Members come through for the pool season

The pool opens tomorrow – thank you DAVID HAMILTON

If you would have asked me back in February if we would ever have a pool opening again, I would have bet against it.

But, thanks to the extraordinary efforts of one member, David Hamilton, we will be opening tomorrow – ready for a busy Memorial Day at the lakes and the pool.

When I first started trying to get the pool prepared for this season we were having problems even getting a business to come to the site just to do a bid. “Too far from KC”, they would say. “No money for us on this project”, they would lament. Finally, we got one company who was willing to come down and make a bid. Knowing they would have no competition, they bid us high – almost $70,000. I took the bid to the Board and they wisely rejected it and instructed me to come up with an alternate plan.

That resulted in a new round of bids that were much more reasonable, but still in the $20K to $36K range, except for two(2) bids from members willing to cut labor costs for our Association.

I took one look at the numbers and told the lowest bidder, “when I see something that is too good to be true, most often it is – too good to be true”. So, I asked him to come back to my office to look at the higher bids and tell me how he could do it for about $500. “Simple” he told me, “we are doing all the labor for free, there are no travel and lodging costs and I can get the materials at dealer costs”. You see, David was a former pool service company owner, now retired and he is a SVL member. Still not quite convinced that we could be so fortunate, I ran the bid and the numbers by our Board Chair. Indeed, it did seem to be a true, valid and serious offer.

So, when you drop by the SVL Club House to swim or for any other reason, take a look at the pool and say a silent thank you to David Hamilton and the power and wonder of member contributions to this ‘low fee’ home owners association! A great appreciation to those members who offered referrals and those that gave their own professional knowledge, all for the betterment of their community.

Richard C. Morrell

Association Manager