KANALOA COMMUNIQUÉ

A HOMEOWNERS' PUBLICATION ABOUT HAPPENINGS AND EVENTS AT KANALOA AT KONA
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See photos of our Employees Appreciation Party Here

Wayne House AOAO President

PRESIDENT'S LETTER

January Board MeetingAloha! The first Kanaloa Board meeting of 2026 was held on January 30th, with our President, Wayne House, ably in charge and keeping things running smoothly. Wayne has been tied up with personal matters and asked me to fill in on writing this letter. The Board meeting was well attended, and Albert Smith of Kona IT Solutions seems to have ironed out many of the technical problems regarding our Zoom meeting integrating with our actual meeting. Much of the meeting involved re-visiting the idea of a solar electric system for our common areas. Kurt Goldsmith did yeoman’s work in researching and explaining the pros and cons of such a system. There are two ways of doing this. One is to have a third party install, pay for, and own the system, then sell electricity to the AOAO at a rate reduced from what Hawaiian Electric would charge. The Board felt this was not a good idea, as the deduction would not be very much, considering damage to the property, the dependability of the private company, and other factors. Kurt’s presentation focused on the other option, the AOAO paying for and owning the system, thereby getting the full benefit of the savings. This would involve taking out a loan of over $800,000 for the installation contract and using the electricity savings to pay off the loan. Serious consideration has been given to this, but a portion of the Board feels it’s not good to put the Association heavily in debt, that there may be cost overruns requiring a special assessment, and maintaining such a system could not be done by our in-house team. Other pros and cons go beyond the scope of this letter. There was a discussion on how best to invest the money in our Reserve account. Our investments are limited by state law. For instance, we must invest with a company officing in Hawaii, and our investments must be federally insured. For many years, we had a professional financial advisor serving on the Board, and with upcoming Board openings, we’d love to hear from someone with a financial background interested in serving. We finally passed an addition to our Guest Registration Policy to address the small handful of renting owners who blatantly or repeatedly refuse to comply with Policy requirements. Among other things, the owner or his representative will have to appear at the Front Desk, along with the guest, to complete the registration process. Gate and parking passes will not be issued without that presence. We’ve already seen this policy addition paying off with some delinquent fees being brought current. Our General Manager, Jim Heather, will notify any non-compliant owner before taking this action. For context, these owners collectively owe the AOAO around $43,000, so the issue is not trivial.
Jim Heather’s letter below updates you on our Ocean Pool bathrooms renovations, but I want to acknowledge Board members George Pittman, Wendy Benson, and owner Karen Estrella for stepping up to help Jim in making this project successful. We tried a new contractor for this project who over-promised and under-delivered, necessitating lots of oversight, inspecting, and goading. There efforts resulted in many corrections, but some inferior materials are yet to be replaced. We are all grateful to those who stepped up to hold the contractor to account and get deficiencies corrected. Earlier, I mentioned openings on the Board. Many of the owners most qualified to serve are busy with their own productive lives and feel they don’t have the time to spend on the Board. But the value of our Kanaloa investment depends greatly on the quality of the Board of Directors and each of us has a substantial investment here that should be protected. There are definitely upcoming opportunities to serve, and we’d love to hear from those interested. Please let Jim Heather know if you have the interest and time. Many owners have stepped up in ways other than serving on the Board by serving on committees or working in small groups or on their own to keep Kanaloa thriving and a place we all love and enjoy. The Cultural Committee is hard at work, and you’ll have music in the lobby starting this spring. Further, several owners have worked tirelessly to clean up and plant the community gardens by Building 15. Our Annual Owner’s meeting will be on April 24th, so be sure to make your plans to attend. Also, on Thursday, the night before the meeting, we will be having our annual owners’ party. We’ll be needing lots of help in planning and preparing, but if you can’t help, at least plan on attending. It’s always great to get to know or get re-acquainted with other owners. Activities such as this keep alive the feeling of Ohana that we have come to enjoy at Kanaloa. We look forward to seeing you.
Steve TanbergAOAO Board Vice President

JIM HEATHER General Manager
Management Team
General Manager Jim Heather jheather@castleresorts.com (808) 322-1008 Vice President of Finance Dean Yamamoto dyamamoto@ castlehospitalitygroup.com (808) 524-9277 Property Accountant Debi Uyeunten Duyeunten@castleresorts.com (808) 524-9289 Director of Condominium Administration Renette Carpio rcarpio@castlehospitalitygroup.com (808) 524-0236

FROM THE GENERAL MANAGER

Aloha Snowbirds! As we all know, “Aloha” means “hello” and “goodbye”. So depending on what stage of your winter stay at Kanaloa is… “Aloha”!
There are two major projects happening at Kanaloa this year. The exterior painting of the fairway units (buildings 1 through 12) will be starting at the end of March and will continue until early August. West Side Painters have been painting Kanaloa for decades. They do a very thorough job and are easy to work with. There are no changes to the painting schedule which can be found in the documents section of the AOAO’s website, KanaloaCommunique.com. It is recommended that all lights, netting or other items that have been attached to the lanai rails or walls on the interior of the lanai are removed prior to painting. As a reminder, the units being painted can be utilized, but it is not recommended to rent to paying guests. The schedule is firm and will not be changed due to guest complaints. Ken Albert and his maintenance team have already begun carpentry work on entryways and lanai rails in advance of the painting. Ken will contact you if your entryway shall be addressed to work around your rental schedule if work is done prior to painting.
The other major project is the termite tenting of the carports in June. The carports were divided into four sections with each section being tented overnight starting the morning of June 15. Here are the key items you need to know: All cars need to be removed from the covered stalls for the tenting. If you have a car in your stall and you will not be on property during the tenting, you need to make arrangements to move your car to an uncovered stall. I can assist you if you supply me with access to your car key before tenting. If your unit will be occupied during this time, please advise your guest that they need to park in an uncovered stall from 8:00am of the tenting day until the tents are removed the following day and cleared for use. There will be signage with these instructions posted throughout the property. The last item is accessing the carport storage closet for inspection prior to tenting. The good news is Kanaloa maintenance has backup keys for most carport closets, except for about 15 which have had new locks installed. I will be contacting these owners to inform them they need to have their closet unlocked prior to tenting or to supply me with a key prior to tenting. The termite inspector is looking for any consumable items that are not properly double bagged in the special bags made for termite tenting. Unbagged consumable items will be disposed. Please contact me if you have any questions.
There are some projects from last year that are still continuing into 2026. While the original 22 buildings that were on the lanai lifting project have been repaired, the Board added four more buildings to be repaired to proactively replace the wooden “donut” that sits between the cement support pillars and the wood lanai beams. This “donut” was found to be the most susceptible area to wood rot. In addition, the Board has approved funds to inspect the three-story building’s wooden supports, some of which are hidden behind decorative siding.
Although the Ocean Pool bathrooms were renovated last year and have since been open for use, there are still some upgrades to these bathrooms to be done. The contractor will be replacing the temporary partitions with more attractive and more substantially built partitions that were specified in the contract. The sink fixtures will also be changed to the finish that matches the other fixtures specified in the contract, and the entry door to the bathroom will also be replaced with a fiberglass door that will better withstand the elements. The bathrooms are already a huge upgrade from what was there previously, and it will only be getting better. Mahalo to George, Wendy and Karen for all of your efforts seeing this project through.
There are a lot of other exciting things going on at Kanaloa that I will save for the next newsletter. (If you made it this far,)) Aloha! Jim