2009-10-27
It is with great regret that we mention the passing of Crystal Creek's first HOA president, William Scott McNamara. He passed away in his home on October 23, 2009 at the age of 47. Scott was instrumental in getting many things started in the neighborhood when the home owners association began about 7 years ago and he will be missed by those of us that had the opportunity to work with him in our efforts to improve the community we live in. Our thoughts and best wishes go to his friends and family. Information on visitation with his family and services may be found in his obituary .
2009-07-13
There has been a report from someone that said they have seen a bobcat with 5 cubs at the south end of Marathon this morning. In the past we have seen the occasional coyote as well. The basic recommendation is that small pets not be left unaccompanied outside. Bobcats and coyote's are generally afraid of humans so they should not pose a threat to residents of the neighborhood, but it probably doesn't hurt to warn children that they should be careful of anything that looks like an unattended animal. Below is a link to articles with information about bobcats in the suburbs.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1169/is_1999_April-May/ai_54440340/
2008-02-19
There have been more cars and houses broken into than usual lately. We would like to ask that anyone seeing any suspicious activity in the neighborhood or at a neighbors house plese report it to the police. Things that you can do to make your house less attractive to thieves are turn on any floodlights possible for your driveway or back yard. You can install motion detecting lights or lights that automatically turn off in the day time to cut down on how much electricity these will use. When parking a vehicle outside make sure that all valuables inside it are taken inside.
2008-08-12
As part of the agenda for the May meeting at Riddle Elementary School elections were held for HOA board members. Tonya Clark and Amy Thompson needed to step down from the board, so two positions were open that needed to be filled. After three people volunteered to be on the ballot, these two new positions were filled by Deshanda Madison and Kim Monk. Given that Tonya and Amy held the positions of President and Vice President of the board, the positions held by all members of the board needed to be evaluated. The results are that the current board is as follows:
President: Patrick Deupree
Vice President: Terry Merritt
Treasurer: Kim Monk
Secretary: Deshanda Madison
Board Member: Randy Love
This board met in June to discuss neighborhood business, including the scheduling of a fall block party. We've had much discussion trying (as much as we can) to pick a day and time that is most open for the average homeowner and that will hopefully not conflict with Sunday afternoon football. This year we are currently scheduling the party for October 19 starting at 2pm.
Another topic that was discussed was changes that have been made to the external structure of some houses without submitting an architecture change request form. These forms exist for the protection of the home owner. The HOA covenants and restrictions that everyone received from their title company have guidelines included in them that all homeowners are legally obligated to follow. In addition, there are City of Plano guidelines that we will also investigate in relation to any significant change that does not follow normal construction guidelines. As someone who was the victim of my construction company not getting proper city permits and approval I can say that it is disruptive when someone has to return and alter work to properly conform to guidelines. I have two dead trees in my back yard that fell victim to this error. We do ask that, for your own sake, please fill out these forms and get proper approval before making any external changes. If these forms are not submitted, there is a complaint about the change, and it does not conform to the guidelines it is possible that the change will have to be removed or altered at your own expense.
2008-04-15
The site has been updated with a new document in HOA Documents that contains information from the City of Plano about how to handle the pickup of extra trash caused by the recent winds.
Another bit of news is that it is time for the annual meeting where board members will be elected and current board members can answer questions about what is being done with the collected HOA dues. Notices for this meeting, which is on May 15 (a Thursday) have gone out to all residents along with proxy forms that we ask everyone to PLEASE fill out if you can not attend the meeting. We have to pay for meeting notices to go out in addition to the time it takes to set up and attend the meeting. If we do not collect enough proxies, or have enough people that attend, we will need to have another meeting. This would mean sending out another set of notices which eats into collected HOA dues. In addition, if anyone has any interest in holding any position on the HOA board please send an e-mail to Texas Association Management with your name and you can be added to the ballot.
2007-08-14
The site has been updated with a "Useful Contacts" section. This section contains telephone contact information for various public services that can be helpful with situations that might be outside HOA control. If anyone has any other numbers for public services that they feel might be useful, feel free to contact us with the information for the service and we can add it to the site.
2007-05-15
The annual HOA meeting was held today at Riddle Elementary School. Elections were held for 2 positions up for re-election and 2 positions that are being vacated by board members having to resign. Tonya Clark and Amy Thompson were re-elected to their board positions. Terry Merrit and Randy Love were elected for the 2 newly open positions. The first quarterly meeting with this board will be held on June 12 at 7:00pm.
Amongst the information covered in the meeting is the formation of a Yahoo group for the neighborhood for anybody that wishes to receive neighborhood updates or alerts. To join this list send e-mail to crystalcreekplano-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. Upon verification that the subscription request is being made by a resident of the neighborhood you will be added to the group list.
2007-03-14
We realize that the state of the front entrances to the community have been a concern for many people. To this end we want to outline what we have discussed and have been doing, in addition to what is planned for the future.
A while back the first step to improving the external appearance of the community was to put capstones on the major support pillars for the walls surrounding the community. This addition used a fair amount of the 2005 surplus budget set aside for HOA projects.
Following this, we started to investigate what could be done to improve the 5 plant beds that are located at various corners of the walls surrounding the community. The first instinct was to improve the quality of the beds themselves by replacing a majority of the plants in the beds, planting annual color, and replacing the stones in the bed with mulch. We were prepared to execute on these plans, but around this time the stage 3 water conservation rules were established by the city of Plano. Given these water restrictions, the landscaping company could not guarantee any landscaping work that was done in the beds, plus it would have required hand watering every evening for two weeks, which the landscaping company would not do for us.
Given these limitations, we chose to change the order of the improvements and went ahead with commissioning the construction of brick borders around the plant beds. After some delays in getting the proper brick color of the walls surrounding the neighborhood from the city of Plano, the borders were installed.
Now that we are entering spring time, we are hoping it will be a better time to get the plants changed out in the plant beds since the temperature is moderate and the ground should retain the moisture necessary for the plants to survive. The landscaping company has been commissioned to do this work which essentially involves replacing all plants in the beds, with the exception of the trees.
Past this we have the additional plan of getting new entry signs created to replace the ones that we have at each of the entrances.
It should also be noted that Plano water restrictions are still in effect. Visit Plano Drought Information for more information. It is worthwhile to be familiar with this information. It is also helpful if anyone that notices the neighborhood sprinklers going off at an inappropriate time can alert the HOA management company so that the landscaping company can be called to fix the timers.