They are about to dim the light, introduce the players and play the national anthem. When the lights come back on it will be time to drop the puck for the Houston Aeros to get it on against their division rival the Peoria Riverman. Are you going to be there? Our 9th annual C.I.A. Services Hockey Night with the Houston Aeros is set for Saturday, March 10th. The Aeros are fighting hard for a playoff spot and the Riverman are in the way. The Aeros will be coming home after a two-week road trip including two games in Peoria. This will be an important game - the players will be going all out thankful they are back in front of the home crowd. The action is non-stop, fast and physical. Here's your chance to have a fun evening out with your family.

Each year we invite all of our community volunteers and their families to join us to cheer on the Aeros. Many join us for a dinner before the game. We have lots of nice door prizes. In January, we mailed our formal invitation with details and directions - if you missed it, click here. You can reserve your tickets by sending an email to HockeyNight@ciaservices.com or calling our Southwest Office at 713-981-9000. We guarantee you'll have a great time!

Hockey Night 2003		Hockey Night 2004
Hockey Night 2005		Hockey Night 2006

The March and April calendars for the popular C.I.A. Services Seminar Series contains four core seminars that should be taken by all Board members: Board Member Orientation, Understanding Collections & Financial Reports, Practical Deed Restriction Management and Community Website Administrator Training. Each seminar begins at 6:30 p.m. and runs 2-1/2 hours. We provide a nice dinner so you don't have to rush to eat dinner beforehand.  You’ll leave with knowledge you can use immediately and a great notebook with the seminar slides, samples and reference materials.

This seminar is a must for all new Board members and a great refresher for seasoned veterans. It will help you get up to speed quickly by understanding your responsibilities and authorities. We'll review each of the documents that govern the way you do business. We'll give you an overview of collections, deed restrictions, architectural control, contracts, facilities, insurance, conduct of meetings, elections, communications and many other important topics.

• April 10, 2007 (Tuesday), 6:30 p.m. — Southwest Office
• April 26, 2007 (Thursday), 6:30 p.m. — North Office

The first half of this seminar will cover all the steps involved in successful assessment collections.  Since not everyone pays on time, we’ll get into late fees, liens, payment plans, bankruptcy and all the legal remedies.  The second half of the seminar deals with reading and understanding your financial reports.  We’ll trace the flow of money throughout the reports so you’ll never be in the dark when staring at all those numbers.

• March 20, 2007 (Tuesday), 6:30 p.m. — Southwest Office

Deed restriction management is one of the most difficult tasks handled by homeowners associations because it involves subjective decisions, homeowner's property and emotions. This seminar covers the steps in deed restriction management and how a process can contain "intelligence" and common sense. We discuss the relation between deed restrictions and architectural guidelines and give you examples of well crafted guidelines. We'll clarify any confusion over whether something is a DR or an ACC issue. Practical deed restriction management requires clear communications and reasonable requirements.

• March 15, 2007 (Thursday), 6:30 p.m. — Southwest Office
• March 21, 2007 (Wednesday), 6:30 p.m. — North Office

This is the required training course for certification as a Community Website Administrator (CWSA) on the C.I.A Services web site. As a CWSA you'll be able to maintain the pages for your community. You'll be able to create news flashes, update key personnel, add community information, display photos, conduct surveys and much more. At the end of the seminar we'll give you a taste of HTML - the web language that will allow you to do some pretty advanced things if you like. Being a website administrator is very easy and you can do it from anywhere you have an internet connection.

• April 24, 2007 (Tuesday), 6:30 p.m. — North Office

The complete list of seminars and descriptions are on the Library page of our web site or you can just click here to view the information. You can register at any time by calling our Southwest Office at 713-981-9000 or emailing us at seminars@ciaservices.com.

The Texas Legislature is in session and as of 2/27/07, over 2700 bills have been introduced in front of the March 9th filing deadline. In 2005 sessions, a total of 12,091 bills were introduced so we'll probably see quite a few more bills filed before the deadline.

Here is a brief recap of the bills filed so far which might impact community associations and our assessment:

• HB-4 Puente: Relating to water conservation - This comprehensive bill potentially could be a vehicle for prohibiting HOAs from placing conditions on landscaping or watering.Probably won't create problems
• HB-222 Solomons: Relating to property owner's associations - This omnibus bill deals with issues such as prohibiting transfer fees, requiring filing of information with the Texas Real estate Commission, and capping fines. Very Bad
• HB-231 Ritter: Relating to the regulation of certain renewable energy technology - This bill would prohibit HOAs from restricting placement of renewable energy including solar panels.Broad - a concern
• HB-493 Orr: Relating to priority of assessment payment - This bill would dictate how assessments should be applied.Not too good
• HB-749 Dutton: Relating to the foreclosure - This bill would prohibit all foreclosures by HOAs that have restrictive covenants adopted after the bill’s effective date.Bad
• HB-976 Van Arsdale: Relating to the amendment or extension of restrictive covenants - This bill assists in renewing documents that don’t automatically renew. Good
• HB-1171 Bailey: Relating to the operation of property owners' associations - This bill would require legal notices to be in both English and Spanish, would prohibit non-judicial foreclosures and require open meetings for HOAs.Bad
• HB-1630 Martinez: Relating to the meetings and records - This bill would apply the Open Meetings and Open Records Acts to HOAs.Very bad
• HB-1651 Leibowitz: Relating to the regulation of solar energy panels - This bill would prohibit HOAs from restricting placement of solar panels. It is similar to SB-358.Reasonable revisions may be added
• SB-358 Jackson: Relating to the regulation of solar energy panels - This bill would prohibit HOAs from restricting placement of solar panels. It is similar to HB-1651.Reasonable revisions may be added
• SB-566 Wentworth: Relating to the amendment of deed restrictions - This bill would assist some communities in amending their documents. Good

The Community Associations Institute (CAI) is a national organization dedicated to fostering vibrant, responsive, competent community associations. Their mission is to assist community associations in promoting harmony, community and responsible leadership. The Texas Legislative Action Committee (TLAC) is the part of CAI monitoring legislation and trying to communicate the benefits of community associations to legislators. You can track their activities on behalf of community associations at their web site www.tlac.org. We will also continue to keep you informed about "good" and "bad" bills that are out there through our monthly editions of eNews Monthly.

This year's Cypress Creek United Civic Associations (CCUCA) seminars and trade show was held on February 24th. Nearly 200 board members from the greater Houston area attended the show to meet with various vendors and go to some of the 15 great seminars offered.

C.I.A. Services President Ralph Troiano presented the seminar Paying for Today, Planning for Tomorrow to board members interested in taking the mystery out of reserves. You can view the PowerPoint presentation online by clicking here.

We have had a great response to our new Electricity Savings Program (ESP) with Tara Energy. ESP allows each of our community associations to lock-in their electricity rates with significant monthly savings without compromising the stability of electricity supply.

Tara Energy, a Houston-based Retail Electricity Provider (REP), is one of the largest independently-owned REP's in Texas. Since its inception four years ago, Tara Energy has pioneered and perfected its group business model to foster long-term relationships with several associations and non-profit organizations. Tara's financial stability is evidenced by the fact that it was selected over several other large and small competitors to serve many of its customers, especially in its relationships with the Department of Defense, the Texas Hotel & Lodging Association, Texas Medical Association, and AAA Texas.

For electricity used on the common areas of the community, the Board can select terms of 1, 2, 3 or 4 years. For communities that have already signed up, savings based on their historical usage have been up to 30 percent or more. On each account converted under this program, the community will also get a $25 credit on the first month's bill.

Community residents are also eligible to sign up with Tara Energy at an average price (note 1) of 12.42 cent per kwh. That is 15 to 20% lower than similar plans from Reliant Energy and other large providers (note 2). In addition to the monthly savings, residents will also receive a $25 credit on their first bill.

As part of this program, each C.I.A. Services community will receive a quarterly "royalty" of 0.5% of the cost of electricity used on all common areas and by all residents in the community in ESP. The quarterly payment can be used for various improvements and community programs. For our part in developing ESP and overseeing the program, C.I.A. Services will receive an equal royalty.

So what are you waiting for? Think ESP and save!

(1) The average price includes electricity, transmission & distribution, monthly service charge and all other costs added by the REP. The average price is quoted at 1000 kwh of usage per month. It is the easiest way to compare proposals from various REPs.

(2) Visit www.powertochoose.org to see comparison pricing. Tara Energy is not listed on the residential comparison site because they focus on associations and non-profit organizations and do not market directly to individual consumers.

Since we began accepting online assessment payments at the end of last year, our web site has been busy (especially the last few days of each month). Owners may pay their community assessments online with a major credit card (Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover) or via eCheck. This service is provided by Community Association Banc, a division of 1st National Bank of Arizona, through their secure web site.

Owners benefit from being able to pay their assessments quickly and easily without the hassle and expense of writing checks and using postage. They may be able to avoid late fees if they realize at the last minute that they forgot to pay their assessments by mail. If an owner is in a small financial bind, they may elect to pay their assessments by credit card and they pay back the credit card company over a few months. And as a bonus, they may get sky miles or bonus points from their credit card company. Payments by credit card carry a convenience fee from the bank that the owner pays - payments by eCheck are free.

From our website, every community page has a button on the community menu: "Payments". Once clicked, the owner can read all about the on-line payment program. To make the payment, they select either "Credit Card" or "eCheck" to make the transaction at the secure bank site. The funds are placed in the Association's bank account the next business day. We wrote the interface to download the transactions to our management software every day.

We are pleased to offer these additional payment options to the owners in our communities. For more information about on-line payments at C.I.A. Services, click here.

We are proud of every one of our communities so it is always hard to find just one to highlight. We start by having each of our 20 Community Managers write a nomination for one of their communities. We then read them all take a vote. Here are our most recent selections:

• March — Hunters Glen section 5 Homeowners Association
  Southwest Office — Myron Bruines, Community Manager
• February — Community Association of the Highlands
  Southwest Office — Allyson Abbott, Community Manager
• January — Silvercreek Community Association
  Southwest Office — Libby Hodges, Community Manager

To see the full story on these communities and to see the past winners, visit the Community of the Month page on our web site.

Every month we appreciate the communities that are celebrating their anniversaries with us. Here are our clients that started with us in March.

• Chimneystone Homeowners Association - 20 years
• Park Place Townhomes Homeowners Association — 17 years
• Idleloch Maintenance Fund Inc - 16 years
• Hunterwood Village I Homeowners Association - 10 years
• Colony Grant Homeowners Association — 7 years
• Eagle Springs Commercial Association - 4 years
• Fairfax Village Homeowners Association — 4 years
• New Tara Colony Homeowners Association - 4 years
• Summerwood Commercial Property Association - 1 year

Our goal has always been to create a positive, long term relationship with all of our client communities. We are very proud to be managing all of these communities.