To begin, I would like to thank several members of our board and other community members who have put extra effort in this year to facilitate the smooth running of Tower Shores. In no particular order, a big thank you to:
* Carey Horchler for continuing to serve as Treasurer. It is a complicated job with year-round responsibilities and significant effort required to pull together the monthly reports.
* Brad Newcomer for two big efforts. Firstly, Brad led the landscaping committee and put in a lot of time and some personal elbow grease to keep our neighborhood looking great. Brad was also instrumental securing space for our additional mailboxes, working with the postmaster, and seeing the job through to completion.
* Tom Seamon & Tony Nerlinger for co-chairing the Dune Committee. They put considerable effort into thoroughly researching options to protect and preserve our dunes and help our beach grow.
* Miles Weigold and Dan Cohen for the countless hours they put into keeping Tower Shores owners informed about important community news via email and website.
* Elizabeth Frazee for chairing the Restrictive Covenants committee and shepherding the document through the revision process. She did a wonderful job finding consensus and led the committee in creating a mutually agreeable final document to be voted on in this election.
* Ari Elkin for chairing the dog committee and working with owners to suggest wording for a proposed revision to the rule about dogs on the beach, also to be voted on in this election.
* Dennis O’Brien for continuing to chair the Budget committee. His spreadsheets make our job easy!
* Mike Stang for heading the Trash Committee. Mike put in significant time and effort serving as a liaison between community members and Republic, our trash and recycling service. He worked tirelessly to make sure the trash was picked up and he advocated for our community when issues arose. We can also thank Mike for arranging to have dumpsters available over Memorial Day.
We have three important issues on the ballot and I encourage everyone to vote on all of them. I will briefly share my opinions with you, but of course encourage you to vote using your own good judgement and common sense. Firstly, please consider voting to approve the revised RC document. Many smart community members participated in the committee and worked very hard to make reasonable changes to the document. This update has been a long time coming and represents a positive step toward the future for Tower Shores. Secondly, I personally am opposed to changing the rule about dogs on the beach. I think that in the crowded summer season that dogs will be a nuisance in many ways. However, I appreciate the collaborative process we undertook to bring this issue to a community-wide vote and hope that whatever the outcome is, we can put this issue to rest. Lastly, there is a straw poll question on the ballot to gauge community interest in having lifeguards on our beaches. If a majority of owners are interested in hiring lifeguards despite the commensurate dues increase and other possible issues, then I would like to pursue it. If interest is insufficient, then I want the Board to be able to focus its efforts more productively.
On a personal note, I would like to thank the community for the opportunity to serve as your president for the past two years. The time has come for me to pass the gavel. However, I do still have a year left in my term on the Board and I am looking forward to continuing to serve the community in a different capacity.
I hope to see you all on the beach this summer!
Karen Castle
TSBA President