Annual Meeting of GNWCIA Report: No Quorum...

Tonight was the Annual Meeting of the members for the Great Northwest Community Improvement Association. You know I was there and you know I have something to report... But just not tonight.

I will tell you that we did not have a quorum and the short story is, we now have a board with just four directors; two who seem to be in one faction, two in another faction. Oh, and one of the directors doesn't even live here anymore.

Other than the craziness that shall no doubt ensue, we got fed, people got awards, kids got scholarships, and nobody was assaulted. Not bad.

More when I have a minute or two.

Graffiti Report: City Repaints Oscar Perez Memorial Park

At the first GNW HOA meeting I attended, someone brought up the issue of the graffiti that had accumulated at Oscar Perez Memorial Park and it was suggested that people should call the city's 311 Information Line to report any sighting of the obnoxious vandalism so appropriate measures could be taken. I was pretty pleased to see some action taken by the City Manager, Sheryl Sculley and her staff following a complaint by one of my neighbors.

As a homeowner living in a community with an association, I appreciate the amenities offered, the security, the fact that we as a group have agreed to certain standards of appearance etc. But I would give up all of that and continue to pay my monthly association fees if someone could simply come up with an answer to this graffiti problem that has really gotten out of hand in the last 12 to 18 months.

If you are looking to sell your property or rent it out, you can do all the cleaning, painting and "curb appeal" modifications you want, but you cannot do anything about the negative impact a neighborhood full of graffiti will have on the value of your home.

Aside from the diminishing re-sell value to your home, just think about how it makes you feel about the neighborhood in general. I know it isn't a reflection on my individual property, but it is embarrassing to invite friends and family over when they have to drive through an entry way of graffiti marked privacy fences, sidewalks, and of course, Oscar Perez Memorial Park.

To me, this should make the eradication of graffiti of this area (and really, all of San Antonio) a much higher priority than many of the other services offered, not only by this HOA, but by the city and the county.

For whatever reason, there seems to be this mindset that graffiti is inevitable, it is the work of harmless pranksters, and it is art. I'm sorry, but I have to call the Big BS on all of that.

This is art:

This is vandalism:

It is high time that parents teach their little Rembrandt's and Monet's the difference. And it is also time that as a city and perhaps as a community, we invest in technology that will not only deter such crimes, but will also catch these criminals and provide evidence toward their prosecution.

Yes, prosecution. The next time you rely on the fact that the city offers free paint to help cover up such crimes, think about the money that a homeowner invests to install a new privacy fence, only to have it spray painted days later. Simply painting over the damaged section in white paint does nothing to recover the value of the fence. It is ruined. If you don't agree, I'd like to suggest the next time you purchase a new car, you take a paint brush and cover an 18" X 18" square on the hood of your car with regular latex paint in a color different from your vehicle's factory paint job. The new car smell won't change the damage you have done to the new car paint.

Many of us have security systems installed at home that include a glass breakage feature. Essentially, a little sensor is programmed to recognize the specific frequency of glass breaking. The system can then sound the alarm, call the monitoring company or whatever action you have programmed it to do.

Why couldn't the City deploy similar sensors set to recognize the rattling sound of a spray-paint can being shaken? Perhaps when activated, a flood light would turn on, perhaps an eardrum shattering alarm or even a hidden video camera would begin recording. Perhaps the Park Police would be deployed.

Yes, I know this costs money and I know we have many projects some consider higher priorities, but just for a moment, consider what the cost is to each of us as individuals, the loss in property value, and the disappointment of coming home to the vandalism brought upon us by teens and young adults who get off on the thrill of tagging and in the back of their minds know that the most that will happen to them if caught is perhaps some community service?

Why is the destruction of private and public property via the spray can any less a crime than a person who breaks into your car and steals your radio? It is time that we treat this problem as a crime and it is time that the city take some action.

And to the point, I am posting the original e-mail sent by my neighbor to the Mayor, the City Manager, and the Distrct Council person, including the pictures, followed by Mrs. Sculley's prompt response. Mrs. Sculley is a fine city manager and I appreciate the fact that action was taken IMMEDIATELY. More of us need to call and e-mail to get the services we deserve as taxpayers.

((I have edited out the identifying information of my good neighbor Gus, though I do have his permission to use them)).

From:
Sent: Monday, June 25, 2007 5:21 PM
To: Mayor Hardberger; City Manager; Sandra Garza
Subject: Oscar Perez Memorial Park disgrace

June 25, 2007

Dear Mayor, City Manager, and District 6 Council Woman

I have lived in this neighborhood for over 25 years. Until about 2 years ago, graffiti was not often seen here. Things have changed. The Oscar Perez Memorial Park was built. At first I thought this was a great idea to have a park where kids and families could enjoy the facility. I now wish is was a vacant lot full of sunflowers again. It was certainly more pleasant to look at. This park is covered with vulgar graffiti and is a disgrace to the neighborhood and to the city.

I resent that my tax dollars are spent having to pay park employees to repaint the equipment in this park every week only to have it tagged the very next day. The vandals that do this are criminals and should be dealt with as any other criminals. They are destroying property and should be apprehended and punished severely.

I am sure you are all aware of the problem, as it seems to be happening all over the city I have no suggestions to offer other that to suggest that if the problem continues the park should be returned to a vacant lot again. I am sure that Officer Oscar Perez did not sacrifice his life to be honored by a an eye sore such as this.

And here was the quick action and response taken by the City Manager, Mrs, Sculley.

Subject: RE: Oscar Perez Memorial Park disgrace

From: "City Manager"

Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2007 17:32:20 -0500

To: <>

CC: "Malcolm Matthews" , "David D Garza"

Mr.

Thank you for forwarding your concerns regarding the graffiti at the Oscar Perez Memorial Park. Via copy of this email, I will ask our Housing and Neighborhood Services Department to deploy our crews to remove the graffiti from the park property. I will also ask our Parks Police to be vigilant in ensuring appropriate security and safety of our residents enjoying the park and hopefully minimize graffiti activity. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.

Sheryl Sculley
City Manager

A crew was sent to Oscar Perez Memorial Park first thing in the AM (I saw them there on my way to work) and my neighbor actually stopped and talked to the workers as they repaired the damage.

Mrs. Sculley and her staff deserve our thanks for the prompt action, but the answer is that we need more work to put these little punks out of business.

Let GNW Security know if you see the little bastards in action and by all means, take their pictures and give them to police. If your property gets tagged, call the police, make them make a report, and demand action.

Okay, I feel a lot better - how about you? Do you or your kids know who the little taggers are? Tell me about it.

GNW HOA Meeting Report: My Minutes...

I'd like to think that if you find any enjoyment in the things I post, reading about the minutes of the Great Northwest HOA meeting would be a low priority on your list of reading. I'll try to be entertaining, but if you skip this one, I'll understand.

I took quite a few notes during the meeting and even spoke with a few folks to make sure that I understood things I didn't completely hear. Unlike my first meeting, this one had very little in the way of outbursts or comic relief.

At some point in the meeting, there was even reference to me and this blog, a result of my award winning 4th of July Parade coverage. I'm going to skip through a lot of the boring stuff and get right to a few points, so here goes.

During presentations by department heads,(and as I mentioned before) I was impressed by some of the questions Mr. Guy Pucci asked.

Examples:

• On the purchase of new computers, he asked if the old computers were still under warranty (no).
• On the auditing firm coming July 19th, he asked if there would be a pre-conference with board members (no)
• On the report from the Rec Department, he asked if there was a record of how many visitors to the pool were non-residents - the answer was "no", but they would start keeping track. The Rec director mentioned that she could go back and count money collected to figure out the number. This may have been lost on other observers, but I think the point was, if you don't keep track of the number of visitors, how do you know how much money should be in the kitty at the end of the day? Right?
• To the Security Chief, Mr. Pucci asked if there were any issues in hiring new staff (no) and also asked about any remaining life in a vehicle that the Security Department is seeking to replace. (Yes, and the vehicle will be transferred to DRACO). Mr. Pucci also asked about Logs the officers might keep.
• During the Maintenance Department report, Mr. Pucci asked about the status of diving boards (Rec director looking into it)
• And during a board discussion regarding the review of election materials, Mr. Pucci made a recommendation to help speed up the process.

Now call me a bumpkin, but in each of these cases, it sounded as though Mr. Pucci's questions were certainly value added to the process, and certainly not invasive or overstepping the boundaries of what board directors would be voted into office to be aware of before making a decision. If someone can give me a valid reason as to why we would want a board full of directors who calmly sit back and simply listen to the reports from staff with no question, I'd submit that we could save a whole lot of money and not have meetings at all.

Am I out of my mind on this?

My observation was that Mr. Pucci did exactly what a member of the board of directors should do. Make a decision based on well thought out and vetted information.

Now I stated previously, and currently stand by my position that, if you can afford to spend the kind of money Mr. Pucci did on a lawsuit against the HOA, then your priorities are a lot different than mine. But having said that, I still don't see the types of questions he asks at the meetings are anything more than in the best interests of the association as a whole.

Okay, so moving on and speaking of the lawsuit. Ms Sigrid Long, whom I had the pleasure of meeting and seemed very nice, if not a bit unsettled by my report of the first meeting I attended, added an item to the meeting agenda. She wanted the board to discuss an article that her and another board member, Mr. Steve Mifflin, had written for publication in The Passages. The topic of the letter was the story of the Guy Pucci Lawsuit. There was a lot of banter amongst the board members and I think ultimately, they decided to discuss the issue in closed session.

But since you are here anyway, let me give you my two cents. I am strictly opposed to publishing the letter in Passages, because I'm tired of seeing it used for the purposes of board members bashing one another. If Ms. Long or Mr. Mifflin would send me a copy of the letter, I'll post it here, unedited, and I'll be happy to give Mr. Pucci free reign to respond to it. But people in the Great Northwest don't read this blog to see pictures of their kid's Soccer Team or read about the pool schedule. So send the dirt to me, and keep that crap out of the association newspaper.

What I do believe should happen is, the opposing sides should come up with a joint statement which explains what was done, how it was resolved and any homeowner in good standing should be able to request that document and have it provided to them. End of story, case closed, see ya and good night.

Oh, the good news is, the guys who had requested to start an area Motorcycle Club, got permission to run some free adds in The Passages, so they could determine interest. Well done.

There were some other odds and ends, but really, I encourage any of you who want to see your board in action, to just come to the meetings. You can sit near me and we can giggle together.

Now, enough of this nastiness. I find it more entertaining to tell you about the new things I saw and did this weekend. More on that next.

HOA Meeting Report: No 4th of July Fireworks, Really...

Just a quick update on the HOA meeting tonight at the Great Northwest Lodge. The meeting wasn't closed per se, but it was not open to discussion by folks in the peanut gallery. For this reason, it seemed to go fairly smoothly with very little reportable fanfare. Of course, residents only stay for the open session. From there, the board meets in a closed session where I suspect they yell!

My wife, Eva, attended with me and we got to meet several of the folks I hadn't had a chance to meet last meeting including board member Ms. Sigrid Long and former board member Mr. Joe Martinez. We also met the GNW Security Chief Roger Burton.

I took quite a few notes and compared notes with some others and frankly, from my "outsider" point of view, there seemed to be only one or two minor topics that raised my "Give a Crap" meter in my mind.

What I saw as relevant and thoughtful questions posed by board member Mr. Guy Pucci to various members of staff, may have come across as micro-managing and a waste of time to others, but I suppose as residents of the Great Northwest, it would be on you as individuals to come to the meetings and find out what you think.

But more on the ongoings when I get a chance to look at my notes and such.

The reason we stopped and introduced ourselves to Chief Burton is, my wife volunteered for me to be the Block Captain for GNW Watch for our street. I'm not sure if it needs to be put up to a vote by my neighbors, but my promise is, I will hold another National Night Out Party like we did last year, and this time, supposedly there will be some sort of prizes and other swank, all being given out by local business/governments just for signing up and being "official".

So neighbors, BYOB, but let's not get so liquored-up that McGruff the Crime Dog has to make a few apprehensions.

Alright! We made the Express-News!! Yippie!

Not the SilverCreek78250 Blog, but one of our residents anyway.

I feel silly for missing it firsthand - I started to read the article (found online here) and gave up after the first few paragraphs for something more important; coffee, tile, HEB - you know.

Anyway, I don't have anything to add to the story other than to say I hope the HOA has their collective "stuff" together if the DA decides to look further into this troubled man's dealings with the board when he was the... uh, Treasurer.

Geeze.

In the meantime, I plan to attend the Thursday Board meeting to take notes and see if this topic comes up. Like I'd tell you about it. C'mon out and let's make a night of it.

Aside from the aforementioned criminal action and the rain, I noted today on the news that Friedrich Wilderness Park has been shut down for a week or so, following the sighting of a Mountain Lion.

WTF? And I was walking out there in shorts and fancy sandals a week or two ago. Oh, and my wife was there too. WTH!

My GNW HOA Minutes: Okay, Hours Really...

As I wrote earlier, I attended my very first meeting of the GNW HOA on Thursday. I have been planning to attend for years, but never found the time. I’m glad I made it.

The meeting has a format which affords residents wishing to address the board of directors a chance to do so before the formal meeting agenda kicks off. There is also a sign-up which allows residents to speak while agenda items are discussed. I found this to be a great format though the execution was not as formal as it was probably intended.

A few residents to speak had clear, seemingly non-confrontational issues for the board regarding the pools. One lady asked about the diving boards being removed and another asked about hooligans hanging around at the pool. Okay, hooligans was my word, not necessarily hers.

Then it got interesting. A lady chose to ask a specific board director, Mr. Guy Pucci, if he had planned on giving the money he received in a lawsuit settlement from the association, back. She called him unethical for sitting on the board after costing residents $75K for his lawsuit against the very board he was now a member of. Before he could respond, Mr. Joe Martinez (publisher of the Sentinel Newsletter) admonished the board that this woman (whose name I did not catch) was out of order. “Out of order!” he repeated multiple times, to which the lady replied, “Sir, we aren’t in session; how can I be out of order?”

At this point there was a lot of talk between board members and onlookers in the audience, and I could see factions of people dividing like a wedding with the Hatfield’s and McCoy’s. I realized that the descriptions of board meetings given to me by neighbors who have participated before were pretty accurate. Another lady whose name I did not catch provided a formal letter to the board and then stood there and read it. She had three different complaints, all of which seemed petty to me, but the one that came up again in the formal portion of the meeting revolved around a particular volunteer having been let go by the board some 6 years ago. Whatever. I think audience members and the board all agreed that as long as the volunteer wasn’t doing anything bad now, let’s move on. Agreed.

Two gentlemen fully decked out in motorcycle gear spoke of their desire to form an area motorcycle club that HOA residents could join in and have twice monthly rides, perform community service events and perhaps hold meetings at the lodge. They were seeking permission not to form the club, but to be recognized as residents, and not as Hells Angels if neighbors saw a group of them meeting in the parking lot of the lodge etc. If ever there was a no-brainer, this was it. My gut feeling was that a member of the board would immediately move to have a proclamation of some sort, naming this new motorcycle club as a Friend of the Association or some such ceremonial convention. Instead, board member Ms. Sigrid Long brought up the fact that this group could somehow be a liability to the HOA, and that lawyers would have to be consulted.

Beyond being shocked, I was distressed that during the course of the meeting (which still was not actually in session yet) the “need to consult lawyers” had been proclaimed numerous times by Ms. Long and others.

Mr. Lee Besing, the chairman of the board was quick to dismiss Ms. Long’s concerns, citing that unless the motorcycle club was going to use the name, “Great Northwest Community Improvement Association, Inc. Motorcycle Gang” and perhaps use the GNW logo, there really wasn't any issue. Mr. Austin Sheldon, one of the club founders, confirmed that they would not be wearing leather jackets emblazoned with the seal of the GNW.

Interestingly enough, later in the meeting Mr. Besing noted that a group offered to let GNW board members ride in Corvettes during the 4^th of July parade. I couldn’t help but wonder if Ms. Long would want to consult lawyers for liability issues prior to jumping in for a ride down Timberwilde.

Another topic that came up in the early “residents to speak” session and then in the formal meeting was the use of e-mail addresses. Ms. Kathy Callahan pointed out that one board member; Mr. Pucci in particular did not wish to correspond with her via e-mail. Given an opportunity to explain his reasons, the fact that she was sending mail to his work address, the matter was resolved somewhat. Later, Ms. Long made the suggestion that board members should only be using official e-mail addresses for correspondence with residents and further, that any e-mail sent to one board member should go to all board members. Somehow, this good idea of making board members accessible via official e-mail addresses turned into a free-for-all with board members recounting the various e-mails they had received from their adoring public, and how they responded to them. This was fine, but it seemed as though the meeting never gained any momentum toward getting through the stated agenda because every sentence uttered required some legal review or interjection from an audience member.

During a break, my neighbor Eric introduced me to board member, Janet Doherty and former board member Kathy Callahan, both of whom seemed to be very nice folks just concerned about making the HOA work.

This brings me to the point. For all of the infighting and ruffled feathers over seemingly insignificant matters, these people all seem very concerned about doing the right thing for the community, yet I think there is some one-upmanship and pettiness spoiling what would otherwise be a tough job in the first place. Listening to the temporary accountant and one of the department heads discuss the very real and important issues facing the people who do the day-to-day running of this HOA and all the facilities, it comes across as unsettling to observe otherwise well intentioned people act like 6^th graders.

The Great Northwest is bigger than many towns in the state of Texas, and with a budget that far exceeds what I dismissively thought of as a pool and a few security guards. There are many hardworking people (the ones that have not quit, anyway) who have an important job to do to keep our community facilities running. To help guide the direction of the community are a group of volunteers who have been elected by a very small percentage of the total HOA membership (which by the way doesn’t diminish the fact that they are elected). It seems such a shame that the meeting could go on for so long (two hours before I gave up and left) to contain really only 20 minutes or so of real content; the rest of the time taken up by petty sniping and quibbling.

I’m no stranger to immaturity though, so I plan to be back at the next meeting and perhaps I’ll bring a cowbell or one of those air horns to give off an alarm each time someone starts being stupid. I feel like I’m going to like these people; they are my neighbors after all.

* If I mentioned your name, please don’t sue me, but please don’t hesitate to e-mail me if you’d like.

*No, I'm not really going to bring an air horn or a cowbell next time.

HOA Meeting Tonight: WTF!

After all these years, I finally made time to attend my first open meeting of the HOA for the Great Northwest. Though I could only manage to stay for the first two hours, I got to witness the small assembled crowd made up of existing board members, previous board members, possible future board members, and then one or two curious onlookers like me.

I'll post a few notes of interest as soon as I get a chance, but initially, I'd just like to say that as a homeowner, I appreciate the fact that these people take the massive amount of time it takes to volunteer for these unpaid positions. I got the feeling though that the board and the participants in the audience were people who all feel as though they have been wronged in some way by other people there. I'm not trying to be some junior social counselor, but honestly, I could have turned on two hours of Hannity and Colmes if I wanted to sit there and listen to people play the "gotcha" game.

One example of that is where the board was faced with a person up and quitting from a very critical position within the community on a Thursday. The board made herculean efforts to meet just 24 hours later and hire a person who had previously worked in the same position in the past, someone with knowledge of the HOA, and hire them as a contractor to fill the position if only temporarily. I was immediately proud that the board of directors had acted to go above and beyond to correct the situation - remember, these are volunteers on their own time - and a gentlemen got up and berated the board for failing to meet some unexplained EEOC policy and for failing to get three bids from other contractors.

I'm sure this guy meant well and I'm sure he had some valid point he was making from a previous lifetime; I also remember being deployed to Bosnia because neighbors were fighting over atrocities that occurred a thousand years earlier.

Life is too short. Why is it that I have lived in this neighborhood since 1999 and not once have I been motivated to appear before the board and complain about somebody who is volunteering his or her time? Because I have a life.

Perhaps a sad and pathetic existence spent working and jotting down notes and taking silly pictures for a blog that only a hand full of nice people read, but a life nonetheless.

I'll post more about this tomorrow, assuming I don't get a restraining order from the lawyer of the lady who seemed to think that a group of neighbors who wanted to get together and ride their motorcycles twice a month as a group would be a liability to the HOA. Sweet baby Moses on a Razor in the pool area spraying graffiti on the park; what a piece of work.

HOA Election Update...

Sadly, my neighbor Eric was not among the winners of the board election for the Home Owners Association. He gives details of the "brutal" meeting over in his blog.

It ought to be interesting to see if this Guy D. Pucci character will settle his lawsuit with the HOA now that he is part of the leadership. That would be a first step in perhaps easing some of the distrust between the factions.

If you have any information worth reporting, e-mail me.

Part Two: More about Silver Creek 78250

When we first moved into our home in Silver Creek we got a visit from one of the community security officers. The house next door to us was vacant, but the owner had not yet put it on the market. He would come by weekly to mow the yard and check on things, and this time around, he found that someone had defaced the sidewalk.

At the time, both my kids were in middle school at Connally, and apparently, that was enough to trigger suspicion that my kids could be the culprits. I never did harbor any ill feelings toward the neighbor or security for jumping to such a conclusion; after all, we were new people moving in from “the barrio” where graffiti is as common as stray dogs. But make no mistake, graffiti is not something that I would ever take lightly, and my kids know it. And once the security officer and the neighbor next door had a chance to meet me and my family, they knew it was not related to us.

But that little incident left me with mixed emotions regarding the new ‘hood. First, some dumbass kids were out there writing graffiti on the sidewalks, which was very much part of the reason we moved. On the other hand, instead of me having to be the “lone ranger” dealing with it by confronting little hood rats on my own, there were security people on the job, which made me pretty happy. And as I posted earlier, the whole Home Owner Association and all the order and such that comes with it was a big factor in why we selected Silver Creek.

I recall seeing a story on the news years ago about how some guy had painted his house this bizarre shade of green – like chartreuse or something. The HOA took his ass to court and threatened to seize his property if he didn’t come to his senses and paint his house a normal color.

But “normal”, by whose standards? Yes, it is a double-edged sword, but I know what side I’m gonna be on if my neighbor up and paints his house in some psychedelic color pattern.

Another HOA tried to sue a lady who painted a US flag on her garage door. Hey, I’m as patriotic as the next guy and we fly both the US and Texas flags at our house, but your garage door needs to look like a garage door, not some wall mural in the center of the projects.

So anyway, I’ve taken a pretty long way around the barn, as John Wayne might say, to make it clear that I’m a big fan of the idea of an HOA. So you’d think that I would attend the monthly meetings or participate in some way. But I don’t. And other than sending a check every month and seeing the security patrol driving up and down my street several times a day and night, I am totally oblivious to what these people do with my money. As long as there are no chickens running in the neighbor’s yard, no psychodelic colored paint schemes and no graffiti on my sidewalk, I am one happy camper.

But apparently, not everyone else feels the same way I do.

The Great Northwest which is the bigger umbrella community of which Silver Creek is just one participating sub-division, has an “official” newspaper, an “official” web site, and, imagine this, a competing “unofficial” newspaper and “unofficial” web site. Further, it turns out that the board of directors of the HOA is made up of two factions who apparently have an ongoing feud like the Hatfield’s and the McCoy’s.

So, I try to keep up on community events by reading the propaganda issued by both factions, and frankly, it is clear that we have a lot of cranky people involved, but other than one group is offended by the other group, I hadn’t found a whole lot of substance to what the complaints were.

That was until I read some of the materials printed by the “unofficial” faction. According to their own propaganda, this one guy, who I should note is a candidate for one of the board of director positions, has an ongoing lawsuit against the HOA. Okay, I’m not sure what my HOA did to piss this guy off, but I know now that not only is he suing them, he wants me to vote for him so he can replace them. And then what - drop his lawsuit?

It gets better.

And this is based on the literature provided by this guy’s own team. The man in question, one Guy D. Pucci, has already spent $60,000.00 on the lawsuit against the HOA that he wants to sit on the board of.

WTF?

Let me get this right. This man has spent $60K of his own money in such a frivolous manner (my opinion), and now he wants me to trust him with my portion of the HOA assets? The hell you say.

Sir, if you have $60,000.00 lying around in an envelope under the mattress and you suddenly don’t like the people running the HOA, that kind of cash would make a good down payment on a house in a much better neighborhood than this one!

Good God, Mr. Pucci! Did you win the lottery and suddenly go nuts like all the other people who win huge prizes? What’s next; fully functioning quarter scale matching Lamborghini’s for the grandkids?

I am a guy who does a lot of things purely for the principal of it, but forgive me if my jaw drops in your general direction.

So, my next door neighbor, a very reasonable, smart thinking person recognizing that this little feud is going to carry on until some new blood can get involved to offer a change in point of view, has selflessly accepted the nomination of the people on our street to run for one of the board positions.

I hope he gets elected.

But if he does, I hope the Hatfield’s and the McCoy’s don’t take it out on our street by purchasing $60,000.00 worth of spray paint and turning it into a graffiti covered gang zone.

I’ll let you know what happens. If you live in Silver Creek and would like to offer your point of view, or if you have an HOA story of your own, e-mail me.

About Silver Creek - Part One

It is only fair that I tell you about Silver Creek and why I enjoy living here; after all, it is the title of the web page. Before we moved here back in 1999, we had occasion to drive around different parts of San Antonio and would make little excursions into the various sub-divisions and neighborhoods, either to scope out a promising garage sale, or just to see how other places differed from our little piece of Texas.

Each time we would find ourselves in Silver Creek, I loved driving up Timberwilde, the main through street. The houses looked so well kept, and they each had a unique appearance. I couldn’t help but think of them as custom-built homes as opposed to many of the cookie cutter boxes so common today. And the trees stood out showing that the builder had recognized how important they would be in giving the area an identity.

Another thing that stood out was the presence of security vehicles driving around, and people walking or jogging, offering a friendly nod or wave, as we would drive by. In my mind, this was a totally different world from the graffiti infested neighborhood where we lived, with every third house being a run-down, eyesore.

When we went to look for a new home, we did check out some of the KB neighborhoods and several other new builders. I’m not here to sell anything or sway readers in a different home buying direction, but for us, the difference in price of getting a spiffy new home with all the “upgrades”, then having to buy grass, add ceiling fans and purchase thousands of dollars in trees just so our house wouldn’t look bare (forgetting that the rest of the neighborhood will still look like a moon surface), we decided that an older, established neighborhood was the way to go.

And in all honesty, when you buy a house in an established neighborhood, you don’t have to meet your neighbors to see how they maintain their yards. When you move into a freshly built sub-division, everyone is moving in at the same time, and none of you collectively know who will turn out to be the crazy cat-lady, the beat-up car-collector or the person hell-bent on extreme landscaping techniques – you know, xeriscape via the use of weeds.

So, focused on homes we could afford within a reasonable distance of work, we looked through several areas within the Great Northwest, Braun Station and areas bounded by Loop 410, Bandera Road and 1604. Though we took about 6 months to look, for a house, we weren’t overly obsessive about it. I know this may sound compulsive, but other than a few minor things we definitely did not want, we felt pretty sure that when we saw the right house, we would know it.

What didn’t we want? Well, the first thing was, we did not want to live on a main feeder road through the neighborhood. You know, the main road in and out of a neighborhood that, any time of the day or night, somebody is traveling on it. Every time I drive down Timberwilde (the main feeder into Silver Creek) I feel bad for the people who have to take a chance on getting hit by a car every time they back out of their driveway. Another thing we didn’t want was green shag carpet or yellow countertops.

The one thing we were interested in for sure was that the neighborhood has a Home Owners Association. Bexar County and San Antonio are too big to depend on for making sure that your neighbor doesn’t paint his house lime green or that color of yellow found on many muffler shops along Culebra Rd downtown. A good HOA can be the Nazi in your life and make sure yards are mowed, dead vehicles are removed, and in the case of my HOA, they can give you someone to laugh at for how serious they take themselves. But I’ll get to that in due course.

It was during one of our drives through neighborhoods in our targeted area that we found ourselves in Silver Creek again. Some people here call it Timber Land because for the most part, all the street names are “Timber Something”. Aside from all the names being the same, we were actually getting to recognize which streets we had been on before. As soon as we saw it, my wife and I looked at each other and we knew this could be the one. The trees, the second story balcony overlooking the front yard, there was something that drew us to it.

Though our realtor had shown us several properties in the area already, she had not shown us this one, so our guess was that it was out of the price range. Long story short, there was a pending offer, it fell through and we moved in less than a month later.

Interestingly, about six months after moving in, my wife and I were out in the garage doing some work when a politician came walking the streets. He told us half jokingly that we stole his house from him. Turns out that at the same time the aforementioned sale on the house was pending, he also made an offer but apparently we got our offer in quicker.

We have not been disappointed in our choice to move to Silver Creek. Though we have seen some changes over the years, mostly increased traffic due to booming construction in the area, I think that is something you will deal with anywhere around town. The important thing is, once you get home, you feel comfortable and you have great neighbors.

I’ll tell you more about the neighborhood and of course, our entertaining HOA in future posts.