Thank you to everyone who participated or attended our fourth Annual Parade of Garage Sales and thank you to Maricel McDonald for sponsoring the event with prizes, advertising, and mapping. We hope the event benefited all participants and brought joy to the community.
Spring soccer with Calgary Blizzards is wrapping up after another successful season. We did once again receive concerns about poor field conditions and wanted to let everyone know this is an ongoing battle with the City over community maintenance citywide. One item I have brought to the Parks Director is the underground sprinklers which were installed by the Developer (Anthem United) when building the community which we paid for when purchasing our lots. Sadly, the city turned off most of these sprinklers years ago during the “Assumption Day” which is defined in the Sage Hill Resident Association Bylaws as “the day upon which the Company becomes responsible for the performance of all or a portion of the Work for a particular Phase pursuant to an Assumption Notice”. Essentially that means the Developer has passed off maintenance of the space to either a Residents Association or the City of Calgary. As these underground sprinklers were a community feature when we bought the space, I feel they should be maintained and used as we individually paid for them when we bought our lots. I was told they would be turned on for June, July, and August, but have not yet seen or heard of them in use. If anyone can confirm their use through our social media that would be great as we may need to follow up. The city seems to favor 3-1-1 reports to figure out where to perform work, which is a frustrating model for us, as any reasonable person would believe the city should perform seasonal maintenance work in a simple reoccurring schedule. However, each year we seem to fall through the cracks, and it becomes more apparent the city is more productive when responding to citizens’ service requests rather than focusing on scheduled maintenance.
One of many issues is the state of our boulevards and landscaping in parks. For example, the median on Sage Hill Drive just south of 144 Ave has been desecrated from winter’s salt spray and drought, and most of the grass and trees need to be replaced. We find it inefficient that citizens must file reports for service as the area is directly outside the compound to the maintenance depot and surely workers pass by almost daily and can observe watering or care is urgently required. I have reached out to the Presidents of the Sage Hill Residents Association and Symons Gate Homeowners Association inviting them to participate in dialog with the city on how we can improve maintenance around the community with city-owned assets and am currently waiting for a response. An email was also sent to Councillor Wyness several weeks ago but no one from their office has replied or attended our monthly community meetings for some time now. We will follow up as needed to get answers and results for our community.
Happy Stampeding everyone,
Ross Utigard, President
Sage Hill Residents Association
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