Dear Homeowners:
We hope you are staying well during these turbulent times. We would like to provide you with an update on recent events.
When all our lives were suddenly placed on hold in March, the Board had to cancel all San Elijo Hills community events as they were scheduled through September. With restrictions on gatherings, we racked our brains on how to bring this community together, without actually being together. We understood hospitals and first responders were working longer than normal shifts, with closed cafeterias and closed coffee carts. Many of these heroes live here in our community and take care of our community when we need them the most. We were also hearing from our local town center restaurants that they weren’t sure how they would be able to survive the restrictions that have been put in place.
So, in April, the Association held an event to help our local first responders and our local San Elijo Hills town square restaurants. The Association purchased food and coffee from our struggling SEH town square restaurants only (to help keep them afloat and to avoid having a ghost town again) and we provided that food and coffee to our first responders (to help keep their spirits up and show our community support). The total cost for that event was $19,337 or $6.42 cents per household from the events budget. Not only did we receive an overwhelming amount of gratitude from our first responders and homeowners for this great event, but we also received a huge thank you from our local businesses.
Additionally, we were made aware that some San Elijo Hills families within the community whose children were receiving a free lunch meal Monday through Friday from the school, would not be receiving any assistance on the weekends. We therefore thought it to be a great idea to (in some small way) make certain that these children would not go hungry on the weekend. Most of the funding for this meal program was from the monies that could have been lost and not refunded from the BunnyPalooza event. We reached out to the vendor that supplies their services for Bunnypalooza and requested that rather than lose our deposit, they supply the meals to which they agreed. The total amount used from that deposit was $7,900. We also asked ourselves how we could continue to support our local restaurants. We spent $6,336 or $2.10 per household from the events that were already budgeted and cancelled through August. Our thoughts were that having closed businesses in town square would hurt the value of our community and in turn the value of our homes collectively.
The money used for the Tile Event came from event funds and were paid to Colorful Universe. Another way to keep our businesses alive and to keep our families engaged. It was huge success and many of our residence enjoyed it.
The Board voted and approved the three events in an open general session meeting. We notified the entire community about these events in April and May (via Facebook, community mailers, eblasts, and it was posted on the community website).
We have since discovered there were a few members of the community that were very disgruntled by our efforts. They claimed we kept these events a secret and that we misappropriated funds from our events budget and have threatened to sue the Association, before even requesting any documentation that would easily quash this wild accusation. The Association’s funds were not misappropriated as this money was already budgeted and still spent on events. Plus, these events brought a great deal of joy, pride, and support to the community
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