All questions, concerns or communication regarding Retreat HOA business or activities should be directed to our Property Manager Kristie McKitterick. This includes proposed landscape or exterior building improvements.
Managed by Balanced Bookkeeping &Community Association Managementc/o Retreat HOAP.O. Box 25952, Colorado Springs, CO 80936-5952FAX (719)265-6481 EMAIL [email protected] ChairpersonsArchitectural Control, Judy Truty; Gate, Bill Bartlett; Welcome, Mary Jo Greene; Neighborhood Watch, Judy Vann
The Retreat at Rockrimmon continues to change with new neighbors, landscape improvements, street repairs, and the demands of each season. Weathering paint requires continual attention, not to mention our driveways. If you notice that your house needs paint or other improvements, please submit an application to our Property Manager Kristie McKitterick. The Application for Approval of Architecture & Landscape is on our web site www.retreathoa.com. If you have received a notice, you will also need to submit an application to paint your house. If you have landscape issues, please report them as soon as possible to prevent any damage. If it is an emergency, call Kristie at (719) 593-9811 immediately and state your concern. She will call the landscaper to take care of the problem. For all maintenance concerns, contact Kristie or Amanda at the same number. To ensure prompt resolution, please be prepared to give the exact location along with a complete description of the problem. You may also write or email us. (See Contact Information on this page.)
As you may know, Judy Sekera recently resigned from the Board for health reasons, namely undergoing knee replacement surgery and rehabilitation. The Board has expressed the community’s appreciation to Judy for all her years of selfless service with our best wishes for a speedy recovery. Board welcomes Doris Munson We are happy to announce that Doris Munson has volunteered to take over as secretary until Judy’s term expires at the end of this year. We very much appreciate Doris for stepping up to join your volunteer Board. By now you have had some time to experience the adjustments we have made to our speed bumps on Perfect View. Speed bumps are a “damned if you do and damned if you don’t” subject. Some would prefer to do away with them and others to make them even more difficult to negotiate to stop speeders. We have listened to various views and believe we made the right decision in the course of action we have taken. Help us identify speeders If you are unhappy with speeders, which we also had before this project was undertaken, you need to help us by reporting identifying information to Kristie or Amanda. We will warn the offenders, and if necessary, issue fines. Retreat Point offenders will also be reported to the RPHOA Board. Speeders may include FedEx or
UPS trucks. If possible, give us a license number and we will complain to their management. Board identifies drainage problemsThe Board has plans to undertake other projects in this year’s budget. We will continue to work on drainage issues as they are identified. Remember, the HOA is not responsible for any water-related issues in your house; you should stay alert for mold and decide on your own if you need a sump pump or fans in your crawl space or basement. A s w e r e c e n t l y reminded you in an e-mail, please help us look for sprinkler problems since we have started the watering season for our lawns. We also hope to start a multi-year project to repair curbs, and we will continue to watch the maintenance needs of our infrastructure. These are often costly projects, so we will carefully watch the budget to determine how much we can actually undertake this year. Sprinkler controls save water We experienced a late spring, but we have already turned our attention to our lawns as the weather warms up. We are adding new sprinkler controls which will hopefully improve watering amounts by connecting to satellite weather information helping us not to
overwater. We are also going to manually control how often we water to help lower the rising water costs from Colorado Springs Utilities that you have all read about. Needless to say, we will not underwater our lawns either. No matter, our soil is not conducive to lush lawns, and we will not achieve perfection. We will do our best to keep them as green as possible. The Board will keep a close eye on all of this. Normal lawn maintenance and issues l ike tree and shrubbery trimming and lawn fertilizing will be brought to your attention in future e-m a i l s a n d n e w s l e t t e r s . NEXT PAGE
from your HOA Board of Directors ~ by Tom Montgomery
We appreciate your help We all want our community to remain a nice place to live, and your volunteer Board is working hard to look out for what is in the best interests of the community as a whole. We will appreciate your help by continuing to control pet waste, not speeding, looking out for children at play, and observing all our common rules in general as a way of contributing to your neighborhood. Don’t forget that we are a Neighborhood Watch community too, so keep an eye out and report anything that seems out of the ordinary. Now is also the time to consider whether your home or its trim needs painting. Please remember that any exterior projects or alterations will require approval from our Architecture Control Committee. In fact, we encourage you to take a few minutes to review all of this information on our web site www.retreathoa.com. We wish everyone a pleasant and safe summer and will keep you updated on projects we begin. Tom Montgomery, Board President
from your Neighborhood WatchCSPD Robbery Prevention How Can You Protect Yourself ?
• Be aware of your surroundings. Walk with a purpose, head up, and looking around. Stay in lighted areas at night. The robber doesn’t want to be seen.• Stay with the crowd — there is safety in numbers.• Women should carry their wallet in their pocket,
not their purse.• If you carry a purse, carry it close to your body,
like a football player carries a football. Do not place the strap across your body or over your shoulder. When the robber grabs your purse, you may be pulled along with the robber until the strap breaks and you are injured.
• Don’t leave a purse on a counter or in a shopping cart unattended.
• Men should consider carrying two wallets, one of them filled with cut up paper. Most robbers are not going to go through the wallet until they have fled to safety.
• Be cautious when wearing “flashy” jewelry.• Be conscious of people just “hanging around”
anywhere, especially near pay phones, public rest rooms, building entrances and garages.
• Notify the police of strangers who are hanging around your home, apartment or place of business for no apparent reason.
• Take the profit out of robbery by not carrying large sums of money, or credit cards on your person whenever possible.
• Be aware of people around you when you are using your automatic teller machine (ATM) card. When possible, use an ATM that is located inside a business such as a grocery store.
• Lock your car doors when your vehicle is unattended even if you will only be out of it for a “minute.” This action may prevent a robber from hiding in your back seat awaiting your return.
• While driving, keep your vehicle doors locked.• If you are walking and a vehicle is following you,
reverse directions or cross the street.• If someone acts suspiciously, looks at you closely or
follows you, head for bright lights and people and call the police.
RETREAT REMINDERSGood neighbors Security and courtesy are important to everyone, so look out for your neighbors. If you notice that your neighbor’s garage lights are out, please tell them. When neighbors are out of town, replace the bulbs yourself. Please refrain from giving your gate code to anyone other than family and friends.
Trash totes No owner or tenant shall allow garbage cans, trash, or other refuse to be placed outside the garage except on the night before trash collection and must be returned to storage as soon as possible after trash
pick-up. When bears visit the neighborhood, wait until day of pick-up to put out your trash.
Waste Management Holiday Service We observe six holidays each year: New Years Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day. If one of these holidays falls on or before your regular day of collection, the pick-ups will be made one day later for the remainder of the holiday week. For example, if one of these holidays falls on or before Friday, the pick-up will be Saturday.
Monthly Dues Payments Please remember dues must be paid on the 1st of the month. Dues are late after the 10th of the month. The Retreat at Rockrimmon Homeowners Association offers a direct payment service for homeowners to pay their monthly HOA dues. Payments in the amount of $122.00 per month are automatically transferred from your bank account to the HOA on the first (1st) day of each month.
Rules You can find our current Rules and Regulations as well as Covenants on our web site at www.retreathoa.com. The Declaration of Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions of the Retreat at Rockrimmon can be found in El Paso County records 096079248.
Dogs Please be courteous of your neighbors and pick up after your dog. If you see someone not cleaning up after his dog, please tell our property manager about the complaint and she will follow through. Keep your dog confined to your yard and don’t allow it to stop on anyone else’s grass.
Kid Safety We have many families with young children, and more who visit grandparents frequently. Parents are responsible for the safe conduct of children at play in the neighborhood, including streets and driveways. Drivers should always be alert to the presence of children. The front automated gate and the rear gate are for vehicular use only. Children should use the pedestrian gates even when they are riding bicycles.
Know your vehicular gate code or “KEYCODE.” Police, fire, and ambulance dispatchers, also called 911 operators, monitor the location of emergency vehicles within their own jurisdiction, dispatching the appropriate type and number. When you dial 911 in an emergency, a dispatcher communicates not only with you on the phone, but also with Police, Fire and ambulance. All Fire Department vehicles use a key switch on our Call Box to open the gate. Police are given a code to punch in. Emergency vehicles can also communicate with one another on the scene. Chances are that you will never have to give the dispatcher your Keycode; however, the Fire Marshall as well as Police urge us to know our gate code and keep it near the phone.
