I recently did a story on a group of National Junior Honor Society students from Zachry Middle School who participated in a community service project at Kuwamura Park located at Timber Path and Cliffbrier in Emerald Valley. This story prompted one former GNW resident and long time reader to ask about the origin of the park name. And that prompted me to ask the same question. Who is Kuwamura and why do we have a park named after him?As you might imagine, my research started with the GNW office staff. Apparently, the naming of the park took place long before any of the current staff, so I had to dig deeper. I did notice that on a plaque outside the office there was a listing for Paul J. Kuwamura who served on the GNW Board of Directors between 1989 and 1995. Now, I was on to something.Next, I asked several former board members for details and was finally given the phone number for former Director Judy Stubbs. We had a very enjoyable conversation during which she described how Mr. Kuwamura was elected to his position on the very day that he sold his home in the Great Northwest to move into a new home in a neighboring sub-division. I asked her why then he served the board for several years, and she replied, “That was the type of dedicated person Jeff was.”
When communities with HOA’s first start, it is not uncommon to have their board of directors made up of builders and Realtors overseeing the project, many of whom naturally lived off premises. As the neighborhoods matured, the board would be transitioned to residents elected to the positions. But in 1989, there was no rule in place requiring that a board member reside in, or own property in the GNW, and Mr. Kuwamura was able to serve. And serve, he did.According to Mrs. Stubbs, Director Kuwamura had a background in the building field and he was able to assist our maintenance staff with putting together scheduling programs to more efficiently run projects and maintenance related tasks. But much of his greater contributions came in support of the park at Emerald Valley which now bears his name. “Before the association had an A-Team”, Mrs. Stubbs told me, “Jeff volunteered quite a bit to upgrade that park.” He and others did a lot of work to get playground equipment. As I continued to ask around for more information, I learned that our very own Fred Murphy, Director of GNW Maintenance, lives next door to Mr. Kuwamura in a nearby neighborhood. Through Fred, I was able to contact Jeff and learn more.Jeff told me, “My intentions for running for election to the board was primarily because of the disparity between Silver Creek and Emerald Valley and how Emerald Valley was viewed by the board which was made up of all Silver Creek residents. Even though Emerald Valley residents paid the same dues they were treated as second class residents by the association. In matter of fact when I first came on there were discussions on removing Emerald Valley from the Great Northwest.” Mr. Kuwamura was in fact dedicated to the mission of increasing the the benefit to his neighborhood. He continued, “During my tenure we managed to raise the level of attention that Emerald Valley received”. Sitting on the the board of directors between 1989 and 1995, including a term as vice chairman, Mr. Kuwamura would be instrumental in numerous major projects and issues of the day. He said, “City of San Antonio Annexation, which we as a board worked very closely with City Council and the Mayor in making sure that our concerns and needs would be addressed.” Of great significance was pushing for the building of the bridge on Prue Rd, so that police would have a more direct route into our community from the SAPD sub-station serving our area.Later, Mr. Kuwamura was appointed to a Blue Ribbon Committee seated by then Mayor Lila Cockerell for the development of a 5 year master plan for the San Antonio Fire Department, which a lot of the changes we recommended are in place today and have raised the level of service including funding more EMS units, relocating some stations, also the development of the Emergency Management Center.
And Jeff told me, “We also created the Great Northwest Security force, developed the Recreation Director position and Recreation Programs, which I believe most still are going on.” He also said, “We added several new facilities including the David Flores Room at Emerald Valley, the drainage park area, the new Silver Creek pool building and baths, the volleyball courts to mention a few.” So there you have it. I’d say that Jeff Kuwamura played a significant role in the history of The Great Northwest, and that is why you see a park named for him.
My wife and I volunteered again to serve as judges for the annual Christmas Lighting contest held in our neighborhood each year. Please make your bribe checks out accordingly. And no, we can't help you with your desire to become a Senator.
At any rate, last night, we took a drive through three of the seven sub-divisions that make up our association looking for houses decorated enough to warrant consideration, and then began the process of taking pictures and getting the addresses and such. I am pleased to report that, while we still have a few homes in our area where the owners simply don't want anyone to know the address, for the most part, most residents have clearly marked their homes with street numbers. Perhaps they read my extreme rant last year, and got the hint.
We had made up our minds that we were not going to vote for the house with the most lights - that we wanted there to be something put into the design beyond one of these fan-driven blow-up Santa's. I won't go into all of our specific deliberations, especially since we have more homes to look at tonight and possibly tomorrow, but one house that was a winner last year was not going to be an automatic winner in our mind, if they simply repeated the design from last year. Even though we were not looking at Emerald Valley last night, we did decided to take a drive over to the home in question just to see if the family there did a repeat.
People, if you live in the GNW area or within easy driving of the Culebra/Tezel/Grissom, it is worth it to come and take a look at the home on Stone Village. No street address needed - just follow the cars.
These folks totally revamped the show with an emphasis on The Chipmunks. Pictures don't do it justice. Tune your car radio to 107.1FM, take the kids and do a short drive by. You should know that this is a cul de sac, so if a lot of folks show up, you may have to use extreme patience and care to go through. Please, watch for kids.
No, we aren't Windcrest but this year, a lot more people seem to have really gotten into the whole Christmas lighting thing. Lots of good lights to see.
My wife and I made the short trip down to the Lodge of the Great Northwest to attend the Town Hall Meeting of the Great Northwest Community Improvement Association (GNWCIA), in order to go over and ask questions about the annual budget. Only problem was, we arrived what we thought was early, only to find that we had pretty much missed the meeting. Needless to say, I'll keep the notes brief:
I only had a brief minute to look over the budget line items before the meeting was wrapping up. Of special interest to me was that the A-Team has received an increase in proposed funding up to $1,000 for the year. I asked the directors if they had included funding for paint and such to go above and beyond normal maintenance needs - basically so we could start having more matching colors to use for graffiti abatement. The answer was "yes". And I was also told that the City of San Antonio is helping us with a program where, if we can present and certify (I'm not sure of the full details here) that we have volunteers doing clean-up of tagging, we can obtain additional assistance with paint (not just the recycled mixed paint we currently use, but real matched paint) and other supplies.
The final comment of the event came from Mr. Joe Martinez who lauded the board of directors for putting together a good budget. Hey, you can't ask for more than that.
Of course, Joe and I did discuss several issues following the meeting. One thing that may be aired out is the issue of these fancy new electronic marquees.
Previously (last year I guess), the board had approved $70K to renovate or repair the marquees throughout the GNW community. For this budget, the board is proposing to spend a total of $75K (and again, I'll have to check the figures on this) to install two of the spiffy electronic marquess - one on the main drag in Silver Creek and one on the main drag in Emerald Valley. The other marquees would not be the electronic ones, but would be upgraded versions of the standard kind where you have to manually replace the letters.
Being a cheap skate, I initially had a few issues with this. My primary concern would be wasting money on something we don't need, followed closely by the worry of vandals shooting out the marquee lights. But in understanding the total cost for this investment and some of the details regarding upkeep costs (replacement light panels) I can live with the $75K investment, and apparently, so can the rest of the people in the GNW. 
I only mention this because, aside from my wife and I, and the Directors at the meeting, there were only a hand full (and I really mean, a single hand full) of other residents at the town hall meeting. And of course, I recognized them from the small group that attends the board meetings.
I suspect people were burnt out from all that civic duty taking place on the 4th.
A quick note: Sorry to be delinquent with the posts this week - I have been overwhelmed with watching TV now that many of my must see shows are on (Lost!) and I have also been doing some work which causes me to have a little less time to fritter away my life banging away notes into the computer and posting pictures of people being goofy. But, I will try to do better and provide those of you who make this Blog a daily visit on your Internet journey, a rewarding experience each day. No, I'm not running for any elected office.
So, then. My wife and I made the short trip down the street to the Lodge of the Great Northwest so we could attend at least the first hour and a half of the meeting of the Board of Directors of the Great Northwest Community Improvement Association. The audience was , dare I say, packed, with residents compared to normal meetings we attend. I don't have an exact head count, but it was easily triple or quadruple the normal crowd we see. Thank you residents; we need more people to show interest, and mark my words; you will enjoy the show, especially if you are a closet Springer Fan.
But I digress.
Following the fully participated in moment of silence and pledging to the flag, the meeting was called to order and such, then we heard from residents to complain:
Up first, Former Board Chair, Mrs. Kathleen Callahan and a few comments about the the content of letters from Board Chair Besing and Vice Chair Doherty in last months paper. Read it here. I'll save you some time and tell you that she was upset that two sitting Directors made comments in the official paper regarding intentions to run for the board. Multiple theories as to how this was a disadvantage to other potential candidates, and potentially, caused some candidates not to run knowing that they have to run against incumbents.
I don't know how I feel about the first part - is it an advantage? Who knows? Will it keep other people from running? In my estimation, if some potential board candidate made the decision to run based on whether or not an incumbent was running, I'll tell you right now, that person would not get my vote. Either do it because you intend to win and do a good job for the community, or don't run. If announcing their (Doherty and Besing) candidacy via Passages weeded out any crappy candidates, then I'm all for it.
Former (even before Mrs. Callahan) Chairman of the Board of Directors, Joe Martinez gave his concerns about a new GNW Group called The Happenings, not getting fair use of the GNW Lodge. I didn't quite get the full story, so I'd appreciate if someone from the Happenings group could fill me in, but the gist of it was that the Lodge people made the group meet at a smaller venue (Emerald Valley Lodge), which is not fair. That facility is not conducive to meetings, and I can testify. My understanding was that the reasoning was that it costs more money to open the GNW Lodge, so it needs to be for a group large enough to show that it is serving the interests of the community as a whole. I'm gonna have to side with Mr. Martinez on this one (at least the parts I understand). If a group is an officially sanctioned group of the association, let 'em have the good room. I recall my wife and I being the only attendees of a Board of Directors meeting, and our last GNW watch meeting only had about 5 or 6 folks in the audience.
Okay. You may recall the folks in Emerald Valley who had some drunk guy plow his car into their house. The residents spoke before the board to address their concerns and seek assistance from the board and security to help with the problem. This family has already made contact with the city and other agencies to try to address the problem, but you could see the look on the collective faces of the directors and most audience members; this is not an issue that the association can address in any substantive way. The resident made many informative and helpful points, explaining the problems with the street, the fact that vehicles speed and such. But, unfortunately, her suggestions of having the GNW Security basically sit on her street after hours and write down plate numbers of speeders is obviously a no go.
I was extremely proud of how Director Sigrid Long handled the matter in addressing the residents concerns. She made several suggestions on how to proceed and of course, mentioned the fact that the GNWatch group might be a place to start. (I later gave the family my e-mail address and number, and hope they will join the watch soon).
Have you had enough yet? There is more.
We had a surprise guest speaker, Judge Marcia S. Weiner who is the Justice of the Peace for Precinct Two, Place One. If you get in trouble, you will find her over in Leon Valley. It just so happens that my son is doing his Criminal Justice internship in her office, so, needless to say, I have nothing but glowing comments about Judge Weiner and her thirty or more minutes of informative material.
Seriously though, Judge Weiner has an informative pitch involving the the problems associated with truancy and the escalating troubles youth get into. She gave us ideas of the ways she deals with the little criminals to get them back on the right track. Turns out, she often gives the screw-ups community service and that if they live among us, they could perform said service here in the GNW! Sign them up! We need some fences painted.
Anyway, I believe the Passages will soon be running an article written by Judge Weiner, and if you'd like, she left some informative handouts with the office staff.
Okay. On to Committee reports.
Chairman of the Scholarship Committee, Mrs. Callahan gave a stirring report on the status of the committee and the resulting happy kids. Then the questions from Directors Garcia and Pucci started. There seem to be two concerns from the board members: Are there any conflicts of interest, and how is the money accounted for?
You should know that I have been sighted by two of the three factions of the GNW community for not giving a crap about all the details of every little thing in our community. But in the GNW, there are actually three factions.
One faction is made up of people who align themselves with former board chairman Martinez. A second faction is made up of people who align themselves with former board chair Callahan. The other 95 percent of the people in the GNW fall into my faction. We are the people who just want to pay our assessments, live in the community and not be inundated with this petty, petty, petty crap.
In this case, if some residents want to donate money to a scholarship fund and they want to take the proceeds of the vending machines at the pool to add to that fund, go for it. Keep it all legal and open, but go for it.
I have a better idea.
Do it, but do it as a private thing and don't even involve the association with it. They got a whopping $35 from the vending machines last year. My son is in college. $35 doesn't cover half the cost of his parking permit for one semester. The association (as far as I understand) doesn't provide any of the funds to the scholarship, right? So just do it on your own, and be done with it.
But, in the mean time, the deadline for this years scholarship is early April, so contact your high school and do whatever it takes to get the scholarship money.
I don't want to sound like I'm in a hurry, but it should not take 20 minutes of my life to hear about some stupid (Stupid is such a harsh and opinionated word - please don't let it taint the meaning of this report) scholarships at an HOA board meeting. What impact does that private group of well meaning neighbors (and I do applaud them) have to do with the running of the association? I'd like equal time for the Line Dancing committee and the Bunco team, please.
I was unexpectedly asked to give a few words about the GNWatch meeting coming up next Wednesday. I didn't expect to be peppered with questions from the board, but I was.
I have mentioned it before. I have a great deal of respect for Director Pucci. He asks everyone who speaks before the board questions that are intended to provide information he needs to make a decision. I'd like to think I had my shit together, but who knows? Bottom line, come out to the meeting next Wednesday, the 27th of February. I'll write more about it next week.
Our community Manager, Mr. Darrin Laraquente broke down a series of complaints he has received from residents and addressed each. I'm going to tell you right up front; Mr. Laraquente has hit the ground running and is doing a fantastic job for this association. He is still getting to know the community and trying to put people's complaints and concerns into perspective. Kudos to him and to how he is motivating the staff to get things done.
What he is facing is a series of things that are happening in neighborhoods all around San Antonio. First, people are tagging and vandalizing The Five Oh (78250 - get it?) daily. If that isn't bad enough, we have otherwise upstanding residents who are doing ridiculous things.
On a recent tour of the greenbelts in our area (also known as drainage ditches and dry creek beds), he got to see first hand how some residents simply dump garbage over their fences into the open area. Imagine this. You cut your tree limbs and you toss them right over the fence. Someone looks at them and can see exactly where the tree in your back yard has been cut, and exactly where the branch that matches the cut limb is laying on the other side of the fence. Hello? This isn't CSI people. You don't need a sperm sample to figure out who the donor is.
Okay. If you are still reading this, this is where it ends. My wife and I had another, more important meeting to attend, so we left promptly at 9PM.
On the way out, one resident stopped me to suggest that I stay for the next round of action. I'm sorry, but I'll wait for the official minutes.
Oh, I did hear from several people who stayed that there was an attempt to censure a few directors, but in keeping with my new policy of not reporting anything that I don't witness first hand, I'll have to read about it in the official minutes, and so will you.
Help me out people. We need more eyes and ears at these meetings. Why don't you come on down on the first and third Thursday of the month and sit in with us. You can pick any faction you want to sit with - there are no assigned seats.
As always, I tend to get things wrong. Don't file a lawsuit, just send me an e-mail or make a comment and tell me how bad I screwed things up. If you were at the meeting, I'll be happy to print your take on events, unedited, with or without attribution. My goal is to get the information out to my neighbors.
I joined GNW Board Director Richard Garcia Saturday morning for a little surveying of the hood, and some clean up of the Emerald Valley Park. We did some graffiti clean-up and a lot more trash pick-up over a short few hours, and I just wanted to leave you with a few comments.
When I was a kid, it was drilled into my head about the obscenity of littering. I can tell you that to this day, the sight of somebody tossing trash out the window of a car or leaving a public place in disarray leaves me quite pissed. Graffiti simply elevates that disgust because it is no longer an act of poor manners, but in fact a criminal act.
I'm at a loss as to why we treat this crime as a simple nuisance rather than a crime punishable by 10 whacks with a cane in a public square. In fairness, I have been known to condone the use of water boarding as a means for extracting information from GITMO residents, so I probably don't qualify as an arbiter of reasonable punishment for unruly teenagers.
I don't think that the trash problem is a result of bad kids, I think it is more likely, bad parents. The fact is, we only spent about ten minutes dealing with the graffiti. We easily spent another hour or so picking up plastic bottles, napkins, cups and other assorted items, most often within tossing distance of garbage cans.
In other words, people have an easy choice of placing an empty bottle in a garbage can without having to lift a lid even, or placing the empty bottle on the ground less than a foot or two away from the can. They choose the ground.
This is a failure of parents. It is also a failure of the community.
I don't have some long list of what we need to do as a community to fix this problem, but I know that we could start by using the resources we have already paid for. I don't want to make anyone's job harder, but shouldn't our maintenance staff be at least emptying the garbage cans at the parks before the start of the weekend? Aside from the trash that was tossed all over the ground, a few park visitors at least attempted to do the right thing by using the trash cans - several were full beyond capacity.
If this isn't part of the job description for maintenance, how hard would it be to create a handful of part time positions for either some of our senior citizens or some high school aged kids who would spend a few hours a week doing the simple task of picking up the discarded trash left by obnoxious, ill-mannered park patrons (you know - your neighbors), and being certain the garbage cans are empty so those people who want to do the right thing can use them.
Director Garcia mentioned to me that if a group like The A-Team were to do what he and I did over a few hours, it could be knocked out in about 15 minutes. What a great idea.
I don't want to take the burden off of the maintenance department, but this is our community and for the number of residents, we should be able to put together a mob of volunteers for something so simple.
Like many residents, I work full time and can't tell you I can give up 20 hours a week to go pick up some unruly kid's trash or paint over the foul graffiti of some criminal who has no respect for the community he lives in, but 15 to 30 minutes once or twice a month?
I drive by the soccer fields on weekends and I see hundreds of people enjoying our great facilities. What if immediately following a soccer game, the kids and families of two teams hit one of the parks for a 20 minute clean-up? Simply making sure empty soda bottles were in the cans, discarded candy wrappers were picked up and yes, even soiled Pampers were properly disposed of. Parents, there has to be some reason you are enrolling your kids in soccer - surely it has to do with sportsmanship and being part of a team, right? Why not take a few minutes and also teach them to be good citizens? This doesn't have to be an every weekend thing. With the number of soccer teams we have, it could be rotated so each team does it once or twice a season.
I'd love to hear your ideas on how to keep the place clean. I'd also like to hear what you think about the worsening graffiti problem. I tried to submit a suggestion to the board for the budget process, but not quite sure they received the e-mail form I submitted it on. So I'll tell you about it here.
I propose that the board purchase some surveillance camera equipment that would be owned by the association but provided to residents on an temporary basis. I think of these people whose homes line Timber Path Road who are constantly the victims of graffiti. A resident would contact Chief Burton and his security staff to arrange for the loan of the equipment. The security staff could then assist the resident in installing a camera on the resident's property. After the vandals do their deed, the resident could contact SAPD and turn over the evidence to them, and the equipment would be returned to security. Yes, yes, yes, I know - we better consult the lawyers or we could be liable for something. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. ((Please forgive that outburst, it was directed toward the people who can't wipe their nose without first seeing if it is in the By Laws or if the association lawyer thinks it prudent.))
I don't expect this idea to end world hunger, but I think it is a step in the right direction toward identifying these little bastards and taking some action toward letting their parents know what their precious little Rembrandt's are up to on Friday nights.
A second suggestion I have is to provide the security staff with a digital camera. I believe that every incident of graffiti should be photographed and cataloged by date and location of the crime. I'm next expecting Chief Burton and his staff to be Jim Rockford or Magnum PI, but how hard is it to snap a picture and record the location and date. The point of this catalog is to attempt to allow the SAPD to make a connection to other crimes the vandals of done when the catch someone via the surveillance cameras mention above.
I fully understand that handing the district attorney a bunch of pictures of graffiti is not going to send these little punks off to Huntsville, but I suspect that a SAFFE Officer showing up at the home and presenting the information to parents might help get their attention.
Aside from busting out shotguns and patrolling the streets (which I oppose) what suggestions do you have as to how to deal with this situation? Tell me about.
How's that for a snappy and inviting topic? Okay, I'll keep it short.
My wife and a few neighbors attended a nice seminar put on by the Deed Restrictions and Architectural Control (DRACO) officer for GNWCIA, Jose Morlett on Tuesday evening and it was well worth the two or so hours.
A few things to consider. Did you know that in the Great Northwest, there are 4,958 homes? Did you know that in Emerald Valley, about 45% of the homes are rental properties?
One of the things we learned was that when a first notice of a deed restriction violation is warranted, the "door hanger" type ticket goes to the home (occupant). On the 11th day, if no action is taken, the letter with a picture of the violation goes to the homeowner. With so many rental properties, can you see the disconnect?
Another interesting thing: From 1976 to 1996, there was no full time DRACO. So, you may have been living here for 20 years with a violation and then all of the sudden, somebody comes up and says, hey, that's a violation!
The DRACO understands this and his intention is to work with homeowners to make everyone happy and work things out in the best interest of the neighbors. Jose always welcomes your reports of violations and will keep your name out of it. So call him at 681-2983 or e-mail him and let him look into the chickens in your neighbor's yard so the issue can be resolved for everyone.
John Kelly, the Code Compliance supervisor for our area gave a really nice and informative presentation regarding common violations and some of the limitations his officers have. He pointed out that the city has multiple ways of contacting his office including via the city portal and a handy code compliance reporting web page here. Check it out.
There were lots of questions from the attentive audience. One smart audience member raised the question about garage sale signs. He stated that if you pay a fee in order to obtain a garage sale permit, should that not include the authorization to post signs for the garage sale? The answer is that at one time it did! But, when some city council member got tired of seeing garage sale signs still up on Mondays, they changed it. Luckily for all of you holders of weekend flea markets, they usually won't take action on the signs during the weekend.
Officer Kelly hit too many other areas to list, but he did mention that on the weekends, they do patrol for garage sale permit violators, for people attempting to use the HEB parking lot as an extension of the Red McCombs used car lot, people selling or giving away dogs along the side of the road, and those guys who post the bandit signs such as "We'll buy your house cheap" or "Vote for Sheriff Ralph Lopez"
I'm not quite sure why I find that funny, but I do.
Ms Sandra Hackard from the Bexar County Dispute Resolution Center came and passed out some materials and gave a nice talk on the services provided and the benefits of dispute resolution. Did you know that $15 of every lawsuit filed in Bexar County goes to support the Center? I didn't.
They offer information, referrals, and other information, but they don't offer legal advice. Basically, if you contact them and they can't help you solve the problem on your own (get you to talk with your neighbor first), then they figure out exactly what the dispute is, send out letters to both parties and within two to three weeks, you go and have a resolution session.
The center has over 130 volunteer mediators - people who are lawyers and counselors and such. And, they handle everything from family disputes, child visitation complaints, sold vehicle complaints etc. This is a free service!
And that was that. By the way, the GNW provided coffee, sodas, cookies and sammitches and this was really a worthwhile event. Kudos to Jose Morlett. This guy needs a raise and a bonus!
I recently did a story on a group of National Junior Honor Society students from Zachry Middle School who participated in a community service project at Kuwamura Park located at Timber Path and Cliffbrier in Emerald Valley. This story prompted one former GNW resident and long time reader to ask about the origin of the park name. And that prompted me to ask the same question. Who is Kuwamura and why do we have a park named after him?
