Welcome to our monthly newsletter for the HOA board to share important information and announcements about our community, upcoming events, opportunities to get involved, helpful advice and tips, and updates on what the HOA board and committees are working on.

Announcements

Congratulations on Movie in the Park

Our first ever movie in the park event was a great success! We had about 50 homeowners attend. It got a little dicey in the middle when the sprinklers turned on, but we made it through. Special thanks to Brian Rickel, Mark Pabst, Karl Weaver, and Sarah Hamilton for helping organize.

Tree Stakes

Tree stakes can be removed after one year. If it’s time to remove yours, please contact Mark Pabst, and he’ll pick them up from you and repurpose them for planting projects in our common areas.

Upcoming Events

Below is a summary of upcoming events, but more are being added. For the latest details, please visit the Calendar in the Homeowner Portal.

CERT training is each Tuesday 6-8pm from Sep 14 - Nov 16. The location is in the Longmont city limits and is to be announced.

Please visit the homeowner portal calendar for the latest updates and details on upcoming events. If you have an event that you are organizing in our community, such as a park playdate, let us know, and we will add it to the calendar!

Community Garage Sale Map

Below is a map of homes participating in the August 28 8am-1pm garage sale.

Longmont CERT Training

Basic Community Emergency Response training begins September 14, and it is available for free to anyone in the community over the age of 18. If you’ve ever taken a Red Cross first aid or CPR class, think of CERT class as an advanced version that includes all that and more. It specifically covers:

• Sep 14: Intro, Tech Test / Dry Run, Final Day for Registration
• Unit 1 (Oct 21): Disaster Preparedness
• Unit 2 (Oct 28): Fire Safety and Utility Controls
• Unit 3 (Oct 5): Disaster Medical Operations Part I
• Unit 4 (Oct 12): Disaster Medical Operations Part II
• Unit 5 (Oct 19): Light Search and Rescue Operations
• Unit 6 (Oct 26): CERT Organization
• Unit 7 (Nov 2): Disaster Psychology
• Unit 9 (Nov 9): Course Review, Final Exam
• Week of Nov 15: Graduation Disaster Simulation Exercise

You don’t need to join the CERT team to attend the training and learn how to handle an emergency in your home or community. Please email Kevin Esmail (Longmont’s Emergency Management Coordinator) if you are interested in attending, or visit Longmont’s CERT page for more info.

Getting Involved

Three of our HOA committees have been elected, and our fourth committee (Architecture Review) will be elected in September. Please welcome our volunteers!

• Public Landscape Committee: Gina Burrows (board sponsor), Marsha Evans, Adam Flood, Julio Garcia, Laurie Kerridge, Sandra and Rick Kemplar, Mark Pabst (committee lead), and Chris Russell.
• Safety Committee: Aron Baczoni, Jane Blythe, Elizabeth Crowell, Maria Roman, and Chris Russell (board sponsor).
• Social Committee: Gina Burrows (board sponsor), Sarah Hamilton, Lisa Munro, Mark Pabst, and Deanna Pinder.

We also wish to give a special thanks to everyone that volunteered at the first Harvest Junction Village landscaping cleanup! It was a tremendous turnout.

Monthly Tips

What are Those Gray Igloos?

When we moved here in December, we noticed gray igloos on the front porch of several homes. We couldn’t figure out what they were for. It turns out that Longmont has a milk delivery service, and they deliver to the igloos each week. The milk is fresh from the cows, which tastes great (we can really tell), and they use glass bottles, which is great for the environment. They also deliver other local dairy and baked goods – we particularly love their banana bread. The service is run by Longmont Dairy Farm. They’re one more thing that we love about living in Longmont! <3

Emergency Notifications

Longmont uses landline phones to report emergencies, but what if you don’t own a landline phone, or if you want additional ways to be informed? Here are some options to consider.

• Red Cross’s free Emergency app gives real-time alerts for more than 35 different severe weather and emergency alerts.
• FEMA’s free mobile app gives real-time alerts from the National Weather Service.
• A NOAA emergency alert radio (such as Midland WR120B) gives real-time weather alerts in your area. For Longmont, tune the weather radio to 162.475 MHz and optionally program S.A.M.E. codes to limit to specific counties, e.g. 008013 for Boulder, 008014 for Broomfield, 008123 for Weld.
• Longmont’s free Reverse 9-1-1 service gives real-time alerts for flash flood and tornado warnings. Install it using Everbridge.
• Lastly, it’s good to be aware of the weather even before alerts go out. iPhone’s Weather app gives quick & easy updates, the National Weather Service provides comprehensive details, and many third-party apps and websites split the difference.

Smart911 PSA

Longmont Public Safety uses the Smart911 system, which is available to all residents within the Longmont city limits. With this system, you can enter information in advance about your household so 911 services have it immediately in the case of an emergency. This includes:

• People and Household Info: You can add key information about members of your household that would help anyone you care for in the event of an emergency, whether the call is from the home or any mobile phone.
• Medical Info: No matter where you are or your loved ones are, you can always have the peace of mind that responders will know any critical medical condition and how to help before they even arrive.
• Address and Location Info: Giving responders visual details on an emergency location helps facilitate faster response, as does information on access points like hidden driveways or gate codes.
• Other Info: You can also add as much or as little information about vehicles, pets, service animals, along with special notes that you would want responders to know.

What is the Board Working On?

The past month has been busy! As the community’s first homeowner-led board, we have a lot of basic things to establish: newsletters (to help keep you informed), online services, committees, a goal plan, formal reviews, and processes. We also need to fix the landscaping and burn down the backlog of ARC requests. Below is a quick update on what we’ve been working on. Please join us at the next board meeting for more details and Q&A. Thank you!

2021 Goal Plan

The board met informally a few times at the park to discuss our goals for 2021. Below is our plan:

• Establish our guiding mission, vision, and values to help set the culture and direction of our * community for years to come.
• Fix our landscaping: Water wisely on the correct schedule, properly maintain native grass, create a * plan for the trees, verify that we have no leaks, ensure everything is getting appropriately watered, * switch to all organic fertilizers/pesticides/herbicides, and work on creating a xeriscape wildflower * garden on the perimeter edge of the community.
• Create committees to further support the community, help implement key goals, and enable homeowners to be hands-on/get involved.
• Create a monthly newsletter that informs homeowners of important news, events, helpful tips, and HOA (board + committee) activity.
• Perform basic due diligence: Review our existing budget, vendor contracts, and work performed to ensure * we have adequate reserves, pricing, and quality work. This requires us to perform a reserve study (even * if it’s an informal/internal study to start). Put an attorney firm on retainer.
• Perform a cost-benefit analysis of HOA fees vs. services to ensure we’re providing adequate value. * Rigorously investigate where we can reduce costs and water consumption. Determine if a reduction in * fees is viable/advisable.
• Update our architectural guidelines to reflect the kind of community that the homeowners want to create * and support. Don’t keep boilerplate rules that were designed by builders for home sales, not home * living.
• Plan social events for everyone to get to know each other, learn about available services in/around * Longmont, and have fun together. Target having one social event per month.
• Identify and explore potential improvements that may be desired in 2022, e.g. a dog park, little free library, etc.

Landscaping

The Board and CCG are working with Metco, our landscape maintenance provider, on necessary changes they need to make to their landscaping services. We have concerns and have not been receiving the expected updates from them. Please join us at the next board meeting as we discuss this issue.

ARC Guidelines Review

We are reviewing the ARC guidelines and plan to make some important changes to allow for more flexibility , homeowner friendly, and provide additional guidance. We recognize that this is an important step in transitioning from a builder-led HOA to community-led; and therefore, we want to ensure everyone can be involved and we do our full diligence. Our process will be:

1. Perform an initial assessment by the board and the newly elected ARC committee.
2. Conduct an online survey with the homeowners for recommendations, and for feedback on suggested changes.
3. Meet with the original authors of our guidelines for context on why they were created as they are.
4. Perform a community review of the proposed changes.
5. Distill into proposed changes, and conduct a legal review.
6. Vote for board approval.

Safety Committee

The safety committee had their first meeting on August 16 and discussed multiple projects, including CERT, community first aid/CPR training, neighborhood watch, outreach with Longmont Public Safety, and joining Neighborhood Group Leaders Association (NGLA).

Status updates:

• Several homeowners signed up for CERT and begin first-aid and emergency response training in September.
• The committee meets with Longmont Safety on September 10 to start forming our neighborhood watch program.
• The committee reached out to NGLA to attend their next community meeting.
• The committee is continuing to research other community programs that may be valuable to Harvest Junction Village.

NGLA is a particularly important organization for us. NGLA is a partnership between the city and a network of over 50 registered community groups to collectively identify concerns, discuss issues, resolve conflicts, and implement solutions to create healthy neighborhoods with a strong sense of community. Visit NGLA’s website for more information.

Landscape Committee

The landscape committee met on August 24 and discussed ways of improving landscaping in our common areas and reducing costs and water usage in the process. Some topics included:

• Meeting with an arborist from CSU extension to diagnose dead trees in our community, so we can avoid further issues when the trees are replaced.
• Removed graffiti from a transformer box south of the east exit.
• Looking for volunteers for a landscape education group, to share best practices with homeowners.
• Discussed trimming dead wood from trees in common areas, tree restoration, and removing dead trees.

Social Committee

The social committee meets August 26 to plan their upcoming events for September and October. Stay tuned - more information will be sent via email.

ARC Committee

We received more applications for the ARC committee than we have open positions, which is an incredible turnout. Thank you to everyone that has applied! The Board will follow up with each applicant over the next few weeks and make a final selection in September.

In the meantime, the Board has been working hard to approve the backlog of ARC requests, many of which require additional information before they can be approved. As of August 15, the board approved 34 ARC requests and have 11 more awaiting additional information.

Other Activities

We set up several basic online services this month, including email services (for the newsletter & committees), online forms (for committee applications), cloud file storage, calendar scheduling, and online surveys. We’re also fixing our neighborhood map on Nextdoor (it contains a lot of errors). Everything so far is free, which helps keep HOA fees low.

One of our board members (Chris Russell) attended the Rocky Mountains chapter’s Board Leader Certificate Program on August 14. It was an incredible training opportunity and included lots of great information, advice, and community contacts. CAI (Community Associations Institute) is an international organization dedicated to building better communities. Their charter states:

We believe homeowner and condominium associations should strive to exceed the expectations of their residents. We work toward this goal by identifying and meeting the evolving needs of the professionals and volunteers who serve associations, by being a trusted forum for the collaborative exchange of knowledge and information, and by helping our members learn, achieve and excel.

Lastly, we’re looking into setting up a community website (harvestjunctionvillage.com) to be a central location for community information, newsletters, FAQs, links to the homeowner’s portal, Nextdoor, our Facebook group, and more.