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Dues for 2010

Dues are $50/ year and cover the cost of the website, the Byliner and the annual meeting and a reserve fund. You can pay online by clicking below. Please BE SURE to put in your address on the shipping line so that we know which parcel to credit with the payment.

Monthly Meetings

2010 Meetings- 7 pm Wednesdays at Skyline Community Church

Agenda Click Here

January 6

February 3

March 3

April 7

Annual Meeting Each May

 Meeting Minutes-please email us if you would like minutes from recent meetings.

board@hillcrestestates.org

Homeowners' Monthly Meetings

Meetings are at 7pm the first Wednesday of every month except August and January at Skyline Community Church. The agenda is posted the day of the meeting. All neighbors are welcome to attend and comment.

Board of Directors 2009-2010

Bill Mitchell, Treasurer

Ed Benhard

Don Lindo

Ellen Quinn

Emily Rosenberg, VP

Jann Fong

Jon Wactor

Laura Dunn

Lee Rutter,President

Steve Von Querner

Will Forney

Today Along Skyline

The Hillcrest Estates Improvement Association (HEIA) is a neighborhood homeowners's association comprising about 254 properties near Skyline Blvd in Oakland, California, between Redwood Road down to about 1/2 mile after Hansom Drive.

This site is maintained by the HEIA board of directors to communicate with the neighbors and the community. See our list of resources at the end of this page.

The board may be reached at board @hillcrestestates.org. We are an all-volunteer board so please be patient if it takes a day or two to receive a reply.

We encourage HEIA members to join the Skyline Neighbors Yahoo! group to communicate among themselves and nearby neighborhors. The group is open to the neighborhood, not just to HEIA parcel owners and is privately owned, not a project of HEIA.

The purpose of HEIA, as stated in our Articles of Incorporation, is

"a.     To advance and improve the civic and social welfare of the community of Oakland, California with particular empahsis and interest directed towards those ends as they relate to the improvement and protection of property interests in Hillcrest Estates" (taken from our Articles of Incorporation.)

Letter from the HEIA President    November 2009

 As winter wraps its cloak around us I see orange and black turning to red and green and the twinkle of small lights to cheer the shorter days.  Neighbors continue to walk their dogs with the occasional bike or horseback rider to grace the median trail.  We have small limbs down and several trees have blocked our roadways, but (knock on wood) no big damage to life or home.

Your Board of Directors continues to meet monthly at Skyline Church.  We invite you to join us the first Wednesday of each month at 7:00pm, however, there will be no December meeting.

There are various committees working on projects to beautify, organize and make safe our unique area.  I urge you to join a committee or start a new one that reflects your passion.  Wouldn’t it be a good idea to have a book club?

What are the Committees doing?

The Median Committee

The Median Committee has not met for several months but has continued to work on moving the project along.  The FEMA grant for removal of dangerous trees and overhanging branches has been approved by CalFire and is in funding with an expected time frame of 16-24 months.  Paige Witte and Lee Rutter will meet with Tom Branca, Merritt College Landscape Horticulture Chair, on December 3rd to explore the possibility of their assistance in developing a detailed plan for replanting that can be submitted with grant applications to a number of agencies that fund planting of trees.  Mr. John Alderson, Oakland Public Works, has agreed to help us with grant writing.  If you would like to be included in this committee please email board@hillcrestesttes.org and ask to be added to the email list.

Update on Skyline High School Contract

It is a personal goal of mine to see this issue less inflamed and more manageable, perhaps in a committee form, so that energy can be devoted to other items that are of interest to Hillcrest Estates.  After the Annual Meeting and orientation of the new Board, we returned to this issue in July and in August the Board was able to gain a majority agreement to submit an amendment to the contract that would allow for practice lighting this winter and in future seasons.  This has been rejected by OUSD legal counsel and they have counter proposed a much broader use of the fields which the board has not accepted.  Our meeting with the OUSD superintendent Tony Smith did not move them toward accepting the HIEA agreement.  What they have done is meet with HEIA and lighting designers at the field to explore” engineering solutions”.  For the past month or so, the lights have been on in both directions with no mutual agreement by OUSD and Hillcrest Estates.  A meeting that may have helped negotiate an agreement was canceled by OUSD legal counsel and has not been rescheduled at this time.

At the November board meeting the HEIA board voted to send the school district a letter that acknowledged the use of full light as not compliant to our agreement, but allowed a 60 day waiver to permit the kids to practice while the school district further explored engineering solutions and evaluated if half lighting was acceptable.  OUSD facilities have notified me of their tests this week and I am expecting a meeting will take place after the Thanksgiving Holiday to go over their results and evaluation.  They have gone through their PA system and faced speakers in towards the school where they could without compromising the system for use in an emergency.

Since many neighbors and board members have questions about the legal impact of the contract we are inviting all members to send us their legal questions to board@hillcrestestates.org no later than 25th November.  We plan to review the questions and consider whether we need to pay for outside legal counsel on contract issues.

Bylaws Updating

Meetings are being held by committee chair, Laura Dunn, to begin the process of updating our Bylaws.  Some of the issues being considered are term limits, update definition of ownership, balanced geographical representation, and election process. If you would like to be included in this process please contact Laura Dunn at Led48@aol.com

Emergency Preparedness

Jann Fong and Emily Rosenberg are co-chairing the EP committee. They are working on a comprehensive plan to safeguard our neighborhood in the case of various emergencies. They have surveyed HEIA members on who has what supplies and equipment and plan to start working with households that requested help assembling emergency supplies.  They recently met informally with the fire station crew and were reminded that each little group of neighbors needs to know how to help each other. 

I will close with a reminder to drive safely in the winter weather and to be mindful that this is also the shopping season for intruders and thieves: watch out for yourself and for your neighbors!

Best wishes for you and your families this Holiday Season,

Lee Rutter, President, Hillcrest Estates Improvement Association