LETTERS EDITOR TO THE

Policy reducing property value

Whether one votes yes or no to the assessment increase, let’s be clear that, by itself, an assessment increase with proposed facility improvements will not necessarily improve property values. Why not?

There have been a couple of identifiable changes in policy and practice.

For example, the Board changed Policy 3.03 2.2 in late 2014. It allows unattached guests — the public — to be guests of the POA for any amenity for any reason. At the time, they were even warned by former Property Owners Association general manger Tom Bailey that this is a balancing act between wanting revenue and destroying property values. No skin in the game.

So, if assessments increase, and if our amenities become the best in class, and if our POA continues to sponsor unattached guests at user rates equal to or even less than what members pay, then there is still no incentive to be a member, hurting property values.

Take the full costs of being a member into account when pricing unattached guests’ user fees. Resident members could be paying about $3 per month for a photo id, plus $33 per month for assessments, plus city taxes, plus improved or unimproved lot state taxes. So, if a member pays the current best time price of $39 per round of golf and the public plays for anything less than about $99 per round, then there is no incentive to be a member.

Quite a contrast, eh? Members could be paying the equivalent of about $99 per round for six differentiated and distinguished top-notch golf courses, while the unattached guest may play for about $29 per round (public value card).

Rescind Policy 3.03 2.2 because it destroyed the historic connection between members’ private access to private amenities. And then we can talk about increasing property values. In the meantime, whether yea or nay, members can pay more for best amenities, but to whose end — members and our attached guests or the unattached guest?

Stephen L. McKee Bella Vista

Political poetry Summertime

Now is the summer of our discontent.

I say this with some consternation.

The four-year phenomena is upon us again

In the form of the political convention.

It’s just mid-summer, you see.

The candidates are already set.

The elections are on the way,

And we ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

Gerald Elsbury Bella Vista