Island Creek Community Association
Island Creek Express - Sept/Oct 2021
FROM THE BOARD



Dear Island Creek Residents:

Happy Fall! The month of September is a month of transition. Transitioning from Summer to Fall, kids going back to school, pool season ending, and you will have a ‘mostly’ new board starting end of September. This doesn’t mean your current board isn’t busy though!

We have mailboxes in section 4 being installed beginning in the third week of October. Cindy will continue to post more information about additional key distribution dates, but we wanted to give you a head’s up this was coming. We ran into some delays with our contractor and USPS, but we are happy to say it’s straightened out and we will have nice new boxes soon.

Also, this year, we were able to successfully open the pool, host the Community Yard Sale, Adult Social, Food Trucks and the Fall Fling!

The next event is the Fall Trunk or Treat on Saturday, 16 October. Note that due to the cost of the movie screen and the budget, we may only have the trunk or treat portion along with the parade. But nevertheless, it will be a fun event!

We also are reviewing contracts for landscaping, reviewing the 2022 budget and actively working the annual home inspections with hearings held at the September board meeting.

Thank you very much to the current board members: Denise Gentile (Vice President) Charles Kiely (Treasurer), Fred LaTrash (member at large), Jay Aronowitz (member at large), Scott Rodman (member at large). 

Also, a huge thanks to our committees who have spent countless hours on making our community great. Committee members of the Covenants, Finance, Grounds, Land Use and newly formed Welcoming Committee dedicate their personal time to helping our community run.

Thanks to Mary and Cindy from Barkan Management Co. who have answered numerous questions at all hours from myself and the board.

On a personal note, I have decided not to run for a 3rd term on the board. It wasn’t an easy decision since I’ve volunteered in the community for the last 10 years, 6 of them being on the board. While I’ve mostly enjoyed it, I’ve decided to take some time off for my mental and physical health. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting many great residents around our community and that’s been one of the main joys of serving on the board. However, I’ve also endured many negative aspects such as emails that say, ‘Do your job’ or ‘not sure why you were even elected’. These negative attacks have worn me down to where I don’t feel I can dedicate the necessary time or energy to serve on the board. I hope to still get approval to do your social events such as the Spring Fling, 4th of July parade and Halloween event next year.

Thank you for the honor of serving our community. The challenges we faced this year due to COVID-19 were substantially greater than those of the past, but thanks to residents in partnership with the board, we have shown that only by working together can we make a difference to our Island Creek community.

If you ever see me out and about, please stop and say hello!

Sincerely,
 
Karen Patrick
IC HOA President
Wednesday, Sept 29th, 6:30 pm


The Annual Meeting will be held on Wednesday, September 29th, 6:30 pm in the cafeteria at the Island Creek Elementary School located at 7855 Morning View Lane. Registration for the meeting will begin at 6:30 pm and pizza will be served. View Meeting Agenda here.

Note that the school requires that all attendees wear a face mask since children are in the building.

This year, we have three open positions on the Board of Directors and three candidates. Please see the candidate biographies for:


This roster may not represent the final ballot choices since any eligible homeowner may write-in a candidate’s name or announce his or her candidacy at the annual meeting.

Island Creek has chosen to use Vote-Now.com again this year for online voting.

In order to obtain your unique Voting ID, please be on the lookout for an email (if we have yours on file) from the email address elections@vote-now.com with the subject matter line "2021k Island Creek Board Elections" and the sender will be "Island Creek Elections”.  

Also, Vote-Now has sent a first class letter to your home with the same information and your Voting ID assigned to your household.

Below are additional ways to vote:

  1. By Ballot either online or via U.S. mail: a unique Voting ID has been assigned to your residence and will be sent separately.
  2. By Instructed Proxy: instructed proxy allows someone to cast your vote for you, but you direct them how to vote i.e. you choose the candidates. 
  3. By Uninstructed Proxy: uninstructed proxy allows someone to cast your vote for you but leaves how to vote to the proxy’s discretion. 
  4. In person, at the Annual Meeting.

We also ask that each owner please review and approve the 2020 annual meeting minutes and the 2020 run-off election minutes.

In order to conduct the meeting, we need a quorum of twenty percent (20%), or 209 owners, so it is essential that you VOTE or return a proxy!  
Fall Fling, Community Yard Sale & Adult Social a Success!

Thanks for coming out and enjoying these popular Island Creek events!

Our thanks to organizers Karen Patrick for the Fall Fling and Madeleine Galvin for Adult Social and the Fall Yard Sale!
A fix for your Junk & Spam Filter

If you are experiencing problems with emails either from the Community or any other mailing list (i.e., fcps.edu) ending up in your junk/spam folder, please take a look at these instructions. It is not an ICCA issue; many of the email providers have changed the way they filter emails from mailing lists.

Another way to help prevent your email program from flagging the newsletter or emails from communitymanager@islandcreek.org as spam, you may want to add communitymanager@islandcreek.org to your address book/accepted sender list. You are also welcome to send an email to “train” your email program to recognize incoming mail from communitymanager@islandcreek.org.
Yard Debris will be Collected with Household Trash


Please see below for a notification received by Fairfax County regarding yard debris collection. 

Effective immediately, American Disposal Services will be collecting yard debris material with household trash. Yard debris will be collected on your 2nd trash collection day. Those with once-a-week trash collection, we will collect yard debris on this day. Yard debris must continue to be prepared properly for collection.

SWA 21-004 –Temporary Change to Separate Yard Waste Collection Requirement

This Solid Waste Advisory (SWA) serves as notification to licensed solid waste service providers that the requirement for separate collection of yard waste on a weekly basis is being temporarily modified for approximately two months, effective Tuesday, August 31, 2021.

Beginning August 31, 2021, collectors can, if they so choose, collect yard waste with refuse (i.e. mixed collections) without enforcement consequences. The temporary change is in response to national labor shortages adversely affecting our region. This has had an impact on municipal and private-sector solid waste collectors, who are providing the critical services necessary to promote clean streets and good sanitation.

During this temporary change, recyclables must continue to be collected separately every week. The requirement to separately collect yard waste for recycling will be reassessed in mid-October.

For additional information from Fairfax County please click the button below.




We want to hear from you and your residents! Please share this information with residents in your communities.  Click here to learn more!
 
Fairfax Water is reviewing its customer service practices to ensure that we support customers and the community effectively. As part of this effort, we are hosting virtual focus groups with residential and commercial customers in our community to understand and explore your experiences with Fairfax Water.
 
For Residential Customers:
We are planning to host this 1.5-hour listening session on the evening of October 14, from 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm via Zoom.
If you would like to participate, please register at the link below:
Vote Early through October 30th

Early voting is now open for all registered Fairfax County voters at the Fairfax County Government Center, Mount Vernon Governmental Center, and the North County Governmental center. Thirteen additional early voting locations will be open throughout the county for in-person voting and absentee ballot drop-offs from October 21st through October 30th.

See HERE for more information including locations and voting hours.
Classifieds Ads

Island Creek maintains a list of service providers for our community. If you are interested in advertising, please email communitymanager@islandcreek.org.
 
You can check out the current classifieds on the community website here. 
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