FOUND and Meeting

This very sweet, loving female cat walked up to someone's front door in our community. If you have lost her, you can contact Jessica at 813-468-8077.

This serves as another reminder that no pets are allowed outside without their owner's supervision. I saw a raccoon feeding on cat food someone left on their front porch. The food people leave outside for their pets often disappears thanks to other animals they did not intend to feed, and invites nuisance animals to the community.

Also, a reminder that our last scheduled HOA meeting of 2014 happens THURSDAY (not the usual day of the week) at 7 p.m. at the dining area of the Target store on Bloomingdale Ave. (also not the usual meeting location).

We'll talk tree replacement, and anything else that concerns residents of St. Charles Place. As always you can bring issues to the HOA board's attention by emailing board@stcharlesplace.us.

Street Lights Out? Tell TECO.

Tampa Electric maintains our street lights. If you ever notice one not working correctly, just make a note of the number on the pole (it's two sets of five digits), and fill out a simple form on the TECO website.

Here's the link: https://secure.tampaelectric.com/tampaelectricsecure/forms/residential/streetlightout/.

Next Meeting & Tree Replacement

Our next meeting, and the last one planned for 2014, will happen Thursday, November 20. We cannot get our regular meeting room, so we will meet at the dining area in the Super Target store on Bloomingdale Avenue. Start time is the usual 7 p.m.

A longtime discussion topic at board meetings is the long-term need to get some of the large oak trees away from our buildings. As they continue to grow, they will encroach ever more on our buildings, and eventually endanger their slab foundations.

That would be bad.

With an arborist and our landscape company, the board has begun a scheduled plan to remove the troublesome trees and replace them with ones better suited to live near buildings. We have narrowed the list of replacement trees to three kinds that stood out for their combination of attractiveness, heartiness in our climate, and ability to thrive close to structures and paving.

They are Dahoon Holly, Crepe Myrtle, Southern Red Cedar and Ligustrum Patio. Scroll down to see photos of each.

We’d like owners’ feedback on which you prefer. You can email board@stcharlesplace or show up in person. We would entertain others not among those three, but those are the ones that our landscaper and arborist recommend. Click on the images to see larger versions.

Crepe Myrtle:

Dahoon Holly:

Ligustrum Patio:

Cedar:

I might not have the correct cedar tree here, because I don't think we'd want them that large, but it's an evergreen and the photo should give you a decent idea.

We would not go exclusively with one kind throughout the community, but rather a mix to give our landscaping variety while having trees that work better close to buildings. This will be a long-term project with the oaks causing the most risk getting priority for removal.

The trees will likely be much smaller than the ones they replace, but in a few years, they will grow and mature into ones that give our community its distinctive look, without the danger of harming the integrity of our buildings.

Again, send thoughts to board@stcharlesplace.us.

Pool Problems

Our property manager informed the board that someone broke the gate at the pool and tampered with with the pool equipment, which partially drained the pool.

This will cost money to fix. Money that we all pay because someone vandalized our property. If you see something suspicious anywhere in the community, you won't only do your civic duty by reporting it to police, you might also save your wallet a favor.

The HOA has invested in a new security system at the pool, which soon will help us identify people who break in and/or do damage in the pool area. Even then, nothing works as well as people caring enough about where they live to keep their eyes open and report what they see.

If you ever see something that looks wrong and wonder why no on has addressed the problem, email board@stcharlesplace.us and ask. It could be that no one on the board or the property manager has noticed the problem.

We Have Private Roads

At the end of this month, workers will install new street signs. We'll get blue ones that indicate that St. Charles Place has private roads. We have one already on Johanna Avenue at US 301. Our builder, KB Home, should have had blue ones throughout the community but did not.

Defining our roads better gives us more ability to enforce our rights. For instance, solicitors claim that the green signs give them the right walk our roads and knock on our doors, because green signs denote public streets. The blue signs, that also state "Private Road" on them, gives any resident something to point to to say, "you are trespassing on private property, and you need to leave."

This takes on more meaning when you consider a recent report by WFLA-TV about door-to-door magazine sellers. These are teenagers that a for-profit company has recruited to knock on your door and tell you that they're earning points for scholarships, or trying to help charities.

They're not. They're trying to sell you magazines, or gift baskets, or something else. A for-profit company has recruited kids to sell you things in what is basically an attempt to end-run non soliciting rules, and to put an innocent face on what is essentially a scam.

That's not the only one. People sell security systems (or say they do), cable and satellite TV, and any number of other things. Some merely aim to case possible targets for burglaries. It's a security issue. The blue private road signs don't do much by themselves. But they are more arrows in our quiver as we defend our community.

We're on Facebook

Just a reminder that you can stay up to date on news about your neighborhood by liking its Facebook page. Find it at facebook.com/StCharlesPlaceHOA.

No one monitors the page 24/7 so if you have questions, the best way to reach the board is its email address board@stcharlesplace.us, or our property manager, John Calcagni, at jcalcagni@lelandmanagement.com.

But two HOA board members post updates to the Facebook page regularly, and it's a great way to stay in touch with what's happening in the community.

Security Cameras Coming

One of the most persistent issues residents voice concerns crime and security. Either luck has favored us, or the efforts we've made to inform people about ways to safeguard themselves and their community have helped protect us, or some combination of the two. We have few reports of crime (knock on whatever wood-like stuff constitutes this table), with the most recent being cars broken into.

Still the board has looked for ways to improve security. Soon, you will see several new things meant to do that.

Our first security cameras will go up in the pool area. The pool is our primary amenity, and has been an occasional target of vandalism, and people from outside the community using the pool. The outsiders, usually kids, and the vandalism may have a connection. At least I hope that our residents have not used the recently bought chaise lounges as diving boards.

Cameras won't stop misdeeds by themselves. They will deter some people, and they will give us something to show police if someone damages our property.

The board has also discussed, but not decided on, putting up other cameras to monitor our trash dumpsters, where people -- residents and not -- dump trash, furniture, tires, grills, and other refuse outside the dumpsters, which costs a lot of money to clean.

The board, in varying degrees, remains open to using cameras in other places. Some did not want them pointed at any units, though board member John McQuiston (also your humble blog author) says, "you are welcome to point them at my house!"

The board also decided to install an electronic key fob system for the pool that will replace the simple keys we currently use. This will prevent copying, and also help the community better govern pool use. It might also help the HOA collect outstanding dues. According to our governing documents, those who fall behind in dues payments lose privileges to our amenities. If someone's account gets more than 90 days behind, the HOA can disable his or her pool fob.

The board has also gotten bids on the cost of hiring security patrols. Board members at a recent meeting did not offer much enthusiasm for the idea, and our property manager did not express confidence in their effectiveness for the cost. The board also discussed trying to establish a community watch program. Its consensus was that people don't want to volunteer the effort or the time to do it.

This does not close the door on efforts to keep criminals out of St. Charles Place. As I have written before, our best defense is curious and engaged residents who know their neighbors and make it a habit of saying hello to anyone they see.  If would-be criminals see that we notice things, they will look for easier targets where people don't look out for each other.