Maplewood Neighborhood Association

May water bill.

well now that we have had two solid weeks of rain, I would be VERY curious to see the May water bill.

Something is fishy about just blindly signing the checks for maintenance. I think it may be time for a call of competitive bids for our lawn service. I don't think any company should get too cozy with a body of people managing a pot of money.

accountability

So if your requests go unrecognized, who is in a position to compel an organization that seemingly reports to no one?

I agree

The same lawn service has been used since the beginning of the neighborhood and to my knowledge competitive bids have never been obtained. I agree that such a situation can result in too much coziness. The minutes of the annual homeowners?’ meeting in January of this year indicate that Steve Gross of Landmark (lawn service provider) took a moment to thank Carolyn Cagle for her outstanding job over the last several years and stated that the RPHA board is what makes the neighborhood such a great place to live. Sounds like coziness to me. Mr. Gross is no doubt happy that there are no competitive bids and that there is little or no direction from the board. In my opinion, these expressions from Mr. Gross at the meeting were staged by the board to influence the audience and the readers of the minutes.

By Jim Bruggeman

May Water Bill

I would also like to see the May water bill. Yesterday (May 11, 2007) I looked at my rain guage which indicated the neighborhood received 5.0 inches of rain over the last three or four days. My yard is so wet from this rain and the prior rains in May that I could not mow my grass yesterday because without making deep ruts in my yard due to the fact that my grass was sitting in deep mud. A few minutes later I left the neighborhood to run some errands. The sprinklers at the 101st entry were on providing water to not only the rain-drenched entry but one broken sprinkler was watering the street and the grass on the south side of 101st. Street.

The lawn service needs to fix the long-time broken sprinker system rain detector and test the sprinkler system on a regular basis -- like when they mow the grass.

By Jim Bruggeman