The annual owner's meeting was held at the Deercreek Country Club with 30 residents present including the board members. With the counting of the 243 proxies a quorum was affirmed and the meeting was called to order by the Board of Directors (BOD) President George Partin. The president introduced the current sitting board members to the forum including: Treasurer Danny Becton, Secretary Pete Gentry, Legal Liaison Carol D'Onofrio, Access Control Liaison Aaron West, Common Property Liaison Chris Phillips, ARB liaison Nick Simonic and Communications Committee Liaison Len Fritz. Vice President Doug Klippel was out of town. President George Partin introduced the May Management Property Manager Richard Curran Kelly and his assistant Andrea Dockery.

President Partin introduced the committee chairman and thanked them for their significant contributions to the community. This included Tommy Waters from access control, Dudley Mendheim, from covenant enforcement, Skip Yauger from the ARB and Joe Cernigliaro from the common property committee. Finance Committee Chairman John Joyce is serving his third year. Please note that each committee is looking for new members and if interested, homeowners should attend one of the meetings or contact the committee chairman. The committee contact information as well as the time and place of each meeting are listed on the web site.

President Partin gave an overview of many of the board's accomplishments this year providing some highlights for each committee. The BOD managed to maintain the quarterly fees at the current rate with the reduction in the 90-day-receivables which in turn resulted in a reduction of bad debt expense. Additionally, the community-wide road paving project came in under budget and the cost incurred for May Management to process ARB paperwork decreased. The BOD also approved the establishment of the Capital Improvement Account whose funds will be used to improve and upgrade the appearance of Deercreek common properties.

Treasurer Danny Becton presented the Treasurer Report. The annual budget for the association approximates $850,000 continuing through 2013, and as mentioned earlier, with no increase in quarterly assessments. Becton presented a presentation of pie charts which showed the sources for the association's revenues. The majority of the revenues come from the quarterly assessments. Another pie chart identified the expenses of the association with access control using 32 percent or 32 cents of every dollar spent. Common properties was next with 29 percent of the expenses while the community gets their best value from the communication account with only one cent of every dollar spent on communications. The Deercreek Living Newsletter is published at no charge with the Florida Times-Union retaining all of the advertising revenue.

President Partin recognized the following candidates for the three open seats for the BOD for fiscal year 2013. They are: William C. Beitz, Margie Blake, Doug Mathews and Aaron West. There were no nominations from the floor so the nominations were closed. The election results were announced with William Beitz, Margie Blake and Aaron West elected for three year terms.

Individual committee reports were then presented starting with Aaron West, access control liaison. Aaron explained the purpose of access control. The security company Allegiance Security is to provide coverage at the Deercreek gate house as well as traffic control. One of the projects the committee had this year was the research and hiring of a contractor to replace the bar code scanner which is becoming unreliable and un-maintainable. A new company, Gate Works, was selected to install a new gate control system. The new system was installed in February and became operational in March.

Chris Phillips recognized the new Common Property Chairman, Joe Cernigliaro. He explained what the committee oversees then informed the members that work had been completed at the playground this year and the signs cleaned. Based on legal research it has been determined that the area at Ashford Crossing will be maintained by the Deercreek Homeowners Association. The first phase of the project will be to repair the irrigation system located on the property.

Len Fritz presented a report on the activities of the communications committee. The committee publishes the electronic newsletter, the community directory, and maintains the electric sign and website. Len discussed the electric sign emphasizing that messages can be placed on the sign by remote through input on a PC. Len introduced the new newsletter editor, Stacy Badics, journalism major in college. Another addition to the committee is Margie Blake. Margie maintains the electronic signboard.

The sole purpose of the Covenant Enforcement committee is to provide an appeal process for anyone who receives a violation and/or citation. Doug Klippel is the BOD liaison and Dudley Mendheim is the committee chairman. The committee needs volunteers as state statues require at least three residents are present to vote on appeals. The committee meets the third Thursday of each month at 6:30 p.m. at the club.

Legal Liaison Carol D'Onofrio informed the membership that there is over $86,000 in delinquencies with many of them going into foreclosure. She discussed the foreclosure process and stated that the finance committee will be monitoring the ones over 90 days in arrears. The bank-owned-homes have been billed for past assessments and late fees. The attorney used by the board pursues the homeowner that is in the foreclosure process where applicable to recoup the assessments.

Committee Liaison Nick Simonic gave a presentation on the purpose of the ARB committee. He stated there are currently five committee members and more volunteers are needed. He asked that all members go to the Deercreek website where the submittal requirements are located. The requirements of any ARB is for an architect to be the chairman and Deercreek is fortunate to have a resident who volunteers to provide that

service. Under Skip Yauger, the ARB has established guidelines that help maintain the excellent appearance of the community.

The DCCOA recognized the six years of service given by Pete Gentry. He has been the association's secretary for six years. He was presented with a gift card as a token of appreciation for his contributions.

Property Manager's Report

Submitted by Richard R. Curran-Kelley

This will be another column of potpourri, that Jeopardy category that mixes topics of interest to the whole community.

First up are pets. Dealing with pets, or more appropriately, their owners, is a challenge that invariably shows up in all homeowners associations. Why? For the simple reason that despite the fact that most pet owners are considerate of their neighbors, there always seems to be a few who do not exercise the appropriate care required to be a responsible pet owner. What sort of care? Below are a few of the more common complaints that we receive regarding pets:

1. Not cleaning up after your dog. This is a complaint that has turned neighbor against neighbor in many associations. Few things are more annoying to the average homeowner than to walk out to get the newspaper and step in a pile of dog debris that has been left in the lawn by someone who had Fido out for a walk and did not clean up after him. Even if the homeowner doesn't step in the pile, he will still have to clean up after a pet that is not his. If you have a dog and take it out for a walk always carry a plastic bag to clean up after him.

2. Someone's dog or cat is running loose. In the case of dogs, the complaint is that the dog is scaring people or even attacking someone. For cats, the complaint is that they are digging up the garden, making lots of noise, or destroying screens. The answer to this complaint is simple: in Duval County Pursuant to Section 462.303 (Animals at-large prohibited), no owner of any dog or cat shall permit the dog or cat to be at large, except a dog shall be considered exempt from these provisions if the dog is engaged in law enforcement, hunting, or is located in a "no leash party."

3. Dogs that bark too much. The frustration of living next door to a dog that barks throughout the night is one that few would care to experience. Considerate pet owners make sure that their pets do not disturb their neighbors.

We all hope that our neighbors with pets will be considerate, but what do we do when one of the above problems arises? The best approach is to talk with the pet owner yourself and see if you can get him to resolve the problem. If this doesn't work, there are a couple of numbers that you can call. For a leash law violation (problem No. 2) or barking dogs (problem No. 3), call Duval County Animal Control at 387-8846.

Next up are streetlights. If a streetlight is out, take down the light's address (the yellow number on the pole in conjunction with the street name) and exercise one of three options:

1.  Call JEA to report the outage at 665-6000.

2.  E-mail the information to JEA at www.jea.com "Report a Service Problem."

3.  Call MAY Management so that we can call it in to JEA as well.

The best approach is probably either option one or two in combination with three.

Finally, please remember to lock your vehicles when you park them at home. Even though we have access control, there are still people who will take things out of unlocked cars. The best defense is to lock your doors when you get out of the car to make it a harder target. The other advice is to make sure that there are no valuables (wallets, CDs, cell phones, etc.) visible in the car. Additionally, close the garage when you are not in it. Thieves can clean out an open garage faster than you might imagine. A little security consciousness can go a long way to keep you from becoming a victim. Additionally, keep your windows and doors locked and make sure you have functional security lighting around your house.

Submitted by: Brian Mountan   

Deercreek resident Drew Glassman likes to golf, bike, swim, and play backyard soccer. But his favorite sport is running. Since 1999, he has run in 51 marathons including the New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Alaska and Disney marathons. The most interesting marathons were in Napa Valley, Las Vegas and the Netherlands. He has also run in seven Jacksonville marathons. Glassman races mostly in the winter and runs four or five marathons a year.  

He runs about 30 miles a week to keep in shape. The achievement he is most proud of is competing in an Ironman Triathlon. This event, which took place in Zurich, includes swimming 2.4 miles, biking 120 miles, and running 26.2 miles. At one Disney Marathon, Glassman met his running idol Jeff Galloway.  

Galloway is a former Olympian who developed the run-walk method that Glassman follows today. His goal is to run in 100 marathons by the time he finishes his career. I'm sure you'll see him run by!