the seller of a home to provide a copy of the Shelton’s Run HOA Disclosure Statement to the buyer (new homeowner) prior to closing? It is also required by the Shelton’s Run Declarations, so please contact Denise DeCarlo via email at denise.decarlo@sheltonsrun.com to request a package. If you have questions, please contact her by phone at 540-622-2499. The cost to process a disclosure package is $50.00 made payable to Shelton’s Run HOA. Please send completed requests and payment to:

Shelton’s Run HOA
P.O. Box 793
Garrisonville, VA 22463

Please allow TEN business days prior to your closing date for preparation and mailing of the Disclosure Package.*

*Failure to provide disclosure may delay, postpone, and/or negatively affect your closing.

The winners are:

1. The Norfolk Family – 4 Walt Whitman Blvd.
2. The Everett Family – 4 Bradstreet Court
3. The Fitzgerald Family – 37 Walt Whitman Blvd.
4. The Gonzalez Family – 11 Kline Court
5. The Taylor Family – 27 Beau Ridge Drive

Congratulations to these families, who will receive a $25.00 credit toward their March 2012 dues payments.

Please note that we did not allow back to back winners this year so if you won last year, you were not eligible to win this year.

Thank you to all of the families who participated this year. We thought that the neighborhood was especially festive and beautifully deocorated!

If you have any questions, please contact a member of the Board of Directors.

To: Residents of Shelton’s Run HOA

American Disposal Services is Pleased to be Your
Waste & Recycling Collection Company

The following is a schedule of your pickup days

Trash – TUESDAY/FRIDAY Recycling – TUESDAY Bulk Items – FRIDAY

• TRASH PICKUP – Household waste only, no construction or remodeling waste. No Household Hazardous waste (paint, pesticides, oil, gas, antifreeze, corrosive chemicals, etc.). For more information on Household Hazardous Waste contact the Stafford County Office of Solid Waste @ 540-658-4590.

• RECYCLING PICKUP – Acceptable items include: Aluminum cans, aluminum foil & trays rinsed & cleaned, metal food & beverage cans, clear & colored glass, #1 thru #7 plastics, plastic bottles, wide mouth plastic containers & rigid plastics. Newspapers, mixed paper, junk mail, magazines, phone books & catalogs. Empty aerosol cans. Cardboard, paperboard (including cereal boxes without the lining and frozen food packages, etc) and corrugated cardboard. Moving boxes are recyclable & must be placed out with recycling collection. *These items may be commingled in the same recycling container. We prefer you do not use plastic bags for recycling.

• YARD DEBRIS – Grass clippings & leaves should be bagged in clear plastic bags, brown paper bags, or personal can clearly marked “Yard Debris”. Brush & limbs should be bundled and tied. Limbs should not exceed four feet in length and three inches in diameter. Items that are bagged or bundled are not to exceed 50 lbs. Concrete, bricks, blocks, mulch, dirt and sod are not acceptable.

• BULK ITEMS – Please notify customer service @ 703-368-0500 at least 24 hours in advance when putting out bulk items.

• HOLIDAYS – American Disposal Services does not operate on Thanksgiving, Christmas, or New Year’s days. Your trash &/or recycling will be picked up on the next scheduled collection day.

Please have your waste & recycling @ curbside by 6:00 AM or the night before.
Please contact customer service @ 703-368-0500 if you have any questions.

Your Board of Directors spent a number of hours over the course of four meetings in November and December working on the 2012 budget. The 2010 Board put together a very solid budget for 2011 – it funded all of our requirements, to include the required amount for our strategic reserve. However, two of the primary cost drivers in our budget are the landscaping contract and the trash/recycling contract – both of which expire on December 31, 2011. We solicited at least three proposals for each area and then reviewed them to see which ones could best conform to our anticipated 2012 budget controls. What we discovered is that we are currently the beneficiary of a lower than industry average (by approximately $10,000) for our landscaping services. When combined with a lower cost (and what we felt was a lower quality) trash and recycling contract, it meant that for 2012 we were faced with the prospect of raising our Homeowner’s Association dues.

Before we considered the increase, we went back several years to examine previous boards and the efforts they undertook to restrain the growth of our dues. There were a variety of means employed, including in some instances not fully funding our strategic reserve account. At the conclusion of our analysis, although we selected the lowest bid for landscaping and the second lowest bid for trash/recycling, we determined that an increase in dues is both necessary and unavoidable. Further, our work has shown that we cannot delay realigning our budget to the current market rates without running the risk of significantly reducing our strategic reserve.

Therefore, the board voted to raise the Shelton’s Run Homeowner’s Association dues. In order to try and mitigate the impact on family budgets, we are staggering the increase in 2012. For the semi-annual period due on 1 March 2012, the increase will be to $215.00. For the semi-annual period due on 1 September 2012, the increase will be to $230.00. In 2013, the amounts for both semi-annual periods will be $230.00, or $460.00 annually.

As required, we are publishing our 2012 budget, which is attached to this post. Please review the information contained in it and let us know if you have any questions. I am very confident in the work we did and the amount of rigor we applied to the process. We are homeowners as well, and the prospect of higher dues appeals to none of us. However, we are confident these changes will ensure our association continues to receive the services necessary to maintain our community at a level we’ve all come to expect.

Budget Sheet for 2012

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The meeting began around 3:15pm. All of the members of the current Board in attendance were introduced to the community and a member from each family in attendance introduced their family to the group. Chad Breeden, President of the HOA, then presented some brief comments about issues that are currently being addressed by the Board.

Those items included:

1. The 2010 audit was completed by the accountant and we were found to be in compliance. There were a few issues that had to be addressed for this year, but new policies and procedures have been put in place to address these issues for 2011 and going forward.

2. The Board is currently in the process of soliciting bids for Waste Removal/ Recycling and Common Area Maintenance and Landscaping for the community. Both of our current contracts with County Waste and Village Landscaping are expiring in December of 2011. The bids will be reviewed at a special meeting of the Board in November and the budget with the new contract amounts will be published in the December community newsletter. We will do our very best to choose the contracts that best meet the needs of our community.

3. The community newsletter will continue to be mailed out to all members of the community until we receive a higher percentage of valid email addresses for members of our community. We do not have enough valid email addresses to continue with the email program at this time.

4. We are currently working on a project to build a new fence at the front of Walt Whitman Boulevard and Shelton Shop Road to match the one on the opposite side of the road with the Shelton’s Run brick sign. As many of you will recall, the community previously had a fence in that location, but it was removed when it fell into disrepair. The new owners of the property are working with the Board to complete this project, which we believe will add to the beauty and appeal of our community.

5. The Board terms of Laura Acheson and Mike McClelland expire on December 31, 2011. Therefore, an election was required to elect two new Board members to fill their positions.

6. Three candidates presented themselves to the community for consideration to be elected to the Board of Directors. A secret ballot was held to elect the two new members. Each household was asked to vote for two candidates. With a quorum of 22 households in attendance and voting, Laura Acheson and Mark Brinson were elected to serve terms on the Board of Directors from 2012-2014.

The Board of Directors welcome Laura and Mark back for second terms and thank them for their dedication and service to our community!

A very special thank you to Laura and Bruce Acheson, Kathie and Lee Wetzel, Chad and Sandy Breeden, Andrea Sharp, Jimmy Newsome and Julie Hancock for their extraordinary efforts before and after the picnic to distribute the flyers, purchase all of the food for the picnic and provide set up and clean up at the event.

The next community meeting will be held in April 2012 at the Porter Library. Please plan to join us then for updates on our community and our ongoing projects.

Shelton’s Run HOA
P.O. Box 793
Garrisonville, VA 22463

It is important that we have this information so we can contact both the homeowners and tenants.