Manager's Report

November 18, 2008

This morning we have 555 spaces occupied, 518 owners and 38 renters.  This is slightly ahead of last year’s totals with 31 renters and 500 owners for a total of 541.

I want to spend some time talking about the cable TV we are installing in the resort.  Dish Network is doing the work for us.  They have installed two new large amplifiers, one on each end of the resort.  They are now methodically going through all of the cable boxes located throughout the resort.   There is a cable box for every four houses.  That means each park model is supposed to use one hook up.  Then if there is more than one TV in the home, splitters can be used to bring the signal to the two or more televisions.  Remember, when you split a signal it isn’t as strong as if it remains whole 

Last Friday about four o’clock, the cable went down.  It was due to lack of power.  Fortunately, the electrician was here and was able to give the cable people extra power.  By installing an extra power supply, they were able to get things up and running within the hour.  

The Dish people have been going house to house to assist residents with programming.  As more and more residents return and renters arrive, more people are having difficulties with programming their televisions.  Remember, Dish is only supposed to assist with programming and checking the signal strength.  They are not obligated to crawl under park models and string new cable.  Please don’t take advantage of them.   The more time they spend on jobs that are not their responsibility, the less time they have to spend doing their jobs.  We want the cable boxes updated so that the system will run better. 

When all the cable pedestals are updated, the cable will be boosted to 550 mega hertz.  When this happens, we will have more options available to us for programming.

Programming is always a bone of contention.  I’m sure that nobody likes all 36 channels we are providing.  I also am aware that we do not have ESPN.  The reason for this is because we have to pay per channel or package to add channels to the line up.  Unfortunately, ESPN costs $3.50 per month per space.  That is an additional cost of $45,150 per year.  The other 36 channels cost us 3.62 per month and $46,698 per year.  We will be able to switch a couple of the channels that are unpopular.  Once again, I remind you that several people helped to pick the channels and we tried to find something for everyone.  I want to wait until the middle of January before we make any switches.  Let’s let the technicians finish their work and for more residents to arrive before we make some final channel selections.

The good thing about the new cable is the picture is better and we have 36 channels instead of 13.  Also, when television goes digital in February 2009, residents will not have to go buy digital TVs.  Our equipment is digital already and will work.

The driving cage is out of commission once again.  The net has been torn asunder.  We are in the process of contacting golf companies for solutions.  Until then, please refrain from using the driving cage.  Balls have already gotten out.  We don’t want anyone hurt, nor do we want anyone’s property destroyed.  I apologize for the inconvenience.  Maybe golfers could work on their putting skills while we get the cages repaired.

The water machines are used constantly.  We have had some problems with them not giving the proper amount of water or having the coin slot jammed.  Artic Ice and Water was here four times last week alone.  They were also here yesterday.  Unfortunately, some of the breakdowns may be our fault.  The repair man dug a badly destroyed quarter out of the coin slot that had jammed it.  He also found a number of foreign coins.  Both of these problems are easily solved by not using damaged coins or foreign coins.  I thank you all in advance for your assistance in this matter.

There is one other concern.  Water risers are springing leaks.  As people return and turn on their water, we are having dozens of leaks.  If your riser is leaking, please report it to the office.  I will have a sign up sheet at the counter where you can put your name and space number.  If you see a neighbor’s water leaking and they are not back yet, please report it too.  As you know, we saved 2,000,000 gallons of water last year. So far we are still behind on water usage.   Let’s make sure we don’t use more this year and cause our sewer bill to go back up.