Riverwood Forward

Source: openclipart.org      So a certain mailer arrived in mailboxes today, endorsing a certain group of candidates. These candidates are mostly former Board members who we voted off last year, and with good reason.     While this mailer may look a little like the one our team sent out last year, these are NOT our choice of candidates. Tom Conlee, Janice Tankson, Mike Foster, and Paul Westphal are the Board members we, as a community, worked so hard to remove from the Board a year ago.      Let's get straight to the point: Westphal's group has had YEARS to prove what kind of leadership they will provide to Riverwood, and actions speak louder than words. Let's take a closer look at their campaign promises versus their history on the Board. “ Getting out CCR’s amended to eliminate any conversions in Riverwood, to rental properties”      Westphal's group has already proven incapable of success in this endeavor, based on the failu...

Our beloved neighborhood is made up of 1,134 homes. That's a lot.     When you look at the average number of people per household in our area, you are looking at a population in our neighborhood that is comparable to an entire town! (If we were to somehow add a store or two, we could be a town. We already have a school, after all!) Data from Point2Homes.com     Not unlike a town, we have a political climate. We have elected leaders. We have people with widely different views and ideas about what is best for the community. And lately, this political climate has been changing. I think it has been changing for the better. Hear me out:     When Belz, the developer who built the neighborhood, started his endeavor over thirty years ago, he had a vested interest in protecting his investment. He had HOA documents drawn up that, in short, gave him all of the power and the say-so over the Board and in the neighborhood, until all the properties were sol...

Photo Credit: Millie Tyler      Board member Millie Tyler has asked us to publish this letter to the neighborhood, in light of some recent conflict and rumors. Hopefully this will help resolve the issue and put an end to the contention, so we can all get back to working together as a community and treating each other as neighbors. Neighbors, You elected me to hear and represent you, and I hear you loud and clear: no homeowner should be subject to any fines, fees, or assessments for accounts other than their own. I am sorry if anyone has been given any impression otherwise. In accordance with our covenants, assessments may be charged to the individual accounts of homeowners who are in violation of the bylaws. To be absolutely clear, under the current Board of Directors, these homeowner's fines have never been, and will never be, paid from the HOA's budget . Those funds belong to the homeowners. To pay an individual's assessments fro...

 Hi neighbors! Thank you so much for stopping by to visit my blog.  I’m not much of a blogger; I just write what I see and feel, and I have some strong feelings about this community that I love. Photo Credit: Millie Tyler I should have started writing last fall, to be perfectly honest, but hindsight is always 20/20. It was an absolute whirlwind of campaigning, canvassing, onboarding, meeting, mailing, and everything else. I didn't think I could add one more thing on my plate. However, it has been said, "The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now." So here goes. During our campaigning in the fall, our neighbors were finding out left and right, the dirty, underhanded things that Former HOA president Paul Westphal was doing. Things that were in his interests only; things that even fellow Board members had no idea about. Then he had the geese killed. Then we knew: he had to go. Our "Riverwood Forward Team" was formed almost accidenta...