December 2024
Dear Buffalo Creek Homeowner,
On behalf of the Buffalo Creek Homeowners Associations’ Board of Directors, this letter is to notify you of the Upcoming Annual Meeting of the Buffalo Creek HOA Homeowners which will be held on Thursday January 9, 2025, @ 6:30 pm at the Leeper Center, 3800 Wilson Ave.
2025 Annual Meeting:
The Board of Directors will adhere to the Procedures for Conducting Meetings as adopted on January 1, 2006. If you wish to address the assembly, you will need to register prior to the start of the meeting. Upon the start of the meeting the list of homeowner topics will be delivered to the HOA President/Chair. During the “Address the Board on Non-Agenda Items”, the Chair will call on the homeowner for the comment. Comments have a three-minute limit. Each Homeowner has the right to talk without interruption. The Board may elect to reply or take the information for later consideration. “Sign In” will begin at 6:00 pm and the meeting starts at 6:30 pm. You will need to sign in with your name and address. We are required to determine that voting members and those represented by proxy are of good standing (current – not delinquent on their account).
Your Board of Directors:
Pat Cordova - President
Michael Katalenic – Vice President
Dan Satler – Secretary
Ted Craig – Treasurer
John Mueller – Member at Large
Annual Disclosure:
Buffalo Creek HOA is a Common Interest Community; the Declarations were recorded 5/20/2003, under Reception Number 2003-0061450.
All documents can be found on our website: www.buffalocreekhoa.com
The fiscal year for the Buffalo Creek HOA is January through December.
During the 2025 fiscal year all homes will be assessed $720.00 in Dues. Homeowners have the choice of Annual Billing in December, or monthly Automated Clearing House (ACH) payments.
Buffalo Creek Insurance Coverage is through American Family Insurance Company. Keith Montey is our Agent, address: 3011 W 10th St #112 Greeley, CO 80634 (970) 353-1533.
The address of Buffalo Creek Management is PO Box 1182, Wellington, CO 80549 and the telephone number is (970) 568-3170. Buffalo Creek Management is managed by Tim Singewald. Email: singewald@aol.com Buffalo Creek Management is also insured through American Family Ins. Co.
2024 Year in Review:
The 2024 year was a very busy one in the HOA. We had some of our worst winds this spring and they caused a lot of damage for both homeowners and the HOA. Whole sections, and sometimes multiple sections of fence were blown over around the HOA exterior fence. The HOA repaired multiple sections of fence, replacing several broken fence posts. Two dozen trees were uprooted in the Common Area, mostly along Co Rd 9, and required removal. The staining of 55% of the exterior fence was completed and we are now moving back to our maintenance schedule of staining 20% of the fence annually. We switched from Republic Services to Ram Waste Systems. The north sidewalk project was completed with the re-establishment of grass on the scraped area. Comcast-Xfinity started to install fiber optics cable this year and we worked with them to identify the location of our irrigation system in hopes we do not have any damage. There may be issues with homeowner irrigation systems, damaged sod areas, damaged shrubs and/or trees, and we have been assured that homeowners can call Eric Vrba (480) 318-7139 this spring to report and get resolution for any damage. A group of homeowners presented the Board with a proposal for them to install and maintain a book lending library. This is now in place on the corner of Flaming Arrow and Firewater Ln and available for your use. Homeowners had another year of high water pricing from the Town that they had to deal with. Interest Rates for CD’s continued to rise over the year and through aggressively working to find the best rates in our area, we exceeded our projections of Interest Income. The HOA is required to pay tax on Interest Income. We were directed by our CPA to pre-pay tax, on a quarterly basis, for our 2024 Tax reporting. This caused our Property/Income taxes to exceed the amount budgeted for 2024 since it also contains pre-paid taxes. We also had increased costs at our Pump House that exceeded the Budget amount caused by issues with the Spring Start-up. The Board of Directors dealt with these issues as they presented themselves and approved appropriate emergency Budget adjustments.
Common Area Maintenance:
The spring of 2024 had severe winds that blew over multiple sections of fence throughout the neighborhood and around the exterior Common Area Fence. This windstorm also took out two dozen perimeter HOA trees. We had some issues with our Spring Start Up of the irrigation system, mostly due to the main system tech from Zak George, Bruce, being out with a medical issue. Bruce’s assistant was not up on our system.
Trash Removal Contract:
The trash removal contract with Republic Services was scheduled to be renewed at the end of 2024. Trash removal was put out for bids to four different services. The Board vetted these in August. The Board of Directors elected to make a switch to Ram Waste Systems, and they took over our service on December 1, 2024. Ft Collins had elected to require everyone in their city limits to switch to Republic Service. Ram Waste had lost clients in the city of Ft Collins and made the HOA a special offer which would make our neighborhood their northern most anchor Town allowing them to expand northward out of Ft Collins and open new areas of service for them. The Board negotiated a rate which would allow us to not to have to raise dues and they approved a five-year contract at these lower rates.
Spring Cleanup:
The Spring Cleanup trash day has been discontinued. Over the past two years participation dropped off to 30% and then to about 20% participation. The cost built into our trash service contracts for a Spring Cleanup Day are based on 100% participation, so it was apparent we were paying for a lot more than we needed to. If a majority of the HOA is no longer using this service, we needed to look for other options. For additional pickup, Homeowners would need to call Ram Waste and they will work with you to schedule additional bag and/or item pickups, with a small fee which they will charge you directly for. Regardless of when you do your spring cleanup, you can schedule the pickup of additional bags and/or items to be picked up on trash day.
2025 Possible Projects:
The Xfinity fiber optics should be installed this winter and available for any homeowner who wishes to take advantage of it this spring. We will plant close to 30 new trees next spring, replacing those we had to remove this past year. We need to do some roof work on a couple of pump houses along the north sidewalk.
Reserve Requirements:
We have been able to fully fund the reserve requirement for 2024! We will also be able to meet the Reserve increase in 2025 under our 2025 Budget. The Reserve is required by State Law and is based on a percentage of our Fixed Assets, adjusted annually for additions and inflation. The fund is designed for the replacement of an asset in case something needs replacing due to age or for unforeseen catastrophic damage. We have four wells along the north sidewalk, each have controller systems, pumps and structures. The pumps are all working well, but one day one could break down, or a well may need to be redrilled. The Raw Water system is in the pump house by the pond, by the batting cage, and it has a large pump along with a smaller jockey pump all controlled by an expensive pump controller which sends water out to our irrigation system. There is also an aeration system, line filtration system and heater that keeps the house above freezing during the winter. We also have a cooling fan with a controller to keep the pump house cool during the heat of the summer. There are three radio-controlled Controllers operating our sprinkler zones. We have two HOA monument signs, 757 trees, sod, landscaping, many miles of sprinkler lines, thousands of spray heads and rotors, and just over 2 miles of 7-foot-high fence around the perimeter. The Buffalo Creek HOA Board is aware of all the assets, the aging of them and they feel well prepared to be able to address most catastrophic issues, all without having to come to the Homeowners for Special Assessments.
ARC Requests:
Any change to the exterior of your house, property, and landscaping needs to have Architectural Review Committee (ARC) approval. Give us a few weeks prior to your project to get the approval process completed. Dumpsters require a variance stating size, dates of delivery and pick up. All dumpsters require placement in the driveway. Go to the website: www.buffalocreekhoa.com, find the ARC form, fill it out and email or mail it back to the ARC Committee, arc@buffalocreekhoa.com. The ARC committee will go over your request to make sure that everything falls within the HOA Covenants and Site Restrictions. (This is our way of helping make sure that you do not end up investing time and money in a project that is not allowed under HOA guidelines.) The ARC Committee is there to help you, so you do not have to read through a hundred pages of documents to determine if your project is approvable.
Snow Removal:
Every year there are questions about snow removal requirements. The landscape company has contracted for the snow removal of the HOA Common Area sidewalks. The Town does the snow removal on the streets. Homeowners are required to remove the snow on their sidewalk along their property within 24 hours of the snow fall.
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