Silver Springs SF Board Meeting – April 2013
Silver Springs Single Family Board Mtg.
6:30 p.m.
at St. Luke’s Church
Shortly after this SSSF Board of Trustees meeting the Property owners received an information sheet from the board regarding the SSSF underdrain system. Here is an email voicing my concerns and sent to SSSF Board President Dwight Hibdon:
https://www.silverspringscommunity.com/utilities/water/underdrain-system/
Hello Dwight,
I am writing this email as a follow up to the call I made to you today regarding the underdrain letter sent this month to the SSSF property owners.
I have been very concerned regarding the selective information that is periodically disseminated to the SSSF property owners over the last years. I find that the whole story and implications of the existence and abandonment of the French drains or underdrain system within the Silver Springs Single Family subdivision are not being fully disclosed to the property owners.
I was a founding member of the Silver Springs Single Family subdivision HOA, a mistake that will haunt me forever. I have placed a large amount of information on a website addressed as www.silverspringscommunity.com.
This S.S. community website includes all the information I have been able to gather regarding the underdrain system since 1983 and I have posted it at https://www.silverspringscommunity.com/utilities/water/underdrain-system/ I have requested correspondence and new information regarding work pursued by Bill Noland and others in an effort to reestablish a system that was twice abandoned by the majority vote of the property owners. The emails and requests for dialog I have sent to Bill Noland and the past boards have been completely ignored.
The SSSFHOA documents support my assertion since 2008 that the SSSF board are working against the wishes of the property owners for the benefit of a very few (5?) property owners who have artesian spring or artesian well, high seasonal water table, or springs run-off on their respective lots. What many of the SSSF property owners have not missed noticing is that the handful of property owners with these water issues have been the ones who have had the board working to alleviate issues that are individual property issues rather than subdivision or HOA issues. Of the 14 or 17 subdivisions in this community SSSF is the only one that has an underdrain system, a system that was abandoned by the overwhelming majority of the SSSF property owners in 1985 and 1994.
I surmise that the county has been led to believe that this subdivision cannot function without the underdrain system; that has been proven incorrect. When the underdrain was designed (c. 1978) the area was much different. Now we are in the 8th or 9th year of “drought”, recent water collection systems are in place: storm drains, drainage ditches, retention ponds, man-made ponds (lakes), sewer lines, and an uphill development of thousands of houses and businesses that now have diminished the waterflow to such an extent that many of our community streams are running dry almost year round. The three major streams of the earlier era are now contained in underground concrete viaducts.
What the past boards have not disclosed to the whole of the property owners is that the property owners 1985 vote to abandon the underdrain system has been ignored and disenfranchised for the benefit of those who want the HOA to pay for reparations for the natural conditions on their personal property. https://www.silverspringscommunity.com/wp-content/uploads/document-history-per-underdrains.pdf
There are valid and legitimate concerns for the continued retrenching of a defunct 30+ year old underdrain system. If you read the underdrain page you will read several reasons why this systems creates more problems than solutions.
—The underdrain system is superfluous for the majority of property owners.
—The underdrain system is outdated and defunct for the most part.
—The underdrain system removes, leaches, percolates lawn and landscape purchased water away from these beneficial plants.
—The underdrain system endangers the presence of established trees and landscaping growing on what has been considered since 1985 as a defunct and abandoned system
—The cost of landscape water in our community has been reported as the most costly in the state of Utah, water that is being removed by this underdrain system.
In a meeting at Bill Ligety’s house on September 4, 1985 [See link: http://www.
[“There was a meeting with county commissioner Tom Flinders and a committee for this purpose on September 5, 1985 at 7 pm at the Redpine Condos Clubhouse.”]
This link lists documents that inform us that a homeowner steering committee was formed in September 1985 to establish the Silver Springs Homeowners Association, any documents recorded by the developer prior to this establishment are no longer valid or in force. http://www.
Dwight, the HOA President’s Message letter received today lists committees which are in need of volunteers. I will volunteer to be on the Underdrain Committee in search of who and why this 30+ yr abandoned and defunct system has been unceremoniously dredged up and placed on the shoulders of the SSSF property owners without notification nor their consent, especially when the underdrain system was repealed and abandoned by the property owners at the inception of our HOA, and when the underdrain is a detriment to the trees and landscape of our neighborhood. One of the best attributes of our community are the trees and maturing landscape, the letter we received today left me feeling like board plans will destroy our best features.
I wish I had more meeting minutes from the early years. I know I typed them up however when I left office I gave them to my successor, as officers changed over the years much of the early information was lost. I am lucky to have the records that I have and that I have posted for all board officers and property owners to access and refer to.
One important event occurred in 1994 under SSSFHOA Board President Fred Stayrook. This board undertook the task for bringing up-to-date the CCRs for our subdivision. I have copies of many draft versions they produced, and I gave copies of all of them to Bill Noland. The work was tedious and required months of consideration by the board trustees and their attorney. One draft version considered including the underdrain system in the new revised CCRs. However, when the board reviewed the history of the unfinished and abandoned underdrains and the advise from attorney Don WInder that taking responsibility for these underdrains would put the property owners and board in jeopardy of possible lawsuits and costly responsibility and liability for something the County failed to oversee and then refunded the bond money to the developer though the system was incomplete; and also the fact that at the inception of the HOA in 1985 the parties closest to the situation had voted against including the abandoned underdrains in the resident owners revised CCRs, Stayrook and his board decided the liability was too great and then again did not include the underdrains in the updated 1994 version of the SSSFHOA CCRs. The final twenty pages of the 1994 CCRs were then condensed to six pages when they were recorded. Both versions are on the http://www.
The twenty page version is at http//www.
My view is that the only property owners who are insisting on the HOA taking responsibility for the underdrains are the owners who want the HOA to pay for issues on their personal lots. These few individuals are taking the County’s side (for their personal benefit) in stating that the HOA “should” be responsible, when in fact the County can be shown to have been negligent in not requiring the developer to complete the system before returning his bond to the contractor. Therefore, the underdrain system and the irrigation system were never completed and were abandoned around 1979-1980. Since that time our community has completed the lakes/ponds, drainage ditches, retention ponds, streams and inlets and outlets, and have storm drains throughout the area, etc.
The major and damaging function of the underdrains at this point is that they leech away our landscaping water, threaten our valuable trees, and drains out the costly water we irrigate our lawns, gardens, and landscaping. And that if the roto-rooting occurs on owner properties that fencing, driveways, patios, trees, landscaping, storage sheds, play equipment, and who knows what else will be removed or damaged by the process.
I again am volunteering to head the underdrain system committee to explain and provide ALL the information regarding this community liability to all the HOA property owners.
Sincerely,
Lucy Archer