Westwood Ranch Road Maintenance Co-op

Transcription

1 Westwood Ranch Road Maintenance Co-op Annual Newsletter Important Numbers Arizona Game & Fish (800) Vandals (800) Violations Arizona State Land Dept. Chuck Hutson - Illegal Mines (602) Sheriff s Office (928) Coconino (928) Yavapai Coconino County Silent Witness (877) (928) State Fire Department (602) Inside this issue: Winter 2017 On The Ranch 1 Contribution Mailing Address 1 Game & Fish 1 A Note to New Owners 2 Board of Directors 2 Winter 2017 on the Ranch As many of you know, the winter of 2017 was extremely brutal on our ranch roads. Mother Nature held nothing back as alternating rain & snow storms relentlessly pelted the ranch all winter long. During this time, & when the roads were too wet, vehicles tried to get on & off the ranch. Our roads were severely damaged. Some vehicles were literally left where they had gotten stuck, & had to wait until the roads dried. A majority of our ranch roads have some varying level of road bed damage. During our March road inspection, we found ruts up to 18 deep! Please help us help you clean up our roads! The roads we can t clean up this year will only be worse next year! A small annual contribution of a $120 will go a long way in helping our ranch to recover. Mail $120 Contribution/payable to: WWR Co-op PO Box Fort Mohave AZ Roadwork on WWR 3 WWR Roads Contractors 4 WWR Co-op Elections 4 FAQ Density Map 5 New Color Coded Ranch Map 6 AZ Game & Fish Both the WWR Co-op, & WWROA receive road maintenance funds from Arizona Game & Fish, via the Landowner Relations Program - Access Program. Both road maintenance groups have each received $4000 per year, from 2013 through We appreciate their continued contributions, as these funds help offset costs of road damaged caused by hunters. Mar-2017 Page 1

2 A Note to new Ranch Owners First off: Welcome to the new lot owners on Westwood Ranch! As new lot owners, it is important you know that there are two road maintenance groups on the ranch, the WWR Co-op & the Westwood Ranches Road Owners Association (WWROA). Go to the websites wwrco-op.com & wwroa.com for accurate and reliable information on these two groups, & what they do. On the wwrco-op.com, check out the Archive link on the News & Information page to see previous years Newsletters, Member Density Maps & previous postings of ranch activity. The WWROA maintains the Exhibit-E roads, the Green roads on the Color Coded Ranch Map (attached). The WWROA, lot #s , Phases VI-IX have a mandatory annual road maintenance assessment. The Co-op contributions are voluntary. Why the two organizations? Lots (Phases I-V) were sold off before a state-mandated road maintenance Association was instituted. Therefore, membership / contributions are 100% voluntary. With the current Coop contributor base at only 10%, the few have struggled to carry the many for too long! The few are tired, & many of our roads continue to deteriorate. We need all owners to be proactive in helping to protect the value of our investment, our homes & try to ensure access to our properties. Tired of Primitive Roads in bad condition? Road Maintenance not living up to your expectations? Read what Coconino County says about rural living in: Code of the West -&- Access to your Property Code of the West - Access to your Property: An Excerpt Coconino County states: The fact that you can drive to your property does not guarantee that you, your guests, or emergency vehicles will have the same level of access at all times. Consider the following. EMERGENCY RESPONSE - Response times by law enforcement, fire suppression and medical emergency services may vary due, in part, to the County's geography, road conditions in bad weather, and the inadequacies of rural addressing. Emergency response to outlying areas can also be very expensive. If the property you purchase is not in an existing Fire District, which is often the case in rural areas, you could be billed a substantial 2017 Board Members Deonna Dio Barraclough, Chairman (623) deonnabv@gmail.com Lori Kavanagh, Treasurer (619) domesticgoddess@frontiernet.net Wayne Throw, Secretary (602) throw@cox.net George Altman, Director (602) geopalt@yahoo.com Pearl Severe, Director (623) mapasev@yahoo.com amount for the cost of a response to a fire or medical emergency. It would be worthwhile to contact various emergency service providers in the area before you buy land. LEGAL ACCESS - The existence of an unobstructed road to your property does not guarantee the road will remain open in the future or that you will have unlimited access. The road may cross another property. With the assistance of a title company or private attorney, verify existing easements and ensure that all necessary ingress/egress easements are in place. ROAD MAINTENANCE - Coconino County maintains 1,228 miles of roads-250 are paved and 978 are not paved. Many rural properties are served by private roads, which are typically maintained by private road associations or individuals. Some private roads are not maintained on a regular basis. The County does not maintain private roads. It is very important to know if your road was properly constructed, what type of maintenance to expect, and who will maintain it. Mar-2017 Page 2

3 Roadwork on Westwood Ranch The big question most frequently asked: Who Maintains Westwood Ranches Roads? Many believe that someone else is responsible for WWR road maintenance. We ve heard everything from Coconino County, the original ranch owner, Game & Fish & even the State of Arizona! The fact is that for the co-op lot #s 1-545, the lot owners themselves are responsible for the condition of those ranch roads. Well, us & Mother Nature! WE collectively own the ranch, WE collectively are responsible for caring for it! A Little WWR History: When the ranch was first being sold, beginning with lots (Phase I -V), no road maintenance was established or mandated. Perhaps it was assumed the new owners would maintain the roads. However, many owners had no interest, or perhaps didn t feel responsible for the road maintenance. So, many roads began to deteriorate. When the State of Arizona Land sections checkerboarded throughout WWR (see attached map) became difficult to access, the State intervened. Beginning with Phase VI, lot 547, a state mandated road maintenance contract was instated. This contract required all new lot purchases, beginning with Phase VI, to be part of the new road maintenance association, the WWROA. Membership is a requirement & is written into the deeds for those lots. The State designated & assigned the new Association with the responsibility of once-ayear road maintenance on the Exhibit-E roads. Exhibit-E roads are the Green roads on the Color Coded Ranch Map (attached). However, Exhibit-E roads only account for roughly half of the roads on WWR. For all remaining ranch roads (Red roads on map), maintenance is still the responsibility of those lot owners. Red roads include major artery roads like Ranch Rd MM14 > going north, Noseeum & many secondary roads. Because these roads continued to deteriorate, the WWR Co-op was created. The purpose of the Co-op was to help coordinate these lot owners, collect contributions & facilitate roadwork for the Coop roads. Co-op contributions are voluntary, & unfortunately 90% of the owners have historically chosen not to participate. Some of these roads will need costly repairs to get them into a maintainable condition. An upfront investment will be necessary. To get these bad roads fixed, the owners that use it to access their lots need to coordinate the repair expense. If requested, the Co-op can help facilitate this process. Once repaired, the road can then be included in the Co-op yearly maintenance program, but only if those owners contribute enough to cover the cost of the yearly maintenance. If owners are unwilling to work together & share the costs, then other options are: 1) Hire your own contractor 2) Purchase heavy equipment & do your own roadwork 3) Get your Phase Annexed into the WWROA (FAQ #3) The Co-op is a cost sharing arrangement where costs incurred to achieve the common goal are divided among participating parties. As far back as there is record of, the Co-op has yet to have more then 10% of Co-op lot owners contributing in any given year. Without cooperation & contributions from Co-op lot owners, there will be little-to-no money for roadwork. We will not be able to expand roadwork beyond the major artery roads we currently do: Ranch Rd (MM 14 ) OlivasAlone, Noseeum Flat Tank & 9 Shooter. People have said to me When you fix my road, I will consider contributing. Well, that would be impossible. You see, without owner contributions, there is no money for roadwork! Send in your contribution. Be part of making WWR better. Be Part of the Solution! Mar-2017 Page 3

4 WWR Road Contractors Co-op Elections Elliott Excavating: Phil Elliott has been the WWROA road contractor just over 10 years, & his 5th year working with the WWR Co-op. Phil s brother Ed works with him, running a second piece of equipment, when needed. Phil s services can be contracted by individual lot owners needing work on their property or private roads. Licensed, Bonded & Insured. (928) elliottexc2005@gmail.com Questions received via & phone calls have prompted this FAQ section. FAQ #1: Why wasn t my road graded? Answer: The #1 challenge for the Co-op remains member density. Having only 1 or 2 members in a section of 16 parcels does not provide enough funding. More neighbors need to be encouraged to contribute. FAQ #2: I own a co-op lot, but I don t drive on the co-op roads - Why should I contribute? Answer: Whether you rarely drive on ranch roads, your lot is investment property or you live full-time on the ranch, everyone should pay their share. If you don t pay your share, someone else has to. The alternative is little-to-no roadwork. FAQ #3: Can co-op lot owners join, or be forced to join the WWROA? Answer: Not forced. However, per the WWROA REMO contract, Addendum I with the State of Arizona, for Phases I- V, annexation into the WWROA can occur under strict conditions, involving voting by both the co-op landowners & the WWROA membership. Currently, it is unknown what expenses the WWROA &/or WWR Co-op would incur to successfully annex a Phase into the WWROA FAQ #4: Why do you want my address? Answer: Using USPS is expensive. ing information saves more money for roadwork! FAQ #5: What happened to the potlucks we used to have? Answer: Honestly, the Board No elections have been held for the last four years due to zero interest. Other than the existing Board members, there has been zero nominations, & zero inquiries from any contributing co-op lot owners. This means that we choose to spend contribution monies on the roadwork, verses spending money on owner mailings that no one has interest in. If you would like to join the WWR Co-op Board, please supply your, or your nominees information to our Secretary by May 15th, at the latest. You must be a co-op contributor to qualify. If any nominations are received, & nominees qualify, we will then send out Ballot forms to contributing members for vote. Frequently Asked Questions struggles with this, but there are two main reasons: 1) Potlucks were stopped because of a lawsuit that occurred at the last pot luck event. Our insurance company helped settle the claim. But, our insurance premium has almost doubled. 2) A property owner throwing a private party is different from a Co-op potluck in that the WWR Co-op does not own land. Our insurance company informed us that when a WWR Co-op sponsored potluck is held on private property, the homeowner is accepting some liability & risk. A supplemental policy can be purchased to cover the event. But, the risk is higher when attendance is open to anyone. Mar-2017 Page 4

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