Author: Phil, owner and resident
Posted: 01-10-2012
Recently our HOA president, Cliff Potter, sent out a letter and a survey to the homeowners of Penasquitos Villas I & II. My fellow homeowners, there are a few things that you should know before you take the survey and vote. Please take a moment to find out the whole story.
It has come to my attention recently (as it has to some board members), that every single contract for building repairs, maintenance and landscaping, roofing, and painting are being allocated, signed (sometimes not even that) and renewed, year after year, with little or no actual public review and approval.
One former board member has taken the time to get at least six quotes that I know of from other painters, roofers, and landscapers in the area. You should know that the money that Cliff Potter, Mr. Keeter, and Mr. Bongianni are charging us far exceeds every single quote that we got from other vendors. For his trouble, that former board member was recently kicked off the board. Disclaimer: Yes, that particular board member does happen to be a friend of mine; however, I watched and helped him get those bids and I know he was doing it for the benefit of all of us and was acting in good faith. I also know that he wasn't looking to profit in any way from his efforts. I can not say the same for Cliff Potter. I understand the board member has been reinstated now, but I find it rather interesting the politics that seem to be playing out here have a pretty ugly tone.
Mr. Clifford Potter also points out that the fees that Penasquitos Villas I & II owners pay are the lowest in the area. That's well and good, but that doesn't mean we aren't paying too much or can't do better. In this economy, I don't know about you, but every penny I spend (or don't spend) counts.
Ladies and gentlemen, I have a simple solution. If Cliff Potter, Mr. Keeter, and Mr. Bongianni want to continue providing services to Penasquitos Villas, they should submit at least three outside bids. The board should show these bids to us all and the let our "preferred contractors" match it or be prepared to justify why we should pay more. That's only fair. I do not see any reason why we should be paying $15,000 for a new roof when you can go elsewhere and get it done for $8,000. Why are we spending $97,000 a year to maintain 10 acres? In this economy, landscapers would jump at the chance for a $97,000 contract and certainly be prepared to do better.
Sadly, I can't report to you a comparable landscaping bid because apparently there is no written contract between Cliff Potter and the HOA to tell us exactly what services Mr Potter and Mr. Bongianni are to provide? He apparently feels loose, outdated and informal contracts are OK. As I understand it, it isn't specified how many times a month they mow, what materials they provide, what facilities we are providing to him for the storage of his equipment, etc etc. Looking around my house in my neighborhood, I'm not complaining about the quality or results; however, I am complaining about this arrangement; it is ludicrous. I can report that my girlfriend's HOA in Poway has 250 units and they only spent $72,447 last year on landscaping and landscaping renovation combined. Also, her HOA does NOT provide their landscapers with a cozy storage unit or at least 7 parking spaces to store their vehicles. When I visit her, I don't see an army of vans and trucks with rakes and lawnmowers around every corner! I've also heard that our landscapers go outside to do work for other people and use OUR trash to dispose of their other customers' clippings.
Sounds like we're paying premium prices and providing deluxe accommodations...are we getting premium service?
Cliff Potter brings up our painting and Mr. Keeter. I like Mr. Keeter. He's painted my building twice since I've lived here and both times he's done a good job. However, ladies and gentlemen, did you know we don't pay Mr. Keeter per house? From what I understand, our contract pays Mr. Keeter an hourly wage whether he does three houses a year or four houses or seven. I ask you all, if you're paying someone to paint buildings, can't we all agree that whoever paints our buildings should be paid according to how many buildings he/she has actually completed? An hourly wage?? So does that mean he is our employee? This is probably the most peculiar painting contract I've heard of.
Next we come to the pool maintenance. I ask you, why are we paying $250 a month for a tiny little swimming pool like ours? Anybody can go online and get a quote for swimming pool maintenance and see that it does not cost that much money. We don't exactly have the Olympics swim team showing up to run the 1000m butterfly in our pool, for crying out loud.
But now I come to the most important point, the water bill. According to the HOA's own budget, in 2010/11 we spent $122,000 and for 2011/12 the HOA expects to spend $175,000! That's a 43% increase! Cliff Potter talks about installing drip irrigation to save us money. The fact is, our water bill is by far our number one largest budget item. You think drip irrigation is going to fix that? Please! Here is the dirty secret. We have 56 buildings and we apparently have much less than 56 water meters, and many meters are connected to two buildings. If two buildings are being billed by the City as one building (or 8 units as 4 units), it's guzzling water like Al Gore. From what I've been told, the City of San Diego often bills us at top tier 3 rate because they consider us gross water wasters and they've been doing this for years.
The fact is, we do NOT have 20-30 something single-family units who waste water; we have 224 units who use just as much as the average person (probably much, much less!) and somebody needs to straighten this out with the City and get them to stop overcharging us! This has been pointed out to Cliff Potter at least three times, yet our president feels that's somebody else's job and to this day nothing has been done about it. Perhaps Cliff Potter is more worried about his landscaping contract than our water bills.
Personally, I want this straightened out now, and I want it straightened out aggressively. Even if it means suing the City of San Diego for all of the previous years overcharges. We have been paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for water year after year and it's quite likely we've been overcharged year after year; and despite the fact that it is our number one budget item, our board has done nothing about it. Instead of dealing with our top budget item, Cliff seems to be obsessed with preserving his personal cash cow kingdom.
Speaking for myself, my annual dues are $235 a month. Cliff says that's low compared to others. I say fine, but our board is still raising our rates. One look at that darned water bill and I can guarantee you these people are going to raise our dues again because they don't have enough money to cover a 43% increase in our #1 budget item. I can do the math.
Finally, Mr. Potter says that he is working in our best interests. I'm prepared to take him at his word. However, I am not prepared to let him continue to just have a blank check and renew these contracts year after year after year without having anything to compare them with. I do not see any reason whatsoever why getting bids from other vendors is a mistake. How is it a mistake to compare prices? Maybe it's just me, but I don't even buy a new pair of tennis shoes without shopping around. Why on earth would anyone spend tens of thousands of dollars without doing the same? This makes no sense unless:
1) there is some ulterior motive.
2) someone is lazy and doesn't want to do their job.
I ask you...which is it?
Please vote, and please do yourself a favor and find out the truth behind what is going on. Our board has been operating on auto-pilot for far too long and we need all the homeowners to pay attention. All I am asking for is honesty and transparency before Penasquitos Villas becomes like Washington DC.
As for the question Cliff Potter has asked us to vote on, I will tell you all my vote:
Do you want to keep our maintenance and painting program of repairing and painting seven buildings each year with Bongianni Landscape & Maintenance and Keeter's Quality Painting?
_____ YES
_____ NO
__X__ NONE OF THE ABOVE!
Posted: 01-10-2012
Recently our HOA president, Cliff Potter, sent out a letter and a survey to the homeowners of Penasquitos Villas I & II. My fellow homeowners, there are a few things that you should know before you take the survey and vote. Please take a moment to find out the whole story.
It has come to my attention recently (as it has to some board members), that every single contract for building repairs, maintenance and landscaping, roofing, and painting are being allocated, signed (sometimes not even that) and renewed, year after year, with little or no actual public review and approval.
One former board member has taken the time to get at least six quotes that I know of from other painters, roofers, and landscapers in the area. You should know that the money that Cliff Potter, Mr. Keeter, and Mr. Bongianni are charging us far exceeds every single quote that we got from other vendors. For his trouble, that former board member was recently kicked off the board. Disclaimer: Yes, that particular board member does happen to be a friend of mine; however, I watched and helped him get those bids and I know he was doing it for the benefit of all of us and was acting in good faith. I also know that he wasn't looking to profit in any way from his efforts. I can not say the same for Cliff Potter. I understand the board member has been reinstated now, but I find it rather interesting the politics that seem to be playing out here have a pretty ugly tone.
Mr. Clifford Potter also points out that the fees that Penasquitos Villas I & II owners pay are the lowest in the area. That's well and good, but that doesn't mean we aren't paying too much or can't do better. In this economy, I don't know about you, but every penny I spend (or don't spend) counts.
Ladies and gentlemen, I have a simple solution. If Cliff Potter, Mr. Keeter, and Mr. Bongianni want to continue providing services to Penasquitos Villas, they should submit at least three outside bids. The board should show these bids to us all and the let our "preferred contractors" match it or be prepared to justify why we should pay more. That's only fair. I do not see any reason why we should be paying $15,000 for a new roof when you can go elsewhere and get it done for $8,000. Why are we spending $97,000 a year to maintain 10 acres? In this economy, landscapers would jump at the chance for a $97,000 contract and certainly be prepared to do better.
Sadly, I can't report to you a comparable landscaping bid because apparently there is no written contract between Cliff Potter and the HOA to tell us exactly what services Mr Potter and Mr. Bongianni are to provide? He apparently feels loose, outdated and informal contracts are OK. As I understand it, it isn't specified how many times a month they mow, what materials they provide, what facilities we are providing to him for the storage of his equipment, etc etc. Looking around my house in my neighborhood, I'm not complaining about the quality or results; however, I am complaining about this arrangement; it is ludicrous. I can report that my girlfriend's HOA in Poway has 250 units and they only spent $72,447 last year on landscaping and landscaping renovation combined. Also, her HOA does NOT provide their landscapers with a cozy storage unit or at least 7 parking spaces to store their vehicles. When I visit her, I don't see an army of vans and trucks with rakes and lawnmowers around every corner! I've also heard that our landscapers go outside to do work for other people and use OUR trash to dispose of their other customers' clippings.
Sounds like we're paying premium prices and providing deluxe accommodations...are we getting premium service?
Cliff Potter brings up our painting and Mr. Keeter. I like Mr. Keeter. He's painted my building twice since I've lived here and both times he's done a good job. However, ladies and gentlemen, did you know we don't pay Mr. Keeter per house? From what I understand, our contract pays Mr. Keeter an hourly wage whether he does three houses a year or four houses or seven. I ask you all, if you're paying someone to paint buildings, can't we all agree that whoever paints our buildings should be paid according to how many buildings he/she has actually completed? An hourly wage?? So does that mean he is our employee? This is probably the most peculiar painting contract I've heard of.
Next we come to the pool maintenance. I ask you, why are we paying $250 a month for a tiny little swimming pool like ours? Anybody can go online and get a quote for swimming pool maintenance and see that it does not cost that much money. We don't exactly have the Olympics swim team showing up to run the 1000m butterfly in our pool, for crying out loud.
But now I come to the most important point, the water bill. According to the HOA's own budget, in 2010/11 we spent $122,000 and for 2011/12 the HOA expects to spend $175,000! That's a 43% increase! Cliff Potter talks about installing drip irrigation to save us money. The fact is, our water bill is by far our number one largest budget item. You think drip irrigation is going to fix that? Please! Here is the dirty secret. We have 56 buildings and we apparently have much less than 56 water meters, and many meters are connected to two buildings. If two buildings are being billed by the City as one building (or 8 units as 4 units), it's guzzling water like Al Gore. From what I've been told, the City of San Diego often bills us at top tier 3 rate because they consider us gross water wasters and they've been doing this for years.
The fact is, we do NOT have 20-30 something single-family units who waste water; we have 224 units who use just as much as the average person (probably much, much less!) and somebody needs to straighten this out with the City and get them to stop overcharging us! This has been pointed out to Cliff Potter at least three times, yet our president feels that's somebody else's job and to this day nothing has been done about it. Perhaps Cliff Potter is more worried about his landscaping contract than our water bills.
Personally, I want this straightened out now, and I want it straightened out aggressively. Even if it means suing the City of San Diego for all of the previous years overcharges. We have been paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for water year after year and it's quite likely we've been overcharged year after year; and despite the fact that it is our number one budget item, our board has done nothing about it. Instead of dealing with our top budget item, Cliff seems to be obsessed with preserving his personal cash cow kingdom.
Speaking for myself, my annual dues are $235 a month. Cliff says that's low compared to others. I say fine, but our board is still raising our rates. One look at that darned water bill and I can guarantee you these people are going to raise our dues again because they don't have enough money to cover a 43% increase in our #1 budget item. I can do the math.
Finally, Mr. Potter says that he is working in our best interests. I'm prepared to take him at his word. However, I am not prepared to let him continue to just have a blank check and renew these contracts year after year after year without having anything to compare them with. I do not see any reason whatsoever why getting bids from other vendors is a mistake. How is it a mistake to compare prices? Maybe it's just me, but I don't even buy a new pair of tennis shoes without shopping around. Why on earth would anyone spend tens of thousands of dollars without doing the same? This makes no sense unless:
1) there is some ulterior motive.
2) someone is lazy and doesn't want to do their job.
I ask you...which is it?
Please vote, and please do yourself a favor and find out the truth behind what is going on. Our board has been operating on auto-pilot for far too long and we need all the homeowners to pay attention. All I am asking for is honesty and transparency before Penasquitos Villas becomes like Washington DC.
As for the question Cliff Potter has asked us to vote on, I will tell you all my vote:
Do you want to keep our maintenance and painting program of repairing and painting seven buildings each year with Bongianni Landscape & Maintenance and Keeter's Quality Painting?
_____ YES
_____ NO
__X__ NONE OF THE ABOVE!
Link to survey letter
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