State of the Subdivision 2016

We appreciate the turnout of residents for the KNIA annual meeting last night despite the cold, snowy weather.

Role of the KNIA Board: The role of the KNIA board was discussed by our president, Ron Toth, after board members and residents introduced themselves. (Those in attendance ranged from 7 months as residents of Kimberley North all the way up to 50 years here!!! )

One of the board’s biggest responsibilities is to make sure your dues dollars are used responsibly and for the betterment of the neighborhood and residents.

Funding from dues collection — our only source of funding — is used to provide certain amenities to the residents of Kimberley North.   These include —

• Snow removal – We take care of that as a service to our residents and guests because the municipality doesn’t.  It hasn’t been much of an issue this year, but in recent years it typically has been.
• Road repairs – We learned long ago that it’s much more cost efficient for us to contract road repair services rather than to let the township or county set up a special assessment district that places an onerous burden on a small number of home owners.  Joel Katz is our road commissioner.  Each spring he has a survey done on the condition of our road system.  We then caulk cracks, patch holes and repave as necessary.
• Maintenance of our common areas – These are the entrance islands and associated signage.  We provide care and maintenance, including sign wall repair, planting, watering, lighting and lawn cutting.

The board also advocates for our residents with various government agencies as their actions affect us.  These include the departments and representatives that are part of governments in West Bloomfield, Farmington Hills, and Oakland County — Zoning, Code Enforcement, Road Commission of Oakland County, Woodlands and Wetlands Board, to name a few. We have established relationships with representatives of some of those entities who will listen to our concerns.

Your role as KNIA residents: We encourage KNIA residents to get informed and involved in local government. Go to meetings and voice your concerns. We have a page on our website that lists dozens of useful links to local, county, and state resources, schools, libraries, and more. KNIA board meetings are open to our residents and meeting dates are listed on this website. The board welcomes residents who are willing to volunteer their time and talents to in various ways to help out.

The big news at this meeting — changes in trash pickup billing and reduction of annual dues!

For many years the KNIA board has handled payment for trash hauling.  The board makes a single lump sum payment to the current trash contractor, Rizzo Environmental. Until recently Rizzo and previous trash contractors recognized the benefit of collecting from one source instead of billing and collecting from our 255 homeowners. This arrangement also benefited our residents because we got a nice discount that we were able to pass along to residents in the form of lower annual dues.

Rizzo Environmental has an exclusive contract with West Bloomfield Township. They are the only approved trash contractor and residents have no alternatives but to use them. The board was recently notified by Rizzo that they would no longer honor our discount arrangement for their services. The board tried to negotiate with Rizzo (as did other groups) without success. The discount that we enjoyed for many years was gone and residents will have to pay the same rate as all other West Bloomfield residents.

After much discussion, the KNIA board determined that continuing in the middleman role for trash payment would no longer benefit residents. Rizzo Environmental will mail notices to our residents explaining the changes and then begin billing each household directly.

In light of this change the board proposed reducing annual dues by the amount we paid Rizzo when we had our discount. That amount is $140 per year for each household in the subdivision.  That would reduce your annual dues from $340 to $200 per year.

Rizzo will offer households different rates based on whether you pay by the month, quarter, or year. They will offer senior discounts. Also, you can arrange for non-pick-up if you will be away and they won’t bill you for those weeks. So, under some circumstances, that might partially offset some of the net rate increase.

You can find all the details at the Rizzo Environmental Services web site.

The board also proposed an alternate dues reduction plan that was accepted by all present at the meeting. This plan will reduce your dues by dues by $120 with the $20 difference to be used for contingencies such as road repair, landscape, or other needs.  This will reduce your annual dues to $220.

It was explained that our roads are about 50 years old. However, they are holding up rather well compared to nearby neighborhoods because of the proactive maintenance we provide every year. We can’t anticipate from one year to the next what deterioration might take place. There might be a need for bigger repairs in the future and we would like to be prepared for that.

Board Member Election results

• President – Ron Toth
• Vice President – John Rofel
• Treasurer – Alan Abrahams
• Secretary – Diana Katz
• Directors at Large
  • Anthony Barbour
  • Steve Glick
  • Joel Katz
  • Gladys Margosian