jeffries , our Optimum property manager, to express your opinion.

We are also looking to start an active Architectural Committee at this time to review our current rules and guidelines and to make recommendations to the board as to what actions may need to be considered. Should you have interest in this important issue, please advise Charles Jeffries , as he will be maintaining a list to start this committee.

As of this writing, our project is on schedule for carpentry but approximately 4 weeks behind schedule on the painting process. To remedy this situation, PSC is in the process of getting additional manpower to put us back on plan. Survey work, the actual marking of buildings was started in Phase II, the upper section, on September 4^th.

Your Board of Directors meets twice monthly with PAO and PSC for status reports and to review homeowner issues and discussion items. Three general items came up at our last meeting that we can all help with.

First, please DO NOT DUMP things into the contractor's trash bins. These bins are provided by PSC so they can meet their contractual requirements of keeping our property safe and clean during this renovation process. When individuals use PSC's bins for personal trash, PSC cannot properly clean up as required.

Secondly, school traffic is back and we are trying to find a reasonable way to keep parents from using our streets to deliver their kids to Turtle Rock Elementary School . Please do your part to help by encouraging anyone you may personally know not to use Rainbow Falls for this purpose, as it is very dangerous with the construction going on.

Thirdly, with all the activity around our buildings, sprinkler system heads are easily and often times broken. Please be observant and report to Optimum Property Management as soon as you see a problem sprinkler. We need everyone's help with this issue.

We continue to have questions from homeowners regarding the cutting back of landscape; therefore I am including this information from the September Newsletter:

Why are the landscaper's cutting back so severely on the plants? We are contractually committed to provide adequate room for PSC to work without interference from the plants. This includes not only the houses but some fences that are well buried in plants and brush. Mission Landscaping is working closely with PSC to make sure they have the areas cleared adequately and in time before construction work starts. Please do your part to make sure personal areas are properly addressed prior to work starting on your home. In addition to clearing plants materials for this project Mission is addressing a few areas that they have lost maintenance control of over the years. They are severely cutting these areas back in order to again start maintaining these areas in a reasonable and maintainable fashion in the future. These areas are mainly in the lower section where our property is close to Turtle Rock Drive. Mission assures us that little of this plant material will be lost from this trimming process.

In early 2005 the association hired the professional arborist team of Dudek & Associates, Inc. who undertook the project of providing us with a Community Forest Management Plan. This plan included the mapping and inspection of the almost 600 large trees in our association. Along with Arial maps numbering each tree the trees were identified by type, height, canopy size, condition and a recommendation to be removed if in poor condition or considered a safety hazard. In September of 2005 the association removed the 32 trees that were identified as needing to be removed. The removal of these last 32 trees was after we had lost almost 400 trees to disease in the three years previous to this study.

This study was then provided to four professional trees trimming firms who bid on maintaining our forest per this Community Forest Management Plan. The bid was to trim and maintain our trees on a three-year cycle. This bid was awarded to Procare Tree Service. Year one of this work is scheduled for the weeks of October 2 and December 4^th of this year. Approximately 1/3 of the trees will be trimmed in each of the three years depending on the type of tree. While we have been remiss in maintaining our large trees for too many years, we believe this plan we have put in place will keep our forest healthy while maintaining the aesthetics of the neighborhood and be accomplished within the budget parameters within which we have to work.

Last year, the Board of Directors voted to acquire Earthquake Insurance for our property. The funds required to purchase this insurance were included in our fiscal year budget of 3/1/06 through 2/28/07 . Based on quotes in October 2005 we would be able to purchase a $20,000,000 policy with a 5% deductible for $37,200 or $21.83 per homeowner per month. We recently requested an updated quote for this insurance and were quoted a $10,000,000 policy with a 10% deductible for $100,000 or $58.69 per homeowner per month. This is in effect about one half the insurance coverage for almost three times the price. This is due to the fact that Earthquake insurance is part of the insurance market that has "hardened" due to the many floods, hurricanes, and fires over the past year.

We would like as much homeowner input on this subject as possible before making a decision on this subject for the coming budget year which is currently being reviewed and planned.

The California Earthquake Authority (CEA) has available to you through most insurance company's earthquake insurance for condominium and homeowners. The CEA insurance provides insurance to condominium owners that wish to insure against a property loss from an Earthquake. For more information on this coverage, please contact your insurance agent or company.

Thanking you in advance for the community participation requested of you in this newsletter.

GARDEN HOMES MAINTENANCE ASSOCIATION

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

David Wise President

Ray Clark Vice President

Don Siriani Secretary

Larry Rutherford Treasurer

Eileen Morris Member at Large

Standing Committees:

Architectural Cy Newman

Budget Liz Rutherford, Chair

Communications Sharon Roadman ,

Lea Peterson, Co-Chairs

Landscape Jeannine Kremer, Chair

Maintenance John Gustafson , Chair

Parking Brian Dawson ,

Robert Stand, Co-Chairs

Community Website:

www.turtlerockglen.com

Planning a nice warm fire this fall? Please be sure it stays inside your own fireplace. Each owner is responsible for the repair and maintenance of the fireplaces in your unit. Creosote deposits inside your chimney can start a fire which could easily set fire to your entire unit as well as your neighbors'.

Check the phone book for licensed chimney sweeps to clean and repair your fireplace and interior chimney. You, the homeowner, are responsible for any damage caused by your chimney sweep (such as broken roof tiles), so make sure they are licensed, bonded, and insured to protect you against liability.

Did you know that roofers cannot go out to your home to repair or tarp your home when it's raining? This is because of the liability they would assume, and possibly the Association, if they slipped on a wet roof. If you are experiencing a roof leak, please contact Optimum's maintenance coordinator so that a work order can be issued to the appropriate vendor. Roofers have advised us that to keep the water from ponding in the ceiling, it is recommended that you place a bucket underneath the leak and poke a small hole in the ceiling with a pencil to allow the water to drain.

GENERAL INFORMATION

ROOF LEAKS

MANAGEMENT COMPANY