Towne Lake Hills Board Podcast
Join us for the latest news and important updates from the Towne Lake Hills Board. This podcast is your go-to source for neighborhood news, including upcoming events, swimming pool hours, community projects, and other critical information that keeps our community connected and informed.
Whether you're a long-time resident or new to the neighborhood, stay tuned for all the key updates that matter to you and your neighbors.
Towne Lake Hills Board Podcast
Community Pulse: Town Lake Hills' Summer Developments
Summer's in full swing at Town Lake Hills, and our latest podcast brings you the essential neighborhood updates you need to know about right now.
Board President Gary and Sean dive straight into significant community changes, beginning with board transitions as we say goodbye to long-serving member Jim Nielsen, who stepped down for family reasons. We're also welcoming Casey Lusk as our new property manager from Sixes Management, with plans to establish regular clubhouse hours for resident convenience.
The swimming facilities discussion brings good news as the North Pool sports a fresh look with new tile, plaster, and furniture. But the spotlight falls on our splash pad project – currently closed but with big plans ahead. Thanks to Tammy Bullard's tireless efforts coordinating vendors and designs, we're moving forward with transforming the original wading pool into a modern splash pad facility. Construction begins this fall after pool season ends, with the new feature scheduled to debut for the 2025 season opening.
We don't shy away from difficult topics, explaining why a one-time $300 special assessment became necessary to fund this improvement. After exploring alternatives like loans (which would incur interest) or timeline extensions (risking further inflation impacts), this approach emerged as the most financially responsible path to restore and enhance this valued amenity for families. Watch for official notices arriving soon with payment due September 1st.
The podcast wraps with updates on the recently completed East Streets repaving project and special messages from Tammy Bullard about splash pad progress and tennis pro Mark Billson inviting residents to discover the lifelong benefits of tennis, regardless of experience level.
Want to stay connected with neighborhood developments? Tune in monthly for these important updates and reach out anytime with questions or concerns. Your engagement makes Town Lake Hills the vibrant community we all love.
Welcome to the Town Lake Hills Board Podcast, your go-to source for the latest updates and news in our neighborhood. We're here to keep you informed and connected about upcoming events, community initiatives and important neighborhood updates. Thanks for tuning in Well. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, whatever time you're listening to this podcast, I want to welcome you back for the July. Well, we're a little bit earlier than July, but we're aiming for the July Town Lake Hills podcast, with the president here, gary Winchester, and, of course, myself, sean Coffin. And Gary, how are you doing? I'm doing great. How are you doing? I'm doing well too. It's getting warmer, which I'm very, very happy about, and you know, before we go forward, I just doing well.
Speaker 1:I, I, I, I hope everybody's doing well too. I. Before we go into the podcast, I do want to tell people that at the end of this podcast believe it or not when gary and I get done, kind of providing some of the updates we have an update coming directly from Tammy Bullard and our tennis pro, mark. So get ready for that. I have recordings from them, so I'm going to plug that in at the end of this presentation or at the end of this podcast. And so, to get started, let's start off. Gary, we have a little bit of some staff changes.
Speaker 1:Let's start with Jim Nielsen some staff changes.
Speaker 3:Let's start with Jim Nielsen. Yeah, so Jim served on the board for, I think, since he moved to the community, so I think probably about five, six years and due to family matters, he has decided that he needs to step down and concentrate on his family Bottom line. We just all wish him and his family well and hopefully, everything just works out for them Absolutely Go ahead, go ahead.
Speaker 3:And kind of sort of just down that path, right, I mean.
Speaker 3:So then you've come on board to fill his turn and of course you've been on the board before, so you bring a lot of knowledge for the past few years anyway.
Speaker 3:So that's a good transition for that situation. And then at the same time we found out that our property manager that has been kind of with us I think since 22 in sixes management she has made the decision to relocate back to her home state of Oklahoma and so we've gotten a new property manager provided to us from Sixers and that would be Casey Lusk, and we're kind of trying to work out some of the details about he's going to be up at the clubhouse some. We're trying to get that schedule figured out and we're going to publish that so that if people need to go and get information, we're going to publish that so that if people need to go and get information they'll know when he will be available at the clubhouse rather than having. I know it's a long drive to drive over down the parkway and go over to their new office building. So this is just trying to make some convenience more available to the community by doing that.
Speaker 1:Very good, no, very good. I do want to say that both Hillary and Jim are phenomenal, phenomenal folks and they are going through, you know, some challenging times. So if you are out there, keep them in your thoughts, keep them in your prayers and, of course, any any neighbors here in Town, Lake Hills that are struggling. We certainly send our thoughts and prayers out to them. Hey, speaking of the summer, Gary, the pools, you want to give a little update on the east and north pools?
Speaker 3:Well, as far as I know, everything is going smoothly now. Hopefully everybody's enjoying the new look for the north pool. We obviously got new tile, the plastering's done. We got new furniture up there done. We got new furniture up there. So hopefully the folks up there and also in the east and west are enjoying that facility as much as they can enjoy the east as well. And of course we've had a couple swim events, or at least one swim event already this year. Haven't really heard how we did, but hopefully the tidal waves are doing well and representing Town Lake as they should.
Speaker 1:Hopefully the tidal waves are doing well and representing Town Lake as they should Very, very good. Now comes a. It's kind of a definitely a tough talk, but we're just going to kind of throw it out there and I do want to remind everyone that at the end of Gary and I's discussion I'm going to play some just additions that Tammy and Mark have added to the podcast, Hoping that in the future we'll have a social edition and also one from the swim team. But, Gary, many of our neighbors have noticed that the splash pad does remain closed at this time and even though we are making some progress, there is something that is happening, an update. You want to provide that to the neighbors. There is something that is happening, an update you want to provide that to the neighbors.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so a couple different things, Just as a correction. So originally this thing was designed as a wading pool.
Speaker 1:Well, let's start there this thing we're talking about. Okay, so the splash pad that was originally there was really designed as a wading pool. Go ahead, I'm sorry.
Speaker 3:And so therefore, then part of the issues and problems that we had with that, once we kind of opened up Pandora's box with the county. It required us to get the slopes and everything in the area of the wading pool back into compliance with new county regulations. Therein lies where we came up with the decision of not doing a wading pool but changing that over to a splash pad. And in conjunction, so within conjunction with that, that means we have to put new pumps, new filtration systems in place, so it just kind of exacerbates the problem and the cost.
Speaker 1:Gary, I have to tell you something. I have to tell you something just to add it. I will tell you this in being involved in this from the get-go, any time that we have to actually upgrade to a new level of county regulations and a new level of county code is going to cost a lot of money and costs that, quite honestly, we couldn't foresee. With that said, that kind of sets you up to the next point.
Speaker 3:Okay. So I want to just kind of go through a couple things here. So we've had this committee it's been kind of loosely organized committee to look at the splash pad and give recommendations. But I'm just going to give a shout out to Tammy Bullard. I mean she has worked tirelessly to get vendors come up with the design that we're going with, come up with the design that we're going with. She's done a great job in trying to pull that together and basically the board is just behind the scenes supporting her activity Because she's really twisted some arms. She saved the community a bunch of money in getting the engineering and everything done that we need to get done so that we can get the county to agree with the direction we're going in.
Speaker 3:And we've had a lot of. We've gotten a lot of different people involved in the community to get bids and everything and we're trying to obviously keep the cost of this down to the minimum but while putting together a first class feature that we're going to have in that new splash pad. So that's kind of all that we're going to. You know, we'll talk about more details about some other things here in a second, but our goal is as soon as we close the pools in the late September, early October time frame. Our goal is to start production of getting the new splash pad area and all the equipment ordered in place and do it as quickly as we can. The goal for the splash pad equipment itself, which is from Vortex Corporation, we've got to give them 19,. About 19 weeks of building time for what we're ordering, weeks of building time for what we're ordering, so to make sure that we get everything bought. We are going to have to accelerate some expenditures to make that happen, which then comes into what we're going to. How are we going?
Speaker 1:to handle this, gary. Before we do that, before we say that because this is good, I just want to stress uh, because I think you're alluding to it, but I want to make sure that people know it. When are, when are we expecting, uh, if, as if, things go as planned, when would we expect for that new splash pad to open? It will open with the season of next year this is good, okay, all right, so that's, so that's that is a good point, sean.
Speaker 3:I mean, obviously it's not going to be open this year because by the time we get done we're going to be in the middle of winter or at least the beginning of winter. So yeah, our target is when we go to open next spring, this splash pad will be in place and operational. At that time.
Speaker 3:Very good, and that's why we're trying to accelerate as much as we can. We don't want to get into the winter season trying to pour concrete and everything else, because then that will just create delays for us. Yeah, so getting it done as much as we can in the fall of this year will build on us having the correct starting time with the opening season next year.
Speaker 1:Very good, very good. And that leads us to this final point, on the splash pad. How are we going to do this, gary?
Speaker 3:So we've got some reserves already earmarked for this but, as everyone will probably understand, the cost of this stuff has gone up and while Tammy's done a great job in making selections and everything else, it's really drawn down on our reserves to make all this stuff happen. I'm not going to point fingers or anything else. It's just the way things are. Fingers or anything else, it's just the way things are. You know, businesses are adding cost on overhead stuff from the standpoint of salaries and everything else, and so the cost of it has just gone up. So the only way that we can make this happen the board has looked at this hard. I wish there was another way to do it, but the only way we can do it is to actually do a special assessment. The Covenants allows us to do that.
Speaker 3:We're looking to do this just the one time. It's a $300 assessment. You're going to be getting notification in the mail here shortly. We're going to give people a couple months to try to make sure that they can organize their budget, because we're not trying to throw a lot of surprises at people. So September 1 will be what will be on the coupon for the due date, and the end of the month of September 2025 will be. If you don't pay it by then, you're going to have a late fee, because we got to make sure that we got the funds, because at the end of the day, we're going to have to at least give 50% of the cost to the Vortex company for them to start building our facility At least that's my understanding at this point. So that's why we're moving as expeditiously as we can with trying to get this assessment and get the collection of funds done in order to make this happen.
Speaker 1:Now, gary, a lot of people don't know the back, you know kind of the inside stories and the inside scoop of what the board kind of talks about and goes through. Was this process and I'm, of course, throwing you a softball, I know the answer here but was this process something that we just came to very quickly? Was it the only option we explored? Why is this option? What would be considered best for the neighborhood?
Speaker 3:Well, I mean so technically right. I mean we could have gone and just gotten a loan, right, but then we would have been paying interest that would have incurred additional costs to the community that we should not do. We could have extended this and then we could have used the increase of dues to fund this instead of doing it through the special assessment. But that would have been that we had to go through and actually extend when we were going to be able to get this done. So, as anybody out there knows, unfortunately, while the conversation today is that inflation is down, I'm going to just tell you I think we are going to be living with the last three years of inflation for years to come, years of inflation for years to come.
Speaker 3:As I look at things just from my own home, I'm seeing, you know, people adding 35% overhead and profit just to make sure that they're making enough money to pay for the taxes. So it's kind of we're in a bad situation and so the only other alternative would be not to do it, and that was kind of the direction that the previous board made. And you know, in my opinion, that amenity was there when most of the people in this community bought their homes. They looked forward for their kids to be able to go up there and have an area that was kind of away from the teenagers and everything that. You know small kids don't really, you know, cohabitate well with you know a 14 year old kid, because they're not paying attention. I mean, that's just the way that's what I was when I was 14.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So so it's it's important that we get the amenity back. We're improving what the amenity will be. There is a picture that's going to be in the newsletter that kind of gives everybody an idea of what the splash pad is going to look like. And in addition to that, we're actually looking at the future of having additional apparatuses that we're going to add in, and we're plumbing for that initially in this engineering process, for that initially in this engineering process. So, while we're going to start with this one unit, there'll be additional units that over the time will be able to be added into the splash pad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're thinking about the future and I think you know it's important. We've got a lot of young families moving in, We've got a lot of grandparents that have young grandkids, and so we are really excited about next pool season opening up, having a really neat new splash pad for these young children to really enjoy. And, Gary, thank you and Tammy, a shout out to you as well I know we'll hear from you towards the end of the podcast for all the work that you've been doing, Gary, unless you have anything else that I know you want to talk. I mean, I know we're always open for folks to come in talk to us. Gary, you've always been extremely approachable, very easy to get a hold of. Do you want to mention anything about the repaving? Any questions or thoughts on that?
Speaker 3:Sure, sure I mean. So you know, allied, as we're doing this podcast here on Friday, the 20th I think that this is officially our first day of summer too Allied and the county have done a pretty good job of bringing the East Streets kind of I'll just say back to life. They were looking pretty haggard over the last few years. And so, as I'm, you know, I walk the community, I look for things. And so, as I'm, you know, I walk the community, I look for things. They've really, I think, in the last 10 days, really tried to come back in and do their punch list and do a pretty good job.
Speaker 3:There's still some areas that are a little bit, you know, I'll just say, maybe not up to their standards, and I'm guessing that they'll probably come back in and do and fix those Cul-de-sacs are really difficult, I think, for them to do with all that large equipment. But all in all, I think the community looks much better. If you notice things that you think that we need to bring back to the county's attention, don't hesitate to reach out to us. I mean, we've been in communication with the SPLOST committee, which is the committee that was created out of that taxing program to do the funding for the road work. So we're not shy or bashful. We'll make sure that if there's something that you see that we need to get done over here in this recently paved area, we'll be happy to do it.
Speaker 1:Well, very, very good, gary. Let's go ahead and hear a little bit from Tammy, and then we'll hear a little bit from Mark, so stay tuned. Here it is.
Speaker 2:Morning everybody. This is Tammy Bullard. I'm working with the HOA to restore the splash pad. For a brief update, we have selected an architect, a mechanical engineer and a structural engineer to generate the appropriate documents so we can bid the project out and get it under construction. Our current goal is to have the splash pad open and operational by pool opening next year. The HOA has some graphic images of the new product by Vortex that they can share with you guys. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, Tammy, for that update. And here's Mark.
Speaker 4:Hello, my name is Mark Wilson and I'm in charge of the tennis program. I would love you to join the World of Tennis. It could be a new tennis player. We would be so excited if you would decide to step onto the court. It would start a journey that will bring you joy, fitness and friendships for life.
Speaker 4:Tennis is more than a game. It builds patience, focus, discipline and respect. Remember every great player is once a beginner. Don't compare yourself to others. Focus on your progress. Mistakes are part of learning. Laugh and try again. Hold your racket properly. Practice forehands, backhands and easy rallies. Focus on control, not power. Work on your serve. It starts every point. Stay light on your feet. Always get back to ready position. Good footwork makes shots easier. Take a few lessons if possible. Join group clinics or beginner socials. Watch and learn from other players. Call lines honestly, shake hands or bump brackets after matches. Win with humility, lose with grace. Play regularly. Small steps lead to big progress. Stay patient, enjoy every hit. Most importantly, have fun and smile. We would love to see you on the court. Tennis is a game for life. Enjoy it and share it with others. Thank you so much and I'll provide another update next month.
Speaker 1:All right. Well, thank you Tammy and thank you Mark for contributing. We're hoping in the future we'll have a report from the social committee and from the swim team committee, gary. Any last thoughts as we end our second Town Lake Hill Board Actually, this is our third Town Lake Hill Board podcast. Any comments, thoughts? I'm going to give you the last word.
Speaker 3:I'm just wishing everybody have a nice, safe summer, Get the kids all ready for the next school year and everybody just enjoy this wonderful season that we're in.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, Gary. Have a good one.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, Gary. Have a good one.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Well, that's it for today's update from the Town Lake Hills Board. Stay engaged, stay informed and, as always, thank you for being a vital part of our community. Until next time, take care and enjoy our neighborhood.