Vote Online Before July 10

On Thursday, July 10 at 8:00 a.m., we will hold our annual Association meeting at the Pasadena Salvation Army prior to our Thursday caravan meeting. Before our annual meeting, I urge all of you to take a couple of minutes to vote for your 2009 Officers and Board of Directors. It is very simple to vote online. Access PFAR's web site at www.pfar.org and click on the "VOTE NOW" button. Follow the instructions to enter your vote. If you decide not to vote online, there will be paper ballots at our annual meeting.

Our usual voter turnout is very low. To me, that indicates that many of you don't believe your vote is important to the Association or your business. I must respectfully disagree! Decisions made by your Board of Directors impact your business on a daily basis. Last year several Directors and your Government Affairs Director worked with the City of Pasadena for almost a year to craft a workable Occupancy Inspection program. If your Board had decided not to pursue this issue, your sellers could routinely face thousands of dollars in compliance work as part of the sale of a Pasadena property. This is just one example of how important PFAR's Board of Directors is to your business.

I won't use the old Chicago saying of "vote early and vote often," but please invest a small amount of your time to vote.

Charitable Foundation

During the first half of the year, our Charitable Foundation held three events. Our Casino Night was a lot of fun with a fabulous silent and live auction. Our first golf tournament in many years was a wonderful event with great foursomes and some very impressive scoring. In mid-June, Mark Ogden volunteered his beautiful home overlooking the Arroyo to host our Wine Tasting event. The evening was fantastic, and the money raised for charities exceeded our expectations.

Each of these events required a large committee of volunteers that worked tirelessly to insure the best event possible with the highest return for our charities. The committee chairs and members deserve our recognition and appreciation for their willingness to donate their time to allow us to give back to our community. Let me be the first to publicly acknowledge their efforts and thank them for these great events.

Volunteer in 2009

As we enter the second half of the year, incoming 2009 PFAR President West de Young is working on identifying his committee chairs and members. I know he will need volunteers with prior committee experience, but he also needs new members and their ideas. Most committees meet for a short time several months during the year. The time required to participate in your Association is small, and the returns can be large. I encourage all PFAR members to contact West to offer their services on at least one committee.

Sincerely,

Rick Stever
2008 PFAR President