Fall 2022 Newsletter Items

Notes from the President of the Board.

Well, it has certainly been another trying year. Due to the Covid 19 pandemic we had to forgo our annual ” in person” meeting last November and conduct most of our quarterly board of directors’ meetings via Zoom or a smaller in person meeting. We continue to monitor email and calls to the association phone to stay current on all needed business.

It is all our responsibility to act as good neighbors – keeping our grass cut, our homes and lots clean and clutter free and obeying all the local ordinances for Boone County and the City of Belvidere. Please continue to be safe and healthy as the cooler weather arrives.

Christmas Decoration winners We will have our 9th annual Christmas Decorating Contest with the 1st place prize being a $50 and 2nd place a $25 gift card to a local restaurant again this year. Judging will take place during the week of December 15th. You must be in good standing with your dues current to win. Also, to make the contest more competitive, the same home cannot win the 1st place prize in 2 consecutive years. If you are not decorating your house and would like to be on the judging committee, please contact us. Prizes will be awarded for the most appealing lighting display. As a reminder, please make sure that your lighting and displays are removed after the Holidays as soon as weather permits.

The Annual Community Garage Sale Weekend occurred June 16 -18. We had several homeowners participate this year. It was not quite a large as in years past, but we are still planning on having it again in June 2023.

Neighborhood Watch – we are still looking for a coordinator and street captains to work with the Community Officer from the Belvidere Police Department – Officer Blankenship. It is a proven fact that this program reduces crime and vandalism in communities that have an active Neighborhood Watch program. Please send us an email or call if you would be willing to participate in our program.

Lights on for Safety and Security – we encourage all homeowners to leave their outside lights on during the evening / overnight hours. LED lightbulbs have very low energy consumption and coupled with making sure your doors and windows are locked, will increase your homes security. We will also continue to have the 24/7 video monitoring of our entrance by the FLOCK camera system we had installed.

If you notice a street light out near your home, please visit the ComEd website and do a search for street light outage.

http://belvidereprairieplace.com – we are currently negotiating with a local service provider to maintain and make updates to our website. We are very excited to bring this service on line as our website is very out of date. We hope to have this accomplished before the annual meeting in November.

We want to make sure that all the homeowners realize that we are a volunteer board. We are all still required to pay our dues just like all of you. We donate a lot of time each week and month having board meetings, working with real estate agents & attorneys when properties are sold, filing out various forms and IRS tax returns, keeping track of all the finances and paying invoices for various services, writing newsletters and going to the printer, stuffing envelopes, answering emails and phone calls from homeowners and working with our association attorney to name but a few of the tasks we perform. Our goal is to have a nice, safe neighborhood to live in and keep our property values from deteriorating.