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Lake Forest has been in the news quite a bit lately. Some of the publicity has been favorable and some leaves something to be desired. So, allow me to bring everyone up to date. Yes! The developer that we have heard so much about for thirty years has sold out! Finally someone is going to build new homes in that huge undeveloped area. The new company is the Friday Construction Company out of Mobile. They are still doing market studies to determine the best products to put in the three large undeveloped areas within Lake Forest, so I don’t have any specifics to give you just yet. Rest assured that you will know about it just as soon as I find out and can get it to the web site. The Board of Directors has already been working with the new developer in order to help them make a success of the project. We also cleared up a few loose ends from the original sale of the amenities to the Association. For example, ownership of the parking lot at the Swim & Racquet Club was never transferred to the Association. It now belongs to us by virtue of an agreement with the new developer. There were a couple of other small issues that were worked out at the same time. We intend to assist Friday in any way we can to promote the new development. Those of us who bought from Diamondhead in the old days remember the kind of gee whiz tour they used to give a potential buyer to sell property. We anticipate the same kind of positive promotion of the subdivision from Friday. What does the new development mean to us? For one thing, it means that within a short time there will be several hundred new members paying dues which will help the Association to continue making improvements to services and amenities and keep fees down. There will be more families actually using the amenities, which will also improve our operating revenues. It also will bring a new life to an aging subdivision. While there are between two and three hundred homes bought and sold in Lake Forest each year, there have not been many new ones built in the last few years. The new homes along with the planned intensification of Architectural Committee enforcement of deed restrictions should go a long way to providing a badly needed facelift for Lake Forest. This can only help improve property values for all of us and greatly improve the appearance of our neighborhood. Is there a potential downside? There could be. In a recent Letter to the Editor in the Baldwin Register a fellow from Fairhope criticized the new development because of the potential environmental hazard it might present to the lake and bay. Naturally we all appreciate someone from Fairhope worrying about our lake. We just wish that occasionally someone besides our own Association would help us do something about it since much of the problem comes from sources outside of Lake Forest. However, we are very concerned with the impact the new development will have on erosion. In fact, in a related story the new developer originally asked that they not have to answer to our architectural committee. They wanted to have their own architectural control. In meetings and subsequent contract it was made clear that everyone who builds, rents or buys in Lake Forest must comply with the guidelines established by our Lake Forest Architectural Committee. All plans for construction anywhere in Lake Forest including the new areas must be submitted for approval. Someone will inspect on behalf of the Architectural Committee as always and infractions will have to be corrected. Please understand that we have absolutely no reason to believe that the new developer will not do everything they can to prevent erosion. In fact, I am sure they will. I just want to make it clear to all members that the Board of Directors fully intends to honor our commitment to enforcing deed restrictions for the new development just as always. Another potential problem that could result from the new construction is the additional stress it will add to our neighborhood with increased traffic. This is one area over which the Association has little control. What we are really going to need is for our city councilpersons to start “bringing home the bacon.” Ridgewood Drive, in particular, is a mess. It has needed repair for a long time and with the increased traffic, the need is even greater. Another issue that has made the newspaper recently involves matters of budget. In particular, the matters of employee bonuses, retirement and insurance were topics of editorial. Bear in mind that we are really talking about employee compensation in whatever form. Wages is just one of those forms. We have around forty-five employees in Lake Forest. Let there be no misunderstanding; no one who works for Lake Forest is over paid! In fact, a recent survey of fifteen Alabama country clubs showed that in compensation among general managers, our general manager ranked in the bottom three. Our general manager is the highest paid employee in Lake Forest. The pay ranges of our other employees also reflect that same conservative pay scale. I, for one, don’t believe an organization can buy good employees with wages alone. In fact, if pay is the only measure of a good job, we would lose the good employees every time someone came along with more money. If you look at our roster of employees you will find that our turnover rate is incredibly low. Why, because we try to show our appreciation of our employees’ efforts in other ways. Make no mistake about it. Lake Forest employees do a wonderful job for our Association and its members. The Board of Directors did approve Christmas bonuses for our employees this year as we have done for many years. A better name would be gifts. Furthermore, the only reason we were able to give those gifts was because revenues that were due the Association arrived in time so that we had the cash available. Full-time employees of more than a year were given Christmas gifts equal to a week’s pay. Of our approximate forty-five employees, only about twenty are full time. The remaining part-time employees and full-time employees of less than a year were given small gifts of varying amounts. There was no one who received $2,000 as stated in the Letter to the Editor. The individual was mistaken on that one. Lake Forest does provide medical insurance for its full time employees. In my opinion, we wouldn’t be much of an organization if we didn’t. The medical insurance we provide is for the employee only for most employees. We only provide dependent coverage for three or four key personnel and that is under review. I wish we could afford to provide dependent coverage for all our employees. Medical costs have gone through the roof in recent years and those costs are particularly hard on people who are in the income range of most of our staff. Unfortunately, the cost of dependent coverage to the Association is prohibitive. I would like to see us come up with some way that we could at least subsidize that coverage for all of our employees. That will be among the issues that the Board will be discussing in the course of the year. Lake Forest also participates in a 401K program with our employees. We match an employee’s contribution dollar for dollar for up to 6% of the employee’s salary. For example, if an employee earning $20,000, which would compare to most of our employees, put his or her entire salary into the 401K, the Association would contribute $1,200. Obviously, no one is putting their entire salary into a retirement program. In fact, people earning $20,000 would have a difficult time putting the maximum matching contribution of $1,200 into a retirement program. All of these programs, Christmas gifts, medical benefits, retirement contributions, reduced prices for food, etc. are all designed to make Lake Forest a good place to work. In all they still mean that our employee compensation program is very conservative. Yet, our retention history suggests that this is a good place to work. Finally, allow me to address the new dues schedule. This year for the first time in about twenty years, we had a dues increase. That increase was greatly overdue. The Association has been using the assessment tool as a means of covering increased costs over the years instead of having minor periodic increases. THERE WILL BE NO ASSESSMENT THIS YEAR. When the assessment that we have been paying every year but one for the last twenty years is factored in, what you and I will be seeing is what amounts to a $3.34 per month increase. In closing let me say that the state of Lake Forest is great. We have a beautiful, shaded, safe community with plenty of wonderful amenities and access to other services and shops close by. In fact, let me disclose the truth about a popular urban legend around here. That legend states that realtors try to direct buyers away from Lake Forest. That legend is just not true. Just a week or so ago I was looking at homes with someone interested in moving to Lake Forest. The realtor who was showing the house had no idea who I was or that I was associated with the Board of Directors. During the tour she said, and I quote, “A home buyer gets the best bang for her bucks on the Eastern Shore by buying a home in Lake Forest!” Have a wonderful new year!
Mitch Davis |