Murky pool pumped residents need for change
A year ago, Suzanne Hackenbruch was on the wrong side of the bylaw - or so her homeowners association declared.
When the Warrenville resident urged her neighbors to protest their association's failure to open the neighborhood pool, a lawyer representing the management company sent a letter demanding a retraction and fees.
Oh what a difference a year makes.
The pool's open. Hackenbruch's slate of candidates took over the Winchester Condominium Association board in Warrenville and now she's the board president. City officials are involved and doing what they can to help to improve the subdivision. And the management company's been replaced.
Talk about a turnaround.
"The only changes that are meaningful are the ones from within - and they certainly have done that," Warrenville Mayor David Brummel said. "They've done a lot of housekeeping. That place was starting to look pretty rough."
It started with the pool.
In May 2007, Hackenbruch wrote her neighbors urging them to protest the association board and management company's decision to keep the development pool closed. They said it was too costly to repair and maintain.
But residents also contacted Warrenville officials for help with things like trash around the complex, broken garage doors and exterior building maintenance. They said Hillcrest Property Management wasn't taking care of the site. Board and management company representatives said residents allowed the units to deteriorate and created the problem themselves.
Brummel said that while the city stepped in and tried to serve as a mediator, helping improvements along through inspections, he urged residents to consider running for the board.
Hackenbruch said her slate of candidates assumed three of the association board's five seats last fall, and started trying to make changes right away.
"What the people who own units here were looking for is improvement in and delivery of services," she said.
A representative for Hillcrest, who confirmed the company's contract expires Sept. 1, said he's not sure what's going on at the property any more because the board's become "secretive" and referred questions to Hackenbruch.
She fully admits to running operations from piles of paperwork she's got stacked on her dining room table until the new firm gets on board.
"We don't have 400 problems here, we have 400 different kind of problems," she said of the myriad tasks.
Winchester resident Erendira Ferrer, who similarly had complained about the complex in the past, said it's noticeably improved since residents stepped up to take an active role.
"People are seeing a difference," she said.
Perhaps most noticeable is the pool. The new board solicited bids on its own without the management company, hired the contractors and found someone within the development who had experience and could help. It opened a little late this summer, but the pool still opened for the first time since 2006.
Brummel said Winchester still has some problems the city is willing to help resolve. City officials are slated to meet later this month with the association board. But it's the sort of success story he hopes is contagious.
"This is kind of exciting and unique," Brummel said. "I'm really proud of the people in there for what they've done. It's difficult to take a mess and clean it up."