|
The HOA Board will be holding an open meeting to discuss “Ongoing & 2024 Strategic Plans/Projects” on Wednesday, March 20th.
WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT TO HOMEOWNERS?
The Blog would like to hear how Homeowners would like to see their money spent. FOR EXAMPLE:
The Blog Welcomes Your Comments.
23 Comments
Jim
3/14/2024 06:47:25 pm
Tell me what "revenue generating" projects we have successfully added in the last 10 years?
Tom Moen
5/30/2024 10:23:28 am
Not a single one. Golf course loss >$2.8 million loss. Pro shop Loss of >$750k, Tennis and Spa loss of $139k, Lounge, Grille and Bar - loss of $659k. Who covered all those losses?? You did! Roughly 72% of our HOA fees are used to cover the HOC losses for the few happy go lucky selfish participants. Why are facing a vote on insane traffic violations? Not for our safety but to cover these losses. I want my HOA fees to cover the HOA.
Weston F Dobson
3/14/2024 07:31:02 pm
What time is the meeting?
Sheila Sparling
3/14/2024 07:58:49 pm
Replace all those lights along walkways that break easily back to the previous style. Some have been done but only at residents request. Still quite a few out there.
Lynn MacDonald
3/14/2024 09:16:55 pm
Here’s a cost-saving idea…..Stop wasting $ on planting annuals every year in front of the condos. We agree with some nice plantings in common areas but there is no need for them in front of every condo/home which is expensive. A huge majority of the annuals are barely buried in the soil by the landscapers and die quickly. Many homeowners choose to remove them and plant their own perennials which last year after year. Another idea although not sure if already implemented ? Only heat the pools from Nov to April. No need to waste $ heating them all year round.
Gym User
3/15/2024 06:25:20 am
I use our fitness centre. Leave the gym as is! The only items that possibly need replacing are the front doors as, when they are shut, there is a gap between the two doors and wind/sand gets in. The gym is not a busy place and it serves its purpose. We don’t need state of the art equipment or decor. Look at the people that use it…no state of the art fashionistas.
T Rosa
3/25/2024 10:50:05 am
One of the reasons the gym is under utilized is the poor condition of the facility. I also use the gym daily and have tolerated the lousy condition and tired equipment for YEARS. If we upgrade the facility more home owners will use it. When I undated the facility at PGA West their home owner use went up 45%
Bunny Humphreys-Hogg
3/15/2024 08:14:39 am
I agree with Lynn. The annuals are a waste of time and money. I planted beautiful perennials that were removed and replaced with short lived annuals. It is a sweet idea whose time has passed..Plant perenials or give us a list of the ones you will allow.
Golf Cart User
3/15/2024 11:04:54 am
I don't use my cart for Golf. I just ride it on Lousy Roads to visit my friends on various roads and its tearing up my cart. please fix them ALL!
Mike
3/16/2024 08:12:57 am
The Mountain View Grill has served its purpose and is costing the homeowners in DP money that will never be recovered.
Tom Moen
6/14/2024 07:39:53 am
The pro shop, while it looks great and is necessary, LOST $750,000 under Rodney. Again, this is about half of what the MVG lost, which is far less than half of what the golf course lost. I think our HOA board is comprised of people who have never run anything, they don't understand simple maths of business, P&Ls, they never ran operations or project management. They certainly do not listen to the owners. When I ran for the HOA, my first suggestion was to review all the contracts Management, MVG, Pro Shop, Spa and Tennis and get people with experience running those operations, to run them, at the very least get advice of a consultant, accounting firm that is not just paid to tell us what the management company tells them to tell us. That is the first contract that should be examined... Management company tremendously overcharges us for not much in return, a GOOD management company would have turned all the businesses in the HOC into profitable ventures. Our HOA should primarily fund HOA expenses and the HOC should be generating profit to reduce the HOA burden. Today, 58 cents of every dollar we pay to HOA goes to the HOC. 29 cents of every dollar goes to our very, very, expensive Management company, leaving only 13 cents of our HOA fee to go to the HOA/improvements for infra. Sad. When our fees go over $1000 - $580 to HOC, $290 to Management leaving $130 for Infrastructure. Sad
Tom Moen
9/1/2024 11:03:25 am
Wow, my emotions have moved from anger to fear--I am honestly afraid of what the board will do next. I could not attend the emergency meeting on 8/29 as I was out of the country visiting my home in Ireland and only had 1 day notice of the 8/29 meeting. Desert Princess is flooded in waste as I outlined above and the $78,000 they wasted on an audio system that has not once worked! What a waste of YOUR money--further, if that is "doing it right the first time", I hope we start doing things wrong around here. Next, who approved the waste of OUR money on printing The Royal Pages--nothing Royal about it. What an astronomical waste of resources--31 pages of self-glorification and back patting. The only thing I learned is that this is the third time, in three years, that we've replaced license plate readers. LOL At best this paper is an environmental waste all that paper and ink, I was fearful that we would see our horrific HOA board run costs up to $1000 a month guessing $1,200-$1,500 a month? I still believe they will be forced to implement a special assessment of roughly $20,000 per unit--this is all due to the poor management, operations and waste. We went from $18 million in reserves to $8 million to $0 -- nobody can actually tell me what the reserves were or what they are? How is that possible. We have $30 million of expenses coming in, on top of the losses at the MVG, pro shop, spa and golf losses ($3.8 million last year and the added expenses and waste of remodeling of those entities). I had high hopes the board would come under pressure and the management company contract be terminated and this place would turn around. No such luck. We need an entirely new board. I see we have a record number of units on the market and well off their highs. Sad what a terrible baord can do...
Rozemarie Sweet
3/17/2024 01:46:52 pm
I'm a new member and noticed the Mountain View Grill closed early last Sunday for a private event. I did get served before the kitchen closed. But others were not so lucky. Reducing the menu and the price to quick orders i.e. hamburgers, sandwiches, during the dinner time maybe an alternative. Breakfast is one of the best things on the menu. Just so everyone knows.... Patrol Services now purportedly has a radar gun. I certainly support stopping and fining speeders and reckless driving. I moved here because its safe and secure. But, now, Patrol services is being overly zealous giving out violation notices if you go 30 in a 25 mph zone or a rolling stop. No check on whether they're moving themselves or if they have a good aim to get the right vehicle. And not a polite warning; they discreetly leave a notice a your door without even knocking or ringing the doorbell to have a pleasant conversation. I want a safe and beautiful place to live, but not some place where I feel I'm in a police state. Let's secure the perimeter and not employ overzealous rent a cops.
David
4/28/2024 10:09:16 am
Golf carts are the worst-case.
Dan
6/14/2024 01:45:05 pm
Soooooo Sad , it's been happening every since this last management company took over. This is AMERICA. I agree get people who have experience. In the real world, not a diploma.
tom moen
7/11/2024 12:04:31 pm
There it is folks... Won't say I told you so but our HOA board just increased our HOA fees yet another $97 a month! That's another $117,000 a month, or an amazing $1.4 million a year! $1.4 million a year MORE than the $14 million we were already paying! What do you as homeowners get for your additional $1.4 million MORE??? Not a single dang thing. Well, our pools will be lowered to 82 degrees and 50% of our pools will be turned off starting in October. LOL! All YOUR money is going to the HOC; a pro shop losing over $700k a year, a restaurant that lost over $500k, and an unused updated spa and a golf course that is losing millions - like $2.8 million a year, oh yes and a management company that charges us more than 4x the norm! No effort to increase revenue. No effort to decrease costs. Absolutely no effort to enhance our property or property value. So from $600 a month, that hadn't changed in over a decade, to nearing $1000 a month. A horrific board and management company only competence extends to wasting YOUR money. As I said in the meet the candidates, many more units will join the 43 homes currently on the market, they will remain on the market for many months as our HOA cannot pinpoint our reserves ($0?) or where our HOA monies are invested (HOC).
Dave
7/11/2024 02:28:19 pm
We need to vote them out !
Tom Moen
7/12/2024 10:26:21 am
I agree Dave! I was very impressed that I only lost by 17 votes, a virtual unknown and only third year resident here. Had I won, it would have been 2 against 5 so nothing would have changed, sadly. Note that they immediately passed the "5 year contracts" so their friends and family could remain under contracts for 5 years, continue take advantage, well beyond their terms as Board Members. Their first item was to extend the contract with our very overpriced management company. I will run again. I hope to be elected and I promise I will do everything I can to make everything as transparent as possible, gain feedback of community at every turn, well in advance, and to reduce costs while increasing the revenue from our operations. I will raise at every meeting that we should put the management contract out to bid as it is almost criminal how things are being run today by people who have no experience running anything.
Lynn MacDonald
7/15/2024 09:31:21 am
So glad to hear you are running again Tom....your proposals and ideas make a lot of sense. $600 HOA fees for almost 10 years until some self-serving Board members decided to look at ways to spend our money instead of ways to save costs. Several cost-saving suggestions have been put forth by many common sense owners over years but the Board has simply ignored them. Thankfully, 2 of the "love to spend" Board members have to step down in 2025 so we have hope that their replacements know how to be financially astute. Perhaps another cost-saving idea might be to reduce the staff costs....how many staff do we actually have ?? Landscaping and Security are contracted out..a few staff in the HOA office, the gym, but not enough to warrant such high costs. And the Management Company fees are ridiculously high. They are not the only game in town ! Speaking of contracts, the Board needs to ensure they receive several bids instead of simply renewing existing contracts so easily. The landscapers' work in Desert Princess has seriously declined over the past 5+ years and only getting worse. So many examples I could cite but owners have eyes and can see for themselves...The work is shoddy and the workers are too complacent because they know they've got a long term signed contract...there is no pride shown in their work at all ! Time to do some serious research into other sources...and stop acting like we are an endless money pit ~
David
7/17/2024 07:56:11 am
Gardening team is a joke. This place is a BIG. mess. You're right they don't care. The weeds and trash are just left , never touched. They need to go ,along with the Management Company.
Tom Moen
9/3/2024 02:09:39 pm
This seems odd... The Management Company is suddenly out and Seabreeze is suddenly in on Oct 1? Maybe because I have been out of the USA for most of the summer--but I still get email, texts, phone calls and am looped in 100% at work--somehow I missed the whole putting this out to bid in June, site visit in July, 20 minute presentation in August, and decision, without any input of residents, on September 1, a Sunday, and change to occur on October 1??? This seems odd and super aggressive. There were only two bidders? Who was invited? Why didn’t others respond? I was talking with the HOA management company at one of my other homes, they roughly charge 10% of the HOA fees, and do a TON of work to earn that 10%. While that community is similar size, the golf course, restaurant and pro shop are not tied to the HOA--no HOC "arrangement" as we have--and those venues, in that community, are profitable. They have properties in CA. Odd that they didn't respond. Maybe it was the tight timeframe. What drove this? Did others miss the information on this RFP as I did? 9/5/2024 08:33:26 am
They keep increasing hoa costs, we're getting less and less. Why don't they let us VOTE on these issues? This community has not changed since the Management company took over. Except our monthly fees. VOTE them out ! Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
CharterThis blog is designed as a means to provide transparency and informative access to the policies and protocols of the Desert Princess Palm Springs Homeowners Association, the governance of the HOA Board of Directors and the management of the community’s assets by The Management Trust. The expressed intent is to establish a neighborhood hub for trusted connections and the exchange of helpful information, goods, and services; it is hoped that homeowners will use it to build a stronger and safer Desert Princess Palm Springs. PLEDGE
BE HELPFUL Share this space in a constructive way. Be kind, not judgmental, in your conversations BE RESPECTFUL Remember you are speaking to your real neighbors. Strong communities are built on strong relationships DO NOT DISCRIMINATE Racism, hateful or foul language, or discrimination of any kind will not be tolerated. NO HARMFUL ACTIVITY Any activity that could hurt someone—from scams to physical harm—are off limits. Archives
January 2025
Categories |
RSS Feed