Defending the Dos Vientos HOA board of directors

A recent letter published in the Aug. 23 T.O. Acorn by Jim Olson of Newbury Park complains of real estate open house signs and basketball hoops that don't comport with Dos Vientos Ranch homeowners association rules.

I know how hard it is to enforce rules. I currently serve on the rules committee and also served on this committee a few years ago. I've seen how impossible it is to enforce HOA rules.

As we live in a free society, some community members choose not live by some HOA rules. The HOA board cannot be blamed for the actions of a few residents and real estate agents.

I really like living in Dos Vientos. Dos Vientos has hiking and biking trails, a great new YMCA, a vibrant elementary and middle school and a soon to be completed shopping and social gathering spot, the Paraiso.

The current HOA board has enhanced the neighborhood by improving lighting to various HOA signage, adding landscaping to multiple barren areas and implementing environmentally friendly landscape water control systems.

They even got the last remaining home without landscaping, in violation of HOA rules, to put in landscaping.

In addition, the HOA board continues the tradition of organizing community building activities like the July Fourth parade and the Labor Day picnic and watermelon-eating contest.

If having some real estate open house signs and basketball hoops that don't comport with HOA rules makes for "a community in decline," as Mr. Olson puts it, then I'm happy to say I live in this declining community.

And thank God these are our biggest problems. Mark A. Goldstein Newbury Park