At a special meeting of the EE Board held Monday, July 19, the Board voted to assume responsibility, on a trial basis, of maintaining the light bulbs in our streetlights. This means when your streetlight burns out, the Board will provide you with a new CFL bulb, at HOA expense and at no direct cost to you. This is being done to assure continued use of a uniform wattage bulb in all Esperanza Estates street lights, which the Board deems important, for aesthetics and safety. For a new bulb, call 867-8067, or 398 4829. Please save these numbers in a place where you can locate them. The Board has reached an arrangement with a supplier of bulbs that enables us to purchase the same at a cost less than wholesale.

We have been advised by Trico, the electric utility which supplies EE, that the savings by converting the entire subdivision to the use of the CFL bulb we have selected, is more than $600 monthly.

Dean Hess has been appointed to membership on the EE Board of Directors, to take the place of Sandy Reed, who recently resigned. Dean has been active and interested in our HOA activities for some time, and will make a solid and hardworking member.

With the recent very warm temperatures, the pool solar heater has been working overtime, and recent pool temperatures reached about 90 degrees. The solar heater has been adjusted, however, and these temps have dropped back to the mid 80’s. It was recently noted that our natural gas bill for the pool/spa has dropped substantially--as is expected because of the help we receive from the sun. The only gas used at this time of year is for the spa.

Many thanks to volunteers Stoney Brown, Bob Hunton, Jerry McCall, and an anonymous resident, who shoveled about 2 tons of sand off of Portillo and lower Napa after the recent storms. The County is supposed to take care of this, but with Pima County--it’s good luck getting them off the dime, so we do it ourselves. They take care of removing the sand like they take of our streets--they basically don’t! Much of what was shoveled off of lower Napa was the crumbling surface of Regalo. Pretty sad.

The Green Valley Fire Department came to our rescue this past Wednesday and used their ladder truck to take down the US flag that had become stuck at the top of the flag pole and remove the Arizona state flag that had blown into a nearby palm tree when the halyard broke recently. They also re-strung a new nylon halyard for us, so we will be back in business with new flags as soon as Sam Barnard returns in August. Sam is one of our ‘flag guys’ who take care of the flags for us, making sure they are appropriately displayed, and replaced as necessary. Our other ‘flag guy’ is Greg Gramstad. We rely on both of these gentlemen to make sure our flags are displayed correctly, replaced as needed, and disposed of correctly when necessary. A letter of thanks and appreciation has been sent to the GVFD from the HOA for their help.

If you saw the front page of the GV News for this past Wednesday, July 21, you saw the reason why the HOA requires tall palms to be trimmed annually. If you didn’t see this photo, it was of a tall palm in a private yard that had caught on fire because it had 2 or 3 years of dead growth on it--a potentially very dangerous situation if it fell on a nearby roof. We continue to have a few residents here who have not taken care of their trees and steps are underway to take care of this situation. It appears that we had a lightning strike on a tall palm within the subdivision on Wednesday evening--and it had been trimmed. Fortunately, when the trees have been trimmed, there is nothing to burn. But with an untrimmed tree it is not at all a matter than can be left to chance.

Monsoon report: about 2 inches of rain this past week-- fine storms on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday early morning, and a short squall on Friday.

The Green Valley-Sahuarita Food Bank advises that the residents of Esperanza Estates have contributed 455 pounds of food during the second quarter of this year. The Food Bank is most appreciative.

The solar lights at the pool, which were removed when the palms were trimmed, have been replaced. Another item regarding the pool--the main entry gate has been adjusted to close securely after opening by tightening the gate spring. Recent complaints of non-owners gaining entry to the pool because of failure of the gate to close properly have been received, and Pima County ordinances require a self-closing gate on a pool enclosure.

Have a good week, and keep thinking rain.