We thought we would let you know about the first six months of our efforts. It has been challenging yet rewarding!
Road Report
By Jimmie Barnes, Road Chair
A lot is happening with the roads. First, I want to report that we’ve had several very successful volunteer road work efforts. The volunteers cleared several miles of brush off the shoulders of the road. This will make it easier to see ahead and around corners as well as giving the plow a place to put the snow. The volunteers contributed over 94 hours over six events. When the contractor did this work he charged $25 an hour. So, the savings amounts to $2350. Thanks volunteers! Go to the website ( for upcoming opportunities to join the group. We still have about 4 miles of road shoulder to clear.
If you haven’t been to the mountain lately, you missed Nikki Wilfong’s art work. She repainted all of the road signs. They look great! For a long time, the signs were very hard to read. It took her 8 hours, well worth the effort.
The winter was fairly mild. Only two snow events required plowing. The contractor response was excellent, quick and did the job well. Snow removaland bush hogging cost total $500.
The spring brought better weather for road work. We’ve had the ditches and culverts cleared, put crowns on the middle of the road, and removed the berm on the sides giving the rain and spring water a place to go. One of the major reasons for road erosion is free flowing water on the road. Anytime we can quickly direct the water off the road, we save on repairs. This work and some patch work gravel cost us $4100.
Our plans include putting gravel over the rest of the main roads. Once we finish this, we move to Overlook and Summit. Summit Road has received minimal attention in past years. We plan to work on it later this spring or
early summer. We expect to have sufficient funds to finally work on Summit and its cul-de-sac. We are very excited and happy to be able to work on our last main road.
Web Report
By Joerg Schreiner
Our new website address is Why did we change the address? We decided that while the website was a great idea, we could take it farther by doing it ourselves and at the same time saving the association money. The previous site was created, maintained, and updated through Sundance Studios at a rate of $20 an hour and $119 for registration fees. The new website was created, maintained, and updated by Joerg Schreiner, a member of the Board. Additional update access can be created if needed. With the new website, we no longer need to go through a third person for web updates, making it faster and easier to update postings. We will save $50 a year on the registration alone and $20 an hour on postings and maintenance.
Look for news, upcoming volunteer road work dates, social activities, and area events.
Finance Report
By Michele Selvage
This area of management needed attention for a couple of reasons. In October we had 18 overdue accounts, many of them were seriously overdue. We need to record our debt against these deeds in the event of a private sale. Second, Highland County is preparing for a tax sale. Four of the properties to be auctioned off are located in High Valley. And, we needed to place liens on those properties before the auction.
Tax sale auction proceeds are used to pay back taxes first. How much we get is determined by how much is paid at auction for the property, is owed the
county and how much we have properly recorded in the Circuit Court.
Actions taken:
- Reconciled the legal actions in the District Court to the Circuit Court
to make sure that all were recorded in the Circuit Court before the auction;
- Researched the Circuit Court Records to establish a complete list of liens/judgments and
- Placed liens on 8 very delinquent properties. Now we are ready.
Next, we wanted to see what could be done to help some property owners that were not severely delinquent. Working with the owners, we offered payment plans and settlements. Please note that no maintenance fees or special assessments were forgiven. Some chose to pay in full and some are making payments. Helping property owners to become current avoidsa costly legal lien/judgment process.It was done with respect to the owner and everyone benefitted.
Our results: We collected over $9,000 from overdue accounts and judgments. We reduced the number of overdue accounts from 18 in October to 10 in April. We are still working on the remaining overdue accounts, one is on a payment plan, and four should be liquidated in the upcoming tax sale. So, at most we will only have five overdue accounts, the lowest number in many years. We can expect to have 13 more property owners paying annually. Yeah!
Development
In Closing
One board member had to resign due to work schedules. Then we asked Jimmie Barns to join the board. You might remember that Jimmie received a good number of votes at the annual meeting. Jimmie is doing an outstanding job as road chair. Welcome Jimmie!
If you have any comments or concerns, please let us know.
Board Members:
Michele L Selvage, President(), Nikki Wilfong,VicePresident, Wendy Beahr, Secretary,
Joerg Schreiner, Web Manager, Jimmie Barnes, Road Chair, Bob Crummette and Lorraine Haase