Greeting Dan, Bruce and Jaana,
 
When I was at Las Palmas a week ago I noticed there were only about 12 lounge chairs around the main pool area and many had no cushions on them. Needless to say, guests were complaining.The following day I curiously observed a group of Las Palmas maintenance workers sand blasting a stack of lounge chairs behind the Bonita building.
 
It was my understanding the homeowners voted at the January HOA meeting to transport all the lounge chairs to Mexicali for sand blasting, a galvanization process (of some sort), followed by a baked on powder paint coating in order to ensure a proper finish. Why then are the lounge chairs now being worked on by HOA employees?
 
The cushions were supposed to be reupholstered locally, I believe, so why are there so many lounge chairs around the pool without cushions? With Spring Break upon us and Easter just around the corner, visiting homeowners and guests are sure to be complaining.
 
Also wondering what the status is on the cool deck replacement project for the front buildings? The high occupancy/traffic months are usually April through August. Is it reasonable to expect project completion will be accomplished before then, as originally planned?
 
Best Regards,
 
Cathryn Stotesbery
Delphin 603-A
 
 
 
Cathryn,
 
Well, let me try to answer all your questions.  First let me say that the board is constantly trying to save the owners money at every turn.  Regarding the pool lounges and chairs the board is being very careful before we make the final decision to either powder coat what we have or just buy new.  The prices we were collecting were not good for powder coating and it was looking like just buying new was going to be the way to go.  Then the staff at Palmas acquired for FREE a sandblasting machine.  Of course there is plenty of sand in Mexico for FREE also.  The sandblasting per hour in USA was going to be $65.00 an hour and Mexicali was pricey also.  We are able to have our employees sandblast for a mere fraction of the cost.  Then to the powder coating.  This past week Francisco and staff drove to Mexicali and dropped off sample chairs and lounges.  They also brought to Yuma chairs and lounges.  We are now having them powder coated in both the USA and Mexico to see who will give us the best deal and has the best looking final product.  Concurrently Dan is working with a company who can ship directly from China brand new chairs and lounges if the board determines the powder coating is not going to be good enough or cost effective enough.
 
Regarding resort user complaints and less chairs.  Yes, it is true.  We have not completed this project yet and we will probably not have it done in time for the spring break since it is right now spring break.   Timing is bad but timing is always bad.  Having a resort in Mexico on the water with the water being Salt water causes constant decay and maint requirements.  The chairs and lounges have been available since 2004 for the spring break users.  This year we just did not make it.  We hope to have the project done in time for the really big occupancy time which will be Santa Semana (Mexico Easter Week), we have already scheduled a 100% occupancy with rentals for this week I'm being told.
 
My recollection of the board meeting was this:  The owners agreed for the board to proceed to look into and investigate the powder coating process since the chairs we have are a very good and strong base.  We did not have a specific lock on a Mexicali, California, Tucson, Phoenix, or Yuma powder coating company that we were going to work with.  We did have two owners step up one from California and one with a company from Tucson/Phoenix and the quotes we got from them we might as well just went out and bought new chairs they were out of sight.
 
Regarding the cool decking I would have to get back to Franscico and find out where we are with that project.  I know we left him with instructions for finishing buidling painting and putting down some colored rocks, plus cool deck on Baja which is long over due.   Hope this shed some light on the quesitons you posed.   
 
Bruce
 
Additionally, the Board is currently working on deciding how to deal with the cool decking. As stated in the owners meeting , resurfacing was done three years ago and we are still having issues. The board needs to spend some time finding what will be the best solution before we make a financial commitment ot fix the cool decking. We do not want to keep on spending money on something that is not working. The pool heating policy will not change as per out owners meeting untill we find a more cost effective way to heat the pool i.e. Solar or Geo thermal or the owners vote to heat the main pool and also increase the budget therebuy increasing the fees. Estimated cost for heating the big pool is $6000.00 per week. On our  next owners meeting the owners can decide if they want this and what weeks they want to heat the pool.  
 
Till then everything will be status quo...
Thanks
Dan