And Better Than Ever! the Cat Hollow Fence Project Is Complete!
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The Cat Hollow Owner’s Association is going GREEN! In this issue The ROAR is back! And better than ever! The new version of the Cat Hollow ROAR will be distributed • Letter from the President ..... 2 electronically to reduce costs and be environmentally friendly. We’ve • Meet the Board .................... 2 eliminated paid advertising in lieu of more helpful articles to keep • Fence Project ...................... 3 you informed and help us to increase our sense of community. • Landscape Report ………... 5 Many people contributed to this newsletter and the quality of the • Call Before You Dig! …….. 5 articles is outstanding. We thank them all for their time and effort . With so many quality articles, we’re sure you’ll fine something • Landscape Tips …………... 6 useful, if not everything! • Wilco Pets Need Your Help …………...7 The Cat Hollow Fence Project is Complete! • Who Do I Call? ................... 7 • Home Maintenance Tip ....... 8 You may have noticed that the fence project is complete! After years of work, we finally have a clean, consistent fence bordering our • Deed Restrictions ................. 8 community. Though the project took a little longer than expected, it • The Opportunity still came in almost $10,000 under budget, at $506,955.13. read of Change ………………… 9 more • Get Your Home Ready for the Summer Heat ....... 10 Updated Website • Cat Hollow Web Site ........ 11 Have you visited our Cat Hollow website lately? If not, take at look • Be a Smart Insurance Consumer ......... 12 at www.cathollow.org . You’ll find a lot of useful information for those questions you have. And with our bigger projects under control • Classified Ads .................. 13 or done, we’re now focused on updating it more regularly. read more Classified Ads We’ve eliminated commercial advertising with our electronic edition but feel it’s important to let neighbors share services and “stuff”. To that end, we’ve added a Classified Ads section. So if you want to include something, let us know… and look what’s out there now! Cat Hollow ROAR Green Volume 1 Issue 1 © Copyright 2009 Cat Hollow Owner’s Association, Inc. All rights reserved Page 1 of 13 Letter from the President By Casey Kennedy, CHOA Board President Happy New Year! I’d first like to thank the communications committee on their efforts to resurrect the Cat Hollow ROAR. As you may remember, the previous newsletters were filled with advertisements (mainly to cover the cost of printing and mailing). The “new and improved” version is green (no cost to print/mail) and promises to be full of good information about the neighborhood. With the passing of 2008, the CHOA completed two major projects. The first project was to restore the grass along the median of O’Connor. This was done last spring, and we hope that most of it comes back (despite the MUD turning off our water). The bigger project was the fence repairs and additions. You’ll notice that the fencing around the entire neighborhood is now uniform. I thank Director Kim Filiatrault for leading this project and seeing it to completion. In 2009, we have several committees pushing forth several projects. We hope to continue to beautify our wonderful neighborhood. As always, feel free to contact the Board about any CHOA issues. You can do so through Alliance (our property management group) by calling 347-2888. We also enjoy it when other homeowners (besides us on the Board) come to the Board meetings. It’s a great way to get involved with the community and to find out the latest of what’s going on. Meet the Board Name Position Expires Committees Casey Kennedy President 2009 ARC , Communication , Landscape Nathan Rakoff Vice President 2011 Communication , Fence David Crow Treasurer 2009 ARC Bonnie Bisher Secretary 2010 Landscape Maina Macharia Assistant Secretary 2010 Landscape , Parks & Rec Kim Filiatrault Director 2011 Communication , Fence , Landscape , Parks & Rec Stan Bowers Director 2011 Fence , ARC JR Richardson Director 2009 ARC, CCAC, Parks & Rec John Bernard Director 2010 Communication ARC - is the Architectural Review Committee. CCAC - is the Community Center Advisory Committee. Both the Parks and Rec and the CCAC are Brushy Creek UD (Municipal Utility District) committees with representatives from around the district, including the CHOA. Cat Hollow ROAR Green Volume 1 Issue 1 © Copyright 2009 Cat Hollow Owner’s Association, Inc. All rights reserved Page 2 of 13 The Cat Hollow Fence Project is Complete! by Kim Filiatrault, Chairman, CHOA Fence Committee After a long and somewhat difficult process, the Judy Scholl Way, Luckenwald Drive, Manheim Cat Hollow Fence Project is finished! Though and Tonkinese Drive. We had originally hoped to the project broke ground in June of this year, it include Bobcat and the Liberty Walk Connector actually started in May 2005 and was a primary Trail but these were excluded from the final scope. reason for me becoming a Member of the Cat The new construction started early June 2008 with Hollow Board of Directors. an expected completion before Christmas. We Shortly after joining the Board, the Fence didn’t quite make Christmas but finished in early Committee was formed consisting of Directors January; and we still came in almost $10,000 under Nathan Rakoff, Murali Balijepally, and myself. budget. We added 1,914 new sections of fence. We spent a lot of time coming up with plans, Each section was billed at 5 feet so we added 9,570 finding funding, adjusting the scale and scope of billable feet of fencing. The actual number is a the project, finding companies able to do this little less because some sections are shorter than 5 project, and negotiating and prioritizing this feet, but we still added around 9,500 feet of project with the Board. concrete fencing. On Sunday, May 4, 2008, three years after we Early in the project, we made a difficult decision to started, the Cat Hollow Owner's Association exclude gates. We hoped to allow them but had Board of Directors voted 7-1 to approve the strict requirements for longevity (they had to last Fence Project with some minor changes. The 30-40 years like the fence) and style (they had to lone "nay" vote was not against the fence match the look of the fence) but weren’t able to find project itself but against using a loan for the anything meeting our requirements. This affected a project. We chose Premiercrete out of Dallas as few homeowners but they understood the overall our vendor for the project. The contract included desire and worked with us. both new fencing and repairs to the existing We also had some tree issues which were mostly fencing. resolved by either removing limbs or, as needed, The fence project was a GO! entire trees. In a couple of cases we were able to The final scope of the project included Liberty adjust the fence line a few inches to allow a tree that Walk between O’Connor and Great Oaks, Great little extra room. Once again, understanding Oaks within Cat Hollow’s boundaries, Conchos neighbors made this whole process a lot easier and I Valley, and all the side inlets along these roads thank them so much for working with us. including Albacete Lane, Brienne Drive, … continued on next page Carrick Lane, East Dorman Drive, Evans Road, Corner of Great Oaks and Conchos Valley Cat Hollow ROAR Green Volume 1 Issue 1 © Copyright 2009 Cat Hollow Owner’s Association, Inc. All rights reserved Page 3 of 13 … Cat Hollow Fence Project continued One other change was the fence line along There are a lot of other people to thank: the original Conchos Valley. We wanted to remove as members of the fence committee, Directors Nathan many cut-ins as possible to provide a cleaner Rakoff and Murali Balijepally, who spent years fence line. We accomplished this and the result with the planning and coordinating; Director Stan looks much better overall. And again, thanks to Bowers who talked/negotiated with many a our neighbors for dealing with us in an open and neighbor with me; Christine Gamache with Alliance friendly manner. who managed phone call upon phone call for me; When the time came, we worked closely with Premiercrete for doing the work, especially Chente the Great Oaks Elementary School to close the who was the onsite crew foreman; all the neighbors sidewalk along Great Oaks to complete the we worked with to keep things rolling; and many fence between Liberty Walk and the others who helped in smaller but very important Community Park. In order to protect our ways. Without everyone’s help, we would not have children, we scheduled a specific start/end date had a successful project. Thank you all! for the work; the school provided additional Some interesting numbers: crossing guards; and Premiercrete spent extra time and effort to ensure we finished on ● Contract maximum amount: $516,402.57 schedule. A special thanks to all those involved ● Final contract amount: $506,955.13 during this time; our children are our future. ● Maximum footage: about 10,000 feet The Board of Directors and the many ● Number of new sections: 1,914 homeowners with whom I have spoken are very ● Billed footage (new fence): 9,570 happy with the overall result. I want to give We now have a clean, consistent looking fence special thanks to my wife Lori for allowing me around our community, which is expected to last to invest so much time into this community about 40 years with only minor maintenance project. But now I’m pretty sure she wants me needed. I’m happy with the result and glad to be to finish projects around our house.