Going on about 8 years for the current manager Teresa Gordon... and still oddly harassing and…read morelitigious as ever with notices. I've been here years and would say it's the most aggressive experience of them all. Madeline and Roy in the 80's were classy, folks in the 90's-2000's were great and had their quirks. The park ran down a bit visually from the 2000's to 2010's and went through a series of poorly experienced/educated folks that did their best but were not up to the task. One manager struggled with substance abuse and some managers seemed confused about how to do the job.
Teresa is good at leveraging every legal tool and paper they have to make it pretty and admittedly does a great job creating a high turnover to get out old tenants and old homes or constantly put people on notice for landscaping infractions and especially to ask for semi-costly upgrades, often on a 7 day turnaround. Keep in mind 3 of these violations a year and you can be evicted.
I find corporate to be calm and professional with neighbor-friendly and financially fair solutions. I've done all upgrades and fixes, but as a busy and somewhat irregularly paid artist (it averages out, but I do have to deal with collection for my payments sometimes), I'm quick to let the park or corporate know my situation to negotiate executing any of their requests in question as soon as it is possible. Working in the corporate world to do commercials and entertainment, I've worked with Steph Curry, Pete Docter of Pixar, Lyft, Google, Facebook, Mozilla Firefox, Salesforce, A24 and I grew up interning at Sony Music. I know what professionalism is, it's a stoic mindset, focus, emotional intelligence, navigation and working to deliver and trying for the win-win. I also grew up helping my grandmother manage this park (small tasks) and was expected to be a good example and a positive member of the community. As well, my mother did the books here for years after my grandma retired. I watched as my grandmother worked to knit the community together and run monthly potlucks, attend Bingo, work with the leaders of GSMOL and park elected reps, throw special parties for Christmas and Thanksgiving and she worked with families to help them keep their homes, stay paid up... delivered food from the Napa foodbank to the biggest and poorest families... and she just knew everyone and most people rarely needed a notice, she'd have a friendly word with them. Very, very few people were evicted, she sold homes here too... I'll never forget how good it can be, how beautiful, well-cared for, connected and compassionate. Being all business is fine and legal, but I'm aware of the stark difference. I'm aware that this is a choice to be this way, and not necessary. If you are considering moving here and are financially strong and getting a newer home, you shouldn't be bothered much. If you are buying an older home or managing a lot financially or workwise, be prepared to get unexpected notices from time to time that may put you in a bind if you're not ready for an unexpected cost and can't make it happen in 7 to 14 days. But definitely just call or email corporate to discuss ideas for help if you're not able to work something out directly. Overall, I find that regardless of the initial notices and requests, breathing room is easy to find with communication, but you have to call the manager or corporate to arrange it.
To give you an idea of the unthinking rigidity: I was indoors sick from chemo in 2020 and my husband was looking under the house to check the subfloor before doing an indoor floor repair... I asked him to stay with me and help me and he left the siding off until the next day to finish checking. I received a dramatic "STOP WORK" notice...sigh. Anyways, I called, the assistant sounded triggered at first, but once she realized my husband just forgot to put the skirting back because he stayed indoors to care for me (and is forgetful with ADHD), she waived the notice... Like I said, try calling when they send these notices, often they are jumping to conclusions. Generally the vibe is constant policing and jumping on every perceived infraction... in 35 years, it stands out as singularly inhospitable and somewhat obsessive harassment.
We had the sunroom repaired once, the guys took a lunch break and the park staff photographed the repairs mid-progress and sent a notice to repair it... it's kind of odd how unaware it can all be, but again, call, email, go to corporate, it's all been easy to deescalate... I just can't figure what the need is to conduct business from a customer/neighbor unfriendly approach?
