Turns out the Villas homeowners do have two options for paying the road conversion assessment. If you choose not to pay the lump sum as billed, the city will convert you to annual payments over 10 years that will accrue interest at the rate of 9% per year and will be due annually August 5th. It does seem strange that the city would not have mentioned this in your bill, but thanks to our Secretary for researching this. You may want to call in to the city to confirm.

The Board has been notified of the lump sum Oklahoma City bill received by Villas homeowners for the road conversion completed in 2018. As documented in the numerous posts on the road conversion project, through multiple conversations with the city we were led to believe that the assessment would be spread out over several years (we were told "most likely 10 years"). It appears that the City Council met last week and decided at that time to charge the assessment in a single bill. We have contacted the HOA attorney to see what our options are for addressing this problem. We'll keep you posted through the blog unless the information is sensitive or input from neighbors is needed.

Our next HOA Board Meeting will be Tuesday, April 23rd, 7pm at the Clubhouse. Regular business and the pool repair will be the main topics of conversation. The full agenda can be found on the Meeting Agenda page. Contact the Secretary if you have additional items to discuss.

The Oklahoma Corporation Commission released their final report listing the cause of the May 2018 oil spill that affected the neighborhood. It confirms initial reports that corrosion on the external surface of the pipe was responsible for the escape of the oil and gives a couple of explanations for why the burst pipe was not shut down sooner. If you'd like to see the full report, please contact the President of the SilverHawk HOA.

The next SilverHawk Neighborhood Garage Sale will be held the weekend of May 3-5. Garage sale permits can be purchased from the Oklahoma City government website. The sale will be advertised through signage at the entrances and through an announcement on NextDoor. Please contact Autumn Harting with any questions or concerns.

As members of the SilverHawk HOA, I think we all have roughly the same Wants: we want to live in a safe community, we want the values of our homes to appreciate, we want to know that our HOA dues are well spent. The problem is that to ensure these goals are met, it requires more than just an investment of money. We can and do outsource as much maintenance and upkeep as possible with the help of our management company, but outside agents can only do so much.

For one, decisions about the neighborhood have to be made by members of the HOA, and to make informed decisions, options must be researched. For another, we neighbors are the ones living in the neighborhood, so it's up to us to spot problems and make sure vendors/contractors and our fellow neighbors are acting in the neighborhood's best interest. Until you've served on an HOA Board, you probably do not realize how much work goes into running, maintaining, and improving a neighborhood, and a large chunk of that work is done by volunteers, by your neighbors who are giving their spare time to do what they can to improve on the investment you've made in this community.

Now, this post is not intended to heap guilt onto you. Many of you are already overwhelmed by commitments: to families, to work, to your church, to the PTA, or to the hundreds of other organizations you might choose to participate in. All we're asking is that if you do have some spare time, whether it's several hours a week, ten minutes a month, or a few hours for a one-off project, please volunteer that time to our neighborhood.

Not only are we willing to take whatever time you can give us, we'll take it how you want to give it. If you have an eye for style, we'd be happy to have you help us design holiday décor at the entrances or work with the Grounds Committee to choose flora to add some pizzazz to the public spaces. If you like to throw a good party, talk to the Board to get backing for a neighborhood social event. If you simply want to help, but don't have particular ideas about how you prefer to help, see this running list of work needing to be done.

Finally, if you have a fair amount of time to give, please consider running for a Board position. We have four open positions that will need to be filled at our Annual Meeting on January 29th and not enough volunteers. Board members are responsible for making decisions for the neighborhood and need regular access to email. How much time you give as a Board member is up to you but requires at least a few hours each month.

To close this out, a big thank you to all of you who have volunteered your time in the past. From former and current Board members to pool volunteers to fence repairers to Little Free Library builders and bench installers and everyone in between, you all prove over and over again that SilverHawk is a great place to call home.

To volunteer, use the Committees volunteer form whether you are interested in committee work or something different.