Woodbridge Homeowner s Association http://www.woodbridgeowners.com directors@woodbridgeowners.com Spring 2009 Newsletter Election Year in Woodbridge Three of the director s terms will be up at the end of the year. The election for the same will be held at the AGM sometime in Sep/Oct. If you are interested in putting aside a small amount of time to help your community, then please send in your nominations to directors@woodbridgeowners.com. The only criteria for the same is a willingness to devote 5-10 hours a month to the functioning of the HOA. In this issue New Trash Can rule Landscaping update Costco Update Furnace tips What a Winter!! This was an especially harsh winter as things came to a standstill for a couple of weeks in December. While it was nice to celebrate a white Christmas, most people were restricted to their houses because of the heavy snow. What was nice was to see the community spirit as people ventured out to enjoy the snow, and we heard plenty of instances of people lending a hand to their neighbors with cars stuck in the snow. Despite all the problems the snow brought, it was wonderful to see the community spirit in the neighborhood where we live. If you have pictures of the same you would like to share with the community, please feel free to email them to the directors. Update your Contact Information Is your contact information with the HOA up to date? If you ve not been getting emails from us, or you ve changed email recently, please update your contact info at www.woodbridgeowners.com. Go to: http://www.woodbridgeowners.com and select Update Contact Info. For great discussions with your neighbors and useful tips, you can also join our community group at http://groups.google.com/group/woodbridgeowners
Landscaping Report Well, now that spring is here things are starting to come back to life in the community and we will be increasing our efforts and working more closely with the landscaping company to address the landscaping issues. Please have a little patience as we know there are many areas that need to be addressed. We will most likely replacing some areas of grass that sustained some severe damage over the winter months. Please feel free to send us your suggestions but understand that we expect it to take about 2 months before our landscaping will be returned to its optimal condition. We have started replacing the most obvious trees that were dead or severely unhealthy. As the trees start to bloom we will be making another run through the neighborhood to identify those trees that are in most need of replacement. Also this winter we replaced the woodchips in the playground which we hope will make the area safer and more inviting. Landscaping Projects Status 2009 Completed: Trim all trees Relandscape front entry sign Playground bark replaced Pre-emergence seeding and feeding Tree anthracnose treatment Tree replacement - 97 trees In Process: Aeration Sprinkler/Value repair check Sod replacement troubled areas Upcoming: Damage Flax plants removal and replacement Spring/Summer color on both signs Tentative: Wildflowers planted around pond area Treasurer s report : Thank You for submitting your HOA dues on time. We have not included a financial report in the newsletter as we are currently in the process of having our accounts audited. We will publish an updated report as well as details as soon as we are done with the audit.
HOA Directors Mike Arntzen, President marntzen@microsoft.com Fell in love with Woodbridge in Phase 1, having previously lived at the other end of Redmond. Mike is responsible for overseeing the directors. Venkat Yendapalli, Vice President leovenkat@hotmail.com My name is Venkat Yendapalli and I work at JP Morgan Chase in Seattle. I have been a resident of Woodbridge since Oct 2005 and I live in Phase III. Ashish Arora, ashinusa@hotmail.com I am a VLSI( chip design) engineer working at Nintendo in Redmond. I have been a resident of Woodbridge since Aug 2006. Teena Cox, teenacox@hotmail.com My name is Teena Cox, and I have been your Woodbridge neighbor since April 2007. I live here with my husband Glenn. Brad Halbach bhalbach@lightinguniverse.com My name is Brad Halbach. My wife Kari and I have lived in the Woodbridge community since 2002. I am the cofounder of LightingUniverse.com based in Kirkland. HOA President s Message: Fellow residents of Woodbridge, Its spring! I wanted to spend a few minutes thanking you for cleaning up Woodbridge after the winter snows and some of the other weather / season related issues that we have come thru over the last few months. I think we are in a good position to make our community beautiful this spring! As Directors, we need to act in the best interests of the community and one of the things that I was disappointed about was the way Waste Management used the light snow to avoid a trash collection a few weeks ago. I did ask them to make a pickup the same week, or even early in the week, but they decided to do a "double pickup" the next week (Which we all know means simple miss a week and let our trash pile up for the extra week. I went out around the neighborhood and took over 200 photos of overfilled trash cans, featuring overflowing trash, squirrels, ravens, etc. I am sure that the situation is NOT the fault of our residents, and wanted to thank everyone for cleaning up after the Waste Management people did not clean up adequately. I am in the process of working as a director to ensure that this kind of situation is minimized in the future. Having said that, we will be commencing to fine people who leave their trash cans out past Saturday. There are very few reasons that I can think of that can justify not bringing in Thursdays trashcans before Saturday. Come on people! Roof cleaning / green growth. As I drive around the neighborhood, I see some (lots) of the homes that have green growth on their roofs. This can cause damage to the roof over time, and also creates the impression that we are less committed to Woodbridge than we should be. As such I feel that our community deserves better. Please take a look at your roof, and if it has green on it, it might be worthwhile getting your roof cleaned or treated. Early prevention is always cheaper than the alternative. Thanks for your efforts in keeping Woodbridge a clean, tidy and attractive community, and thanks to our Directors for working hard to keep Woodbridge great. Its a voluntary position and your efforts are appreciated by all Woodbridge homeowners. Mike Arntzen, President, Woodbridge Home Owners Association. Please clean up after your pets!! We have noticed dog poop in a lot of places in the community. Please carry a litter bag with you when walking your pet and please clean up in the best way you can. If you are caught in the act of littering, we will not refrain from reporting it to local authorities, in addition to a fine from the HOA. Thank You.
Community Cleanliness Updated Rules Woodbridge HOA is taking new approach effective today about folks that are not removing trash cans and trash spills from the street. This is due to the fact that all friendly reminders, notices, news letters and emails have failed to achieve the objectives we have been working towards for last 3 years. All homeowners are responsible for removing trash cans and any spilled trash around their house within 24 hours of trash collection. This is applicable to tenants in the same way, since owners have the overall responsibility, they need to communicate this to their tenants. A fine of $25 will be assessed to the homeowner if the trash cans are not removed from the street (as far back as possible from the curb for alleys) along with any spilled trash left on the street by Saturday morning. A note will be left on your property to let you know the reason and assessment of fine during walkthroughs. Tips: 1. Make it a habit to move trash cans off the street as you get home on regular trash pick-up day, Thursday. 2. Arrange with your neighbors or friends in the community If you are not going to be home on Thursday or Friday. I am sure they would need your help when they are away! 3. If you have more trash than your trash can capacity, store it in your garage or yard waste can until the pick-up day. Do not leave it out overnight. Place it next to your trash cans that morning when trash pick-up is scheduled (Thursday). Like the recent weather events, when the trash pick up got postponed to next week, secure the additional trash until the next pick-up day and move the cans off the street. Remove any spilled trash ASAP. 4. If you notice your neighbor's trash is spilled on to the street or being pulled out by birds / squirrels, please let your neighbor know right away. This will help them act on it before it gets worse. 5. Walk around your house once a week to pick up any paper, plastic etc. Some of you might think why such a big deal about trash, but since the problem is getting unmanageable and unacceptable, we had to go down this route to maintain the quality of life and community look and feel. Surely, many of us would not want to buy property in a community where trash cans and trash is greeting us during a house hunting visit. In this tough housing and credit markets we have to do what we can to protect our home values. Let's take pride in where we live. Exterior Painting due for some houses The exterior painting is due for some of the houses. If your paint is wearing out, please make sure it is repainted with the appropriate color. In order to help you get started here is a small list from Angie s List of some painters with good reviews. Please feel free to share your own list and experiences on our googlegroups alias. Company Phone Website Grade # Reviews PCS 425-820-7255 www.ppccss.com A 21 Seattle Paint & Drywall 425-232-1194 www.seattlepaintanddrywall.com A 45 Krause House Painting 425-865-8626 www.krausepainting.com A 7 Seattle Painting & Decor 206-433-1750 www.spadco.com B 35
Great Time to service your furnace This is the best time to service your furnace. Furnace companies aren t as busy and are willing to offer discounts at this time of the year. Please search our googlegroup archives for discussions on companies which offer good rates and service. In particular, there is a part called the ignitor on gas furnaces. This ignition could be of multiple types. The most common one is called the 'Hot Surface Ignitor'. It also happens to be almost universally used in our neighborhood. This ignitor is a very simple element, which heats up to red hot when the surface initially fires up. It then lights up the gas before shutting itself down. This kind of ignitor has a life of 3-5 years. The way to tell that it's gone is by taking it out to take a look. It will display a crack when it goes or maybe some white powder. The slightest of cracks will prevent it from firing up. This part can be easily acquired from Ebay for about $25 and the manufacturer part number for this seems to be 41-409. It might also be available at some local furnace shops for under $50, while having a furnace company diagnose and replace a similar element would be many times that. Please refer to our googlegroups forums archive for more details on the same and a link to a video for changing this yourself. It might be a good idea to have one as a backup if your furnace breaks down for this reason at the worst of times. Disclaimer : This email is a pointer for a common furnace problem from a personal experience. Please understand that we are no experts on the matter and you take full responsibility for any problems that you may encounter. Please take the utmost care if you decide to do this yourself.
July 4 th Barbecue in the community As usual, we plan to have a Barbecue this year on the 4 th of July weekend. It is a great time to meet your neighbors and we d love to have you there. More details will be coming later. We will be looking for volunteers to help us out during the event. Please email us if you would like to volunteer. If you have any ideas about the event or any changes in menu please feel free to email us. We would love to see you at the event with your family. Mark your calendars for the Community garage sale on August 22 nd. This event has become an annual event the last couple of years, thanks to Fergus Stewart. Please email the community forums if you have any questions about the event. Upcoming Costco near our neighborhood As you all probably know, there is a Costco store and Costco gas station coming up in our neighborhood to the North of Woodbridge. This has now been approved by the city and construction for the same might already have started or will start soon. At this time we don t know the exact time-frame when this would open up. 188th Ave NE is expected to be extended to Union Hill and would be the main access Street for Costco along with NE 76th St. While there are obviously a lot of benefits from this development, we need to stay in touch with the city and developers to make sure the changes in traffic for the same have a minimal affect on our community. Costco has already promised to have delivery trucks use Union Hill to access the store. We should hopefully see less truck traffic. But we need to stay on top of this situation to make sure of the same. Any volunteers and suggestions from the community are most welcome.