Over the last two months, we have reported on activity in the current Texas Legislative session dealing with property owners associations. We expressed particular concern about Senate Bill 979 by Senator Royce West (Dallas) and co-authored by Dan Patrick (Houston). Midnight 5/22/07 was the deadline for all Senate bills to be passed in the House. Any bills that were not passed by both the House and the Senate will not become law. Senate Bill 979 was not considered by the House before the deadline so should be dead for this session (extraordinary procedural steps could be taken to keep it going).

A few very interesting bills affecting Houston area associations have passed both the House and Senate and are expected to be signed into law effective 9/1/07. The first is House Bill 3674 by Representative John Davis (Houston) and sponsored by Senator Mike Jackson (La Porte). This bill deals with meeting and records access and is specifically targeting a particular association in Clear Lake. Here is an excerpt from the author's statement from the bill analysis:

"The unique design of property owners' associations (POAs) have traditionally made some POAs subject to provisions in Texas law that would allow for property owners to access open records, hold open meetings, and conduct POA election voting. Operational transparency is a necessary part of federal, state, and local government. No POAs should be excluded from such transparency. While some POAs are currently structured in such a way to make their records and meetings available to all members, other POAs structure themselves in a way that intentionally avoids this transparency. Originally, many POAs were founded for civic, educational, or recreational purposes, but over the years the purposes of POAs has changed to include deed enforcement, architectural constraints, and other governance issues. However, as laws have changed to regulate the activities of some POAs, other POAs have altered their own organizational structure to avoid such regulation.

Furthermore, there has been an ongoing controversy occurring in the Clear Lake area as to the conduct of particular POAs, including failure to respond to information requests of property owners and the closing of formerly public meetings to prevent property owner contributions to meetings. Additionally, there is the issue of property owners being unreasonably excluded from POA elections based solely on pending enforcement actions or pending assessments or dues.

HB 3674 expands some of the laws governing POAs, including open records, open meetings, and some election provisions, to ensure that the Clear Lake City Community Association is covered."

The second interesting bill with local interest is House Bill 3232 by Representatives Dora Olivo (Rosenberg), Charlie Howard (Sugar Land), Sylvester Turner (Houston), John Davis (Houston) and John Zerwas (Wharton) and sponsored by Senator Kyle Janek (Houston). This bill reacts to attempts by golf course owners in the Houston area to close the courses and redevelop the land for residential or commercial use. Here is an excerpt from the authors' statement from the bill analysis:

"In the Houston area, subdivision golf courses are a popular type of neighborhood. This type of development involves creating residential lots adjacent to a golf course that winds through the community. When the golf course and the home sites are developed simultaneously under a single development plan, the home buyers are charged a premium price for the prestige of living in a golf course community; these buyers have a reasonable expectation that the land developed as a golf course will continue as a golf course.

In recent years, some owners of subdivision golf courses have considered redeveloping their land by converting the golf course into tracts for apartments, office buildings or warehouses. But this type of redevelopment, and even the public announcement of considering such a redevelopment, has a serious detrimental effect on the property values of the whole subdivision. When the property values deteriorate the homeowners suffer economic loss.

Older citizens who invested in a homestead environment where they could live out the rest of their lives depend on their home equity for part of their retirement savings. Young families want to raise their children where they can run and play and explore in open spaces and partake in activities that keep their kids busy and off the streets. Municipalities count on their tax base (as represented by the high value of the existing homes) not to lose its’ value.

Currently, there is no process for neighboring homeowners to be notified of a proposed redevelopment of a subdivision golf course, nor is there currently any requirement for a public hearing on the golf course owner’s proposed new plat for the redevelopment.

The purpose of CSHB 3232 is to make redevelopment of a subdivision golf course conform to an orderly process while not prohibiting such a redevelopment."

From a community association standpoint, the 2007 legislative session has shown that problematic bills can be defeated and appropriate bills can succeed. Rest assured that more good and bad bills will be introduced in 2009. Hopefully, an industry sponsored omnibus bill will be presented which addresses some of the isolated issues which cast an unfair bad light on everyone.

Students all over are thinking of summer, proms and graduations. We would like to congratulate one of our own. Julia Victoria "Vickie" Eckhardt graduated on May 12th from Texas A&M University with a Business Management Minor and Bachelor of Science Degree in Animal Science. Community Manager Margaret Eckhardt is her very proud mother.

For the last two years, Vickie has interned at the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo as Livestock Office Assistant where she worked in the arenas during cattle shows and assisted with assigning stalls and release papers for over 5,000 entries. Through her years at A&M she was involved in the Texas A&M Meat Judging Team, a member of Saddle & Sirloin Club and was a Teaching Assistant while maintaining a 3.64 GPA in her major. Vickie plans on continuing at Texas A&M University for grad school to obtain a Masters Degree in breeds and animal genetics.

Vickie - we all wish you the best of luck and are very proud of you!

Here is the upcoming schedule in our popular C.I.A. Services Seminar Series. Each seminar begins at 6:30 p.m. and runs 2-1/2 hours. Since we always provide deli sandwiches, you won’t have to rush to eat dinner beforehand. You’ll leave with knowledge you can use immediately and a great notebook with the seminar slides, samples and reference materials.

After you’ve been on the Board a few months or a few years, you realize that some things are pretty complicated. This seminar has a heavy legal and legislative orientation. We’ll dissect the lawsuit process, review the foreclosures and discuss significant portions of the Texas Property Code and federal law. After all the legal stuff, we’ll touch on aspects of “risk management” which includes insurance, reserves and budgeting concepts.

• June 12, 2007 (Tuesday), 6:30 p.m. — Southwest Office
• June 28, 2007 (Thursday), 6:30 p.m. — North Office

This is the required training course for certification as a Community Website Administrator (CWSA) on the C.I.A Services web site. As a CWSA you'll be able to maintain the pages for your community. You'll be able to create news flashes, update key personnel, add community information, display photos, conduct surveys and much more. At the end of the seminar we'll give you a taste of HTML - the web language that will allow you to do some pretty advanced things if you like. Being a website administrator is very easy and you can do it from anywhere you have an internet connection.

• July 12, 2007 (Thursday), 6:30 p.m. — Southwest Office

The complete list of seminars and descriptions are on the Library page of our web site or you can just click here to view the information. The 2007/2008 seminar schedule will be published in July. You can register at any time by calling our Southwest Office at 713-981-9000 or emailing us at seminars@ciaservices.com.

We have had a great response to our new Electricity Savings Program (ESP) with Tara Energy. ESP allows each of our community associations to lock-in their electricity rates with significant monthly savings without compromising the stability of electricity supply.

Tara Energy, a Houston-based Retail Electricity Provider (REP), is one of the largest independently-owned REP's in Texas. Since its inception four years ago, Tara Energy has pioneered and perfected its group business model to foster long-term relationships with several associations and non-profit organizations. Tara's financial stability is evidenced by the fact that it was selected over several other large and small competitors to serve many of its customers, especially in its relationships with the Department of Defense, the Texas Hotel & Lodging Association, Texas Medical Association, and AAA Texas.

For electricity used on the common areas of the community, the Board can select terms of 1, 2, 3 or 4 years. For communities that have already signed up, savings based on their historical usage have been up to 30 percent or more. On each account converted under this program, the community will also get a $25 credit on the first month's bill.

Community residents are also eligible to sign up with Tara Energy at an average price (note 1) of 13.48 cents per kwh. That is 15 to 20% lower than similar plans from Reliant Energy and other large providers (note 2). In addition to the monthly savings, residents will also receive a $25 credit on their first bill.

As part of this program, each C.I.A. Services community will receive a quarterly "royalty" of 0.5% of the cost of electricity used on all common areas and by all residents in the community in ESP. The quarterly payment can be used for various improvements and community programs. For our part in developing ESP and overseeing the program, C.I.A. Services will receive an equal royalty.

So what are you waiting for? Think ESP and save!

(1) The average price includes electricity, transmission & distribution, monthly service charge and all other costs added by the REP as of 5/24/07. The average price is quoted at 1000 kwh of usage per month. It is the easiest way to compare proposals from various REPs.

(2) Visit www.powertochoose.org to see comparison pricing. Tara Energy is not listed on the residential comparison site because they focus on associations and non-profit organizations and do not market directly to individual consumers.

We are proud of every one of our communities so it is always hard to find just one to highlight. We start by having each of our Community Managers write a nomination for one of their communities. We then read them all take a vote. Here are our most recent selections:

• May — Clear Lake City Boulevard Association
  Southwest Office — Ralph Troiano, Community Manager
• April — Atascocita West Community Improvement Association
  North Office — Brenda Alvarez, Community Manager
• March — Hunters Glen section 5 Homeowners Association
  Southwest Office — Myron Bruines, Community Manager

To see the full story on these communities and to see the past winners, visit the Community of the Month page on our web site.

Every month we appreciate the communities that are celebrating their anniversaries with us. Here are our clients that started with us in May.

• Sterling Green Village Community Improvement Association — 21 years
• Sugarwood Community Association — 14 years
• Quail Run Community Improvement Association — 13 years
• Southwyck Section I Homeowners Association — 13 years
• Treehouse Homeowners Association — 10 years
• Bay Pointe Community Association — 8 years
• Crystal Lake Property Owners Association — 7 years
• Eagle Springs Community Association — 6 years
• Cohn Homeowners Association — 4 years
• Creekside Community Association — 2 years
• Brazoria Cold River Ranch Association — 1 year

Our goal has always been to create a positive, long term relationship with all of our client communities. We are very proud to be managing all of these communities.

• Executive Vice President Renea Miksch was one of C.I.A. Services' first employees and she has worked her way through just about every position in the company. She now is our North Office Branch Manager and is celebrating her 22nd year with us.
• Vice President Laura Tate also started in May and is celebrating her 14th anniversary. Laura began as an Administrative Assistant was promoted to a Community Manager and a few years ago joined our company's Board of Directors.
• Congratulations to Margie De La Cruz at our Southwest Office on her 7th anniversary with C.I.A. Services - she is an invaluable support staff member at our Southwest Office.

Renea Miksch		Laura Tate		Margie De La Cruz