Barony Place I/Barony Place II

Try 803.409.9976 as the new, temporary, phone number for the Summit HOA office. Somebody blew up the existing phone system. Maybe the truth will come out one of these days. Or the truth may never be known. The new phone line was to be ready on January 26. Now? The temporary number may be in use through February.

The following email was sent on January 23rd to the Lieutenant of the RCSD Traffic Team, two Region 7 officers at RCSD, the "safety officer" (Deputy Cuzzupe) and the HOA board members.   Good afternoon, Lt. Dowdy, I am writing with a suggestion for curbing speeding on Summit Parkway between Hard Scrabble Road and Clemson Road. The worst problems are weekday rush-hours, after school (when Ridge View H.S. lets out), evenings, nights and week-ends. I am a resident in Barony Place II (in The Summit). I am not on any committee of the homeowners association and do not speak for the board of directors or the HOA. I am a former deputy sheriff and motorcycle patrol officer. Would you consider putting a deputy from the RCSD Traffic Team on foot "in the bushes" along Summit Parkway with a radar gun? He could act as a spotter for two-three deputies farther down the roadway, who would stop speeders and ticket them (No warnings, please). The HOA has a Special-Duty Agreement with ...

The following message has been sent to the HOA Board of Directors. If you agree with any of it, chime in. The Board has gone into hiding with its email addresses. Although board members' names are shown on Page 2 of the Scoop each month, there is now no contact information for them in the Scoop or on the HOA's website.  The board is apparently forcing homeowners (and lucky residents) to use the webform on the website's "Contact Us" page. You may or may not ever find out if any board members see your submission.  Show up at monthly board meetings on Zoom. Be sure to get the link from the office. Phones might even be working again this week. If not, email TRigon@camsmgt.com or ARedfern@camsmgt.com Members of the Board, More reasons why the Board should appoint a board member or Member to chair the Scoop: January issue in newspaper box on morning of Jan. 24.  What about the many homes that do not have newspaper boxes? Are Scoops still thrown on the ground? Senior Lu...

The following email has been sent to the HOA Board of Directors and the HOA Management agent, Angela Adleman. Good afternoon, board members and Angela, When you hold your pre-board meeting on January 25, will you please confine business to planning the agenda for the February 1st Regular Board Meeting? No "business" should be conducted in secret at the pre-board meeting. Justin occasionally refers to it as a workshop. No decisions should be made. No votes should be taken. No agreements to vote certain ways should be made. Business should be conducted in the open at the monthly board meetings. Discussions of business matters should be conducted in full public view at monthly board meetings. The board should make decisions by voting on Motions made and seconded. The Minutes should be approved by the full board. There are often errors and omissions in the Minutes, but no one ever offers corrections. The Minutes erroneously state every month that they were approved "by the b...

If you live on Barony Place Circle (Barony Place II) and receive a parking violation letter from the HOA office, be sure to let me know. The CC&Rs do not apply to the street, which is publicly-owned and -maintained by Richland County. I have a copy of the Deed by which Barony Place Circle was conveyed by Mungo to Richland County. There is no mention whatsoever of the homeowners' association or the CC&Rs. Without that, the County owns the street. The only "rules" that apply are the County ordinances and State laws, which are enforced by the Richland County Sheriff's Department and the S.C. Highway Patrol. Know the laws. Know your rights.  Let me know if you receive a warning letter or, as the HOA calls it, a "Courtesy Letter" or "Courtesy Warning." If you live elsewhere in The Summit, you'll have to find out whether your streets were conveyed to the County "subject to the CC&Rs". It's possible to learn that. (It took me...

Last night three punks were at 105 Indigo Springs Drive, right off Barony Place Drive, and they got into one car parked in a driveway. The driver's door appeared to be unlocked in the video posted on Next Door.  Who else wants to put a stop to this? I asked the HOA's Safety Committee in 2018 to put together a group that would patrol our streets at night. Its response? NO. Gosh, what about liability? That could have easily been resolved with Releases. How are we going to stop it? By helping the Richland County Sheriff's Department (RCSD). Deputies can't be everywhere. We can! How do we stop thefts from cars? By cruising our neighborhoods between 1:00AM-5:00AM, when the little urchins are roaming the streets. The kids in the video appear to be teenagers. They are probably students at Ridge View High School.  When we see kids roaming the streets, we'll notify RCSD. What reason is for them to be out at 1-5AM, if they aren't up to no-good? We will not make contact wi...

Call the HOA phone number: 803.865.0609. "We're sorry. You have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service." Seriously??? What is the real reason behind this interruption in the business telephone line of the HOA? And what in the world is taking so long to fix it and get the office phones working again? Just in case you are having trouble reachng the officers of the association, you should be able to find their names, board offices, and contact information on The Summit's website. Right? Wrong! For some unknown reason, the board members and the officers are no longer listed on the website for the HOA. If you still have your old copies of the Summit Scoop, at least the names of the Directors and officers are there. Look on Page Two. But you won't find any contact information. No email address. No phone number. Use the webform on the HOA's website to communicate with the office. You can find the form by going to the website, www.summ...

If you are having trouble getting through to the HOA office, it may be because of a "glitch" in the phone system or phone lines. I heard today (Jan. 12) that phones are not working at the office and that there won't be any phone service until January 25. Naturally, I wonder just what kind of "glitch" that could be and who is/was responsible for it. The office may be sending out an email notice of the problem. I haven't called the office myself to verify this. I prefer to conduct business by email, so that I have a record of the communication. Call your Voting Member to ask what is going on. The list of Voting Members is in the Summit Scoop. There is also a list on the HOA website at www.summithomeowners.com Good luck if no phone number or email address is listed for your VM. 

Would it be helpful to the Members of the SCA to know when terms-of-office end for HOA board members? Shouldn't that information be posted on The Summit's website? And who the officers are? Of course, that would mean that a board member's name and office would be posted on the website - which they are not. What's the secret? The current line-up is President, Justin Martin (2021-2023) Vice President, Auby Dellinger (2020-2022) Secretary, Greg Thomas (2021-2023) Treasurer, Vernell Butler (2020-2022) Directors: Brenda Bryant (2021-2023) Mary Ann Game (2021-2023) Paul Hill (2021-2023) The election of officers was conducted in secret at a pre-board meeting (workshop) on November 30th and announced to the Members on December 7th. Justin had his slate all picked out and suggested it. Each officer should have been elected individually, with nominations from the other directors. You'll quickly see that five directors are serving terms of 2021-2023. This is wrong. The By-Law...

Do the owners of 2,500 homes in The Summit realize that the HOA is operating without a budget? What if bill-paying had to stop? What if no payments could be made for phone, street lights, water, CAMS employees, HOA maintenance man, RCSD special-duty deputies? Should the Finance Committee members (half of whom are Board Directors) and the Board itself have put in a few more hours over the months of September and October to make sure that the 2022 Budget was done? By canceling the January 4th board meeting at the last minute, the Board ducked its responsibility to the 2,500 Members of the HOA and did not have to answer for its failure to adopt a Final Budget for 2022. This means that it will be February 1st before there is a Budget. Will there be a discussion of the Budget and full disclosure to the Members of what is in the budget and why it took so long to approve? Why didn't the President and the Treasurer of the HOA make sure that the budget was finished on time? Show up for the ...

Following is the email I have sent to the HOA board today. Are you willing to insist on a board meeting tonight? The meeting should be held as announced in the December and November issues of the Summit Scoop. There is time for CAMS to send out the Zoom meeting link. Who decided to cancel the meeting? Did the board agree? Are you concerned that the 2022 Budget has not been finalized yet? Tonight you could demand that the Proposed Budget be reviewed as is and question the President and the Treasurer why the Budget wasn't finished in 2021? Demand to know why the Finance Committee didn't finish their work? Are there too many board members on the Finance Committee? Could you receive a report from CAMS tonight on the estimated $30,000 to be spent repairing the sign and pergola at Summit Parkway and Summit Ridge Drive? Are you satisfied with the pace of repairs? Should the SCA have proceeded with repairs, regardless of any insurance company's reimbursement timetable? The repairs ...

I'm thinking of broadening the distribution of this blog beyond the Barony Place Neighborhood (Barony Place I and Barony Place II). Any thoughts? Should I make it a Summit-wide blog?

If you are planning to attend the January 4th HOA board meeting, be sure to check with the office to learn if it has been canceled. The phones at the office should be working by now. If not, email the office. If it will be held, be sure to get the Zoom meeting link. I have emailed the Board to urge them not to cancel the meeting, especially on short notice and for no good business purpose.  What should be addressed at the January 4th board meeting? The most urgent item is the approval of the 2022 Budget. That should have been finished by the November 2021 meeting, but it wasn't. Cancellation of the September board meeting might have delayed the budget.  Management of the HOA by the board is lacking, or the budget would have been finished. The finance committee had work to do, and then the full board needed to approve it. Neither has happened. Several Neighborhoods do not have Voting Members and/or two Alternates. The Board needed a report from Jesse McClinton on his plans to h...

As I drove home from Food Lion this morning and some wacko went speeding past me on Summit Parkway, I thought of t he one way to stop speeders. The cops will NEVER get it done by writing one ticket at a time. In fact, they don't even write tickets every time they stop a speeder. Too often they issue Warnings, which do no good whatsoever. Two minutes later, the driver is speeding again. The ONE way to stop the speeding problem is Photo-Radar. The problem right now is that South Carolina does not allow it. Good ol' Gov. Mark Sanford put the kabosh on photo radar in 2010. The wimps in the S.C. State legislation rolled right over. The S.C. House voted 106-0, and the S.C.Senate voted 38-0. The legislation did pass a joke of a law in 56-5-70(E). An electronic ticket can be issued in S.C. only during stated emergencies, and it must be delivered to the driver within one hour of issuance. In other words, it is impossible to do so. So much for protecting the law-abiding drivers and pass...