An ANTHEM VOICE seminar attended by over 110 SCA homeowners was held in the Anthem Center on April 7 from 6:30—8:30 PM. It was arranged and hosted by Bob Frank, Ron Morse, Ken Anderson and Tim Stebbins.

This event covered a wide variety of issues of current concern to Sun City Anthem homeowners. The meeting room was rented by AV and made available free of charge to all SCA residents. AV seminars are offered so Sun City Anthem residents can have access to the latest information available on issues affecting their health, lifestyle, and home maintenance. Anthem Voice seminars draw upon the exceptional skills of SCA residents in combination with outside professionals. Invited professionals attend at no cost and no obligation. They are present to assist our SCA members with unique information. Useful handouts on most issues are made available to attendees.

After an introduction by Bob Frank, the 1st session focused on the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) open pit mining project planned for 3 miles south of the community. Bob had made the Anthem VOICE arrangements with BLM to make the presentation. George Meese, SCA’s volunteer Committee Chair to Oppose the Mine, served as session moderator.

After some introductory remarks, Mark Chatterton, Assistant Field Manager for Nonrenewable Resources for the Las Vegas BLM Field Office, answered resident questions and instructed them how to best make their voices heard on the issue. He emphasized the need for sending individual letters to BLM and senior government officials that focused on health, air quality, traffic, and the expected extremely high water consumption concerns versus personal financial impacts. It was generally agreed that the session was exceptionally useful, and that many more such events were urgently needed.

See the attached files for more project details and for government contact info.
[1] blm-project-contacts.pdf
[2] kill-mine-project.pdf
[3] april09_lvv_pg3.pdf

Session 2 was moderated by SCA homeowner Ken Anderson. Mark Cook assisted. This session focused on SCA homeowner construction defects. Expert presentations included information on yellow brass plumbing failures in Kitec, Rehau and Wirsbo systems, floor tile cracking, slab cracks in Del Webb Phase 1 homes, patio/flat roof drainage problems in DW Phase 1 homes, and Pulte sewer backup valve problems.

Speakers included construction defects special attorney Troy Isaacson from Robert Maddox & Associates who provided up-dates on SCA home construction defects issues.  Mr. Isaacson also included details on why homeowners should immediately get involved with strongly opposing Senate Bills 349 and 337. These bills are intended to radically modify construction defects laws to the great advantage of developers and builders.  For example:

·    SB 349 would allow builders to violate building codes without penalty and take away homeowner rights to legal fees when they are sold a defective home.

·    SB 337 cuts in half the amount of time a homeowner has to hold a builder accountable for construction defects and puts limits on homeowner rights–even when one is the victim of a fraudulent builder.

·    Immediately contact Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Terry Care (775-684-6503) and Vice Chair Valerie Wiener (775-684-1422) to find out more details and to express your strong objection to such legislation.  See this file for more contact information:  [4] condef_bills.pdf

Session 3 was led by Gil Mars (SCA Resident and long-time home plumbing maintenance volunteer). Gil gave an exceptionally valuable presentation with many photos of problems and on how to double water heater effective lives from an average of 4 years to more than 8 years.  Even those in the audience well versed in such matters were overheard to remark about how valuable Gil’s recommendations were. This topic will need to receive much wider exposure in the future. Every Southern Nevada homeowner could benefit from Gil’s expert advice.  See PDF version of the slide show:  [5] Water Heater Maintenance Slide Show

Considering the big turnout for the evening with such highly focused questions for over 2 hours, it was obvious that SCA residents are starved for specific information on how to cope with constantly changing construction defects issues, and how to deal with Nevada’s water corrosion problems. New and complex issues are frequently popping up. The full information is almost never available, solutions are rarely obvious, and results are usually expensive.

Many residents asked for regular meetings on these issues. It was clear the Board of Directors should be sponsoring these events. At least the board should not be charging $100 per room for the opportunity to put them on. Please send email to anthemvoice@cox.net with your opinions.