POA funds water main break repairs at $70,000

The Bella Vista Property Owners Association Board of Directors has approved a capital project request of $70,000 to cover expenses involved in repairing a recent main waterline break at the Sugar Creek Shopping Center.

The board also approved the annual audit of the POA and re-appointed members to the Lakes Joint Advisory Committee during its regular session meeting April 25.

Chairperson David Brandenburg said the water main break had to do with the waterline being placed immediately on top of a concrete culvert years ago.

“It was pretty much designed to fail, and it failed,” he said.

Brandenburg added repairs were made quickly, but the board, in its first meeting since the break occurred, needed to approve the project because it’s a large expense.

Chief Executive Officer Tom Judson, who informed board members of the break shortly after it happened, said an outside company was called in to do the work as it was “definitely beyond our scope” for in-house repairs by the water department.

“I gave our team approval to move forward because you can’t just wait on these types of things for the next meeting to occur,” he said.

Judson said the $70,000 cost includes a 15% contingency, just in case things go wrong.

“It is an important area, because of the location. It’s a large water main. It’s a high-pressure zone,” he said. “In addition to being on that drainage area, there were three Carroll Electric power lines intersecting at the exact same location. So we felt it best to bring in a company we’ve worked with many times.”

Judson said the new owners of the shopping center requested the work be completed as quickly as possible as they have delivery trucks utilizing that area.

In March, Blue Crane LLC, a company founded by Walmart heirs Steuart and Tom Walton, acquired approximately 54 acres of property in Bella Vista, including the 9.5-acre Sugar Creek Shopping Center. The company paid two transactions totaling $31.9 million to Cooper Communities Inc. and $2 million to WillPett Investments LLC.

Audit

Directors unanimously approved a motion accepting the 2023 Annual Audit, as recommended by the association’s Audit Committee, which met April 23 to review the findings.

“Earlier this week the audit committee met with our audit firm and they went through the audit in detail, and I’m very pleased to announce that we had another clean audit. No adjustments. Nice and smooth,” Judson said.

Looking over at Chief Financial Officer Beth Nagel he stated, “I’m getting used to these really good audits,” then added, “But it’s easier said than done. It takes a lot of work by a dedicated team, so [we’re] very proud of the team for a great job.”

Judson said the audit report will soon be available on the POA’s website, under Governance and Financial Reports. He said a formal audit presentation will take place during the Annual Meeting of Members, set for 6 p.m. on Tuesday, May 21 in the boardroom of the Bella Vista Country Club.

The results of the Board of Directors election will be announced at the start of this meeting.

Appointments

The board approved two motions affirming the nominations of Ross Gerner and Carol Phillips to the Lakes Joint Advisory Committee. Both currently serve on the committee with their terms set to expire June 30. Phillips is the committee’s secretary.

The POA is accepting applications for a new appointment to the Lakes Committee with a term beginning July 1. Application forms are available on the POA website under Governance and Committees.

Report on non-performing lots

The board also received the annual report on non-performing lots in the POA. These are lots that are not paying assessments, either by delinquency or because they are owned by the POA.

Judson said back in 2015, there were over 8,000 non-performing lots, representing 20.6% of all the lots in the POA; 700 of those were POA-owned. He said through combined efforts of the accounting, database and legal departments, as of March 31, that percentage has been lowered to 3.3%, with the total number at 1,253. Less than 40 of those are owned by the POA.

“This means there are 6,782 lots which previously were non-performing and are now current in paying their assessments,” he said, noting this has a positive financial impact of $1.3 million per year.

Judson said the number of improved lots (with homes) has also increased significantly since 2015, generating a positive financial impact of approximately $772,000 a year.

“If it were not for these two increases in revenue, last year’s increase in assessments would have needed to be $12.84 more per month instead of $3 more per month to bring in the same amount of revenue,” he said.