The other side
In the letter to the editor published July 24, Dave Barfield suggested that the Bella Vista POA general manager and board are not practicing fiscal responsibility. I like Dave Barfield and consider him a friend, but allow me to make a different argument.
I think that the board and General Manager Tom Judson have exhibited tremendous fiscal responsibility in two critical areas. First, they took charge of the Trafalgar Road fire and hired the right people to extinguish it in less than 30 days at a cost of $4 million. All previous estimates for putting out the fire ranged from $20 million to $37 million.
Had the board and the GM not made that decision, all of us as POA members would have potentially been on the hook for 10s of millions of more dollars. The fire is out. Life is getting back to normal for the residents who live close by and for our POA facilities in the area.
The second critical area of fiscal responsibility are the investments that have been made to improve and upgrade many of our Bella Vista facilities, parks and golf courses. Just a few short years ago, Bella Vista was in decline. We had facilities that were in desperate need of repair and renovation. We had not added or upgraded many of our facilities in years. In short, our investment in the POA through our monthly assessment was not giving us any return. That has all changed in the past several years thanks to GM Tom Judson’s vision and recent POA board decisions.
Yes, our reserves are low right now, but that is because we needed to invest them to keep improving our community. If we don’t keep investing in Bella Vista, our personal investments in our homes will decline, people will move away and it will be more and more difficult to attract new people to Bella Vista.
Conversations I am having with other residents and POA members lead me to believe there is a groundswell for an assessment increase to continue the momentum of the past few years. Bella Vista was planned and designed to be a place where middle income families (firemen, teachers, middle management, private business owners, etc.) could enjoy “the good life” without exorbitant dues like you see in Dell Webb and many other amenities communities. It was never intended to be a place where POA dues did not keep up with inflation. Unlike Dave, I think now is the best time for an assessment vote.
My friend, Dave Barfield, suggested the board and POA leadership are whistling past the graveyard. To the contrary, I think the board and our leadership are preventing Bella Vista from becoming a graveyard. Ralph Patterson Bella Vista