One Community, One Goal
The purpose of the Palm River Homeowners Civic Association has always been and is today to serve the best interests of the homeowners and residents of Palm River. This mission is carried out in two primary ways. We try to maintain the attractiveness of the community and we communicate with our residents.
A substantial part of our budget is dedicated to continually making Palm River a more beautiful community. You can see the physical results of this effort as you drive or walk the community. The Palm River Boulevard median looks better every year. Among other things, with the support of our members we replaced our aging entry signs. Each year we add a little to the shrubbery near the pond at Ibis Way.
But there is more to serving the best interests than just improving landscaping. We communicate. We try to keep track of what’s happening in the county and in the local area and alert our residents when necessary. The Sheriff’s office, knowing of our communications capability in the village, sends us bulletins on safety issues for our area, including notices of local burglary activity, which we send on to our residents.
For this quick communication purpose, we are in contact with over 700 homes via email and are trying to increase that number. For longer term issues and a larger audience, we use US mail. Maintaining contact information for those residents who rent is quite difficult, but we are examining that area. The names and mailing addresses of homeowners are available through the Collier County Appraiser’s website, even if sometimes late. There is no such listing for renters. We only know of them if someone provides the information.
There is an overlapping role of communications in maintaining attractive physical surroundings. Being a voluntary membership organization, we don’t have the rules to control appearance and activities that some gated communities have. Nor do we want them. Many of our residents live here precisely because Palm River is not a gated community. But keeping an old, open community like ours always attractive depends on the community pride and neighborly regard of all its residents. We continually and earnestly urge that community spirit on our Palm River people.
There is another aspect to our communications, the active participation of the PRHCA in county activities with the support of its members. Some of you will remember that in 2006 the county was on the verge of removing the Cypress Way East bridge. We were horrified at contemplating the traffic tie up that would have caused at the south east corner of our village. Appearing before the county commissioners with some of our members we were able to save it as an exit bridge, the use it has today. More recently, in 2008, there was a serious move to make Cypress Way East an access road to Imperial Golf Estates. Distressed at the prospect of this added traffic on a narrow street,our members rallied round our association to successfully fight that effort. And a developer intended to build a 7-Eleven at the site of the previous dinner theater, where the storage unit eventually was built, and your board prevented the construction of the 7-Eleven.
The PRHCA Board of Directors is pledged to continue its role in serving the best interest of the homeowners and residents of Palm River as long as the community desires that service.
Ken Oehler, President