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After my regular quarterly review of the HOA financials, I sent the following email for feedback/answers.

Date: Thu, 3 Dec 2009 17:54:42 -0600
Subject: Review of Financials and Minutes
From: James Nunn
To: theboard@plantation-springs.com
CC: atuey@principal-mgmt.com

Hi Board,

I just completed a review of the financials and some records for the Association, and I wanted to follow up with some questions that I asked April (some of which she has already provided a response to), and raise a couple of others having now had an opportunity to further review the information I collected during my visit to PMG's office.

Since the most recent live trapping of the beavers (and nutria) from the greenbelt area of the HOA, I have reviewed some of the information that was considered by the board leading up to their decision.

First, the cost for this (to date) is $1,150.00 that we homeowners paid to have the beavers removed.

Second, the board were advised by two different reputable organizations to consider other means than live trapping. One organization, 911 Wildlife, suggested that the board consider the use of "beaver paint" to be applied to the trees, and which is an effective tool to dissuade beavers from attacking trees (the paint is used in place of chicken wire). The second organization, The Texas Department of Wildlife, suggested that the board use chicken wire to protect any trees within the area. Both of these suggestions appear to have been ignored by the board.

Third, in choosing to utilitize a live trapper, the board received the following information from Cliff Moore about the "benefits" of live trapping. Cliff wrote:

According to the latest email from the HOA Board, three beavers and one nutria have been trapped and relocated from our creek area. Here is my response to that email.

A copy of the email that was sent to the HOA distribution list.

Dear Homeowners,

February 16, 2009

Mr. David Madden
Regulatory Branch (CESWF-PER-R)
Fort Worth District
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
819 Taylor Street, Room 3A37
Fort Worth, Texas 76102-0300                                  BY FACSIMILE

Dear David:

Please see the attached email that I tried to send you last night, however the email address that I have listed for you is no longer functioning.

This matter is becoming quite an important issue with members of our community, especially in light of statements that the USACE has approved this current action by the HOA Board to trap and remove a beaver family in our community.

As a fairly engaged homeowner within the Plantation Springs community, I am unclear on the rationale that is being used to permit the actions taking by the Board given the requirements of both the new and the old mitigation plan in place for our community.

After catching up on emails from the Board about their planned “beaver management” program, I decided to research information on how beavers were actually “bad” for our community. Apart from the commonly held (and misguided) belief that “beavers are bad” there is actually little proof that supports that damage caused by beavers is greater than the benefits that a beaver can provide to a community, especially one that has some of the issues that ours does within the creek area.