Our community is again having an informal poll on allowing screen doors in Westchase. If you haven't done so already, please send an e-mail to bridgesvm@gmail.com with "Screen doors YES" or "Screen doors NO" in the subject line to provide your opinion on whether or not to allow screen doors in The Bridges. Also include your name and Westchase property address and any other comments you wish to make in the body of the e-mail. Based on the outcome of this poll, the voting members will decide whether or not to allow screen doors and create a community-wide standard for them. I would like to hear from at least half of our 409 homes in The Bridges.

Residents of Woodbridge and Stonebridge will need to address the matter in their sub-associations.

We are in the voting stage in deciding whether or not speed tables should be placed along Montague Street, north of Linebaugh Avenue, for traffic-calming. WOW is covering this issue, so please go online to check for the latest updates. Ballots will be mailed in May to Bridges property owners who live within 500 feet of Montague Street. Please return your completed ballot to Hillsborough County before the deadline.

It is a good idea to provide your voting member with your e-mail address. In mid-April I received notice about a burglary in The Bridges and passed along the information to everyone on my current e-mail list (about 75 households). It would be great if we could get important information like this out to many more of the 409 households in The Bridges in a timely manner.

If you have any issues that need my attention, please feel free to contact me. If you would like to be notified of important issues facing Bridges residents, please send your e-mail address so that I can add it to our contact list.

Castleford
By Cindy R. Gormley, Voting Member for Castleford

Hello, Castleford! Screen doors have become a hot topic. At their March meeting voting members were asked to poll their neighbors to see how they would feel about allowing front screen doors in Westchase. Please send me an e-mail at eclectic64@aol.com letting me know how you feel about this issue.

Another hot topic has been the recent burglaries in both our neighborhood and in Westchase. Please keep your garage doors closed and your cars locked even when you are home. Some thefts are happening in the middle of the day, so keep your eyes open and don’t hesitate to call the police if there is someone you don’t recognize at your neighbor’s house. One way to combat this problem is to form a Neighborhood Watch as other neighborhoods have done. Another way is to update the Castleford e-mail list. This list was created about five years ago and we’ve had many changes since its creation. Using the list I can keep you informed on the issues in Westchase, poll your opinions and spread the word about suspicious behavior in our area in a timely manner.

To be added to or have your information updated on the Castleford e-mail list, please send an e-mail to me at eclectic64@aol.com.

Have a great month!

The Greens
By Gerald (Jerry) Pappa, Voting Member for The Greens

May, the month of The Kentucky Derby and Memorial Day – the unofficial start of summer!

Given recent reports of home burglaries, I again begin with an important note relative to the safety of your family and your home. Please use your security system, even when you are in the house. Be on the lookout for anything or anyone suspicious around your home or in your immediate neighborhood. Please report suspicious activity to the sheriff’s office immediately. If it is a matter for our gatehouse, please advise Hank Muller, our voting member alternate who is chairing the gatehouse committee.

Your Westchase Guidelines Committee continues to meet regularly regarding potential changes to our guidelines. The guidelines consist of architectural and use rules covering Westchase residential properties. These meetings will take place in the Westchase Swim and Tennis Center’s activity room; please check with the property manager’s office at 926-6404 for specific dates. With regards to The Greens, please advise me about any changes to the guidelines that you would support, so that I may convey that information to the committee and to my fellow voting members (VMs). At April’s voting members meeting, I indicated Greens opposition toward the newly proposed guideline permitting storm/screen doors. The straw poll we recently conducted in The Greens was overwhelmingly opposed.

By the way, check your mailbox. If it needs to be painted, please do so. Mailboxes that are in need of refurbishing are The Greens’ number one violation.

Have a great May and please remember to send all new e-mail addresses to me, so that I may be able to forward them to our Webmaster. Please pass the word to your new neighbors that we also need their e-mail addresses. Thanks!

Radcliffe
By Keith Heinemann, Voting Member for Radcliffe

As of mid-April, 95 Radcliffe homes had ordered their new mailboxes. You should see them sprout up in the near future. In addition, details about the new street signage portion of the project have been turned over to Bill Casale. He will guide that project through the Community Development District (CDD) system.

Some recent property thefts in both our neighborhood and Westchase as a whole should remind everyone, yet again, that we must keep garage doors shut and cars locked when not in use. My recent discussion with an on-duty Hillborough deputy revealed that he was impressed with the awareness of our residents out on the streets. Let’s keep our vigilance up!

I ran a short straw poll via e-mail looking for your comments about screen doors, basketball goals, fruit trees and driveways. The majority of comments tilted toward “no thank you” on the first two topics, but there were more than just a few supporters for each. Based on this sample, I hope to run a more extensive poll in the near future to get better insights on what Radcliffe residents prefer vis-à-vis our governing guidelines. Mark Midence, Radcliffe’s alternate voting member (VM), is also slated to address the VMs on possible solutions to stained and/or deteriorating driveways.

The VMs also discussed the issue of aggressive donation seekers who congregate at our intersections on the weekends. To cut to the chase: don’t encourage them and don’t contribute. There are some scammers out there.

Did you know that WOW has a lost pet link on its Web site? I did not until just a few days ago. It can be accessed at www.westchasewow.com/lostpets. I mention this due to my recent involvement with a found pup. The dog had a county rabies tag/ID, but no other ID containing a name or phone number. Good neighbors Jim and Linda Neel agreed to house the pup overnight while we tried to locate the owner. I circulated an announcement over our village e-mail list, and within a few hours, an alert resident picked up on the missing dog story. She knew her husband had seen another resident out looking for the pup. The owner was contacted, my wife put them in contact with the Neels, and it was a happy ending all around.

The moral of my tale is that our village e-mail list can be useful! It gets hard to find new ways to try to convince people to add their e-mails to our list. I know my pleas to sign on get stale. But this case and another lost pet a few months ago help to validate my point. In both cases, alert neighbors made the connection between the description and a neighbor missing an animal. In these two cases, the pet owners were among those in the neighborhood who choose not to participate on our list. Radcliffe has one of the best contact lists in all of Westchase, but we can do better.

I now offer a different (but recurring) request. National elections occur this year, and, yes, Florida will be switching from the touch screen system to optical scan systems. I expect that it will be a busy election season here in Florida. Sadly, Westchase could use a few more of their own to participate as poll workers. The past few sessions, about 50 percent of our workforce at Precinct 508 (Westchase Golf Club) came from outside Westchase. The work is tedious, hours long, and pay is minimal. But you can make a difference! Contact the Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections office, or pick up a poll worker brochure at the library. We’re looking for a few good volunteers.

The spring garage sale will be May 3. Extra caution is in order. There’ll be lots of extra kids and cars jamming our roads during those hours.

My final reminder relates to the U.S. Postal Services’ annual food drive on May 10. Bags will be distributed the week prior. Just set your non-perishable foodstuffs at your mailbox on the tenth and your carrier will take care of the rest. Food collected goes to assist those who are hungry in our local area. It’s a great cause and the Suncoast District (metro Tampa) is always one of the national leaders in this event. Thanks in advance for your donations.

The Vineyards
By Kevin Kwan, Voting Member for The Vineyards

Greetings, Vineyards residents! The months of March and April have brought about several new and exciting changes in The Vineyards. First is the rebirth of The Vineyards’ Web site: www.westchasevineyards.org. The Web site contains helpful links, including Contact Us, FAQ and Documents. It also includes a photo album, calendar and message board. Please take a few minutes to visit the site and register.

The Vineyards annual meeting was held on March 27 and the members of the 2008-09 Vineyards board of directors were elected. They are Kevin Kwan (president), Felicia Anderson (vice president), Amanda Wynne (treasurer), Paul Phillips (secretary) and Josh Butts, (at-large). This is a great group with a diverse and extensive set of skills. We offer our great thanks to our outgoing board, Pam Senk, Marie Liberatore, Kristin Butts and Katherine Griffin, for their dedication and service to The Vineyards. Also approved at the annual meeting was The Vineyards’ exterior paint palette. Please visit the documents link at the Web site for a picture of the palette.

The neighborhood is experiencing some issues with the sprinkler system. Please be patient while the problems are remedied.

Finally, the pool season is upon us. If you use The Vineyards pool, please be considerate of others, comply with the rules, and return the pool furniture to its original location before leaving.

If you have any suggestions for us, regarding such things as social events, the neighborhood’s appearance and volunteer opportunities, please send an e-mail to hoa@westchasevineyards.org.

 

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