LETTERS EDITOR TO THE

Assessment keeps up with inflation

The last time POA fees were increased was about 20 years ago.

Here is the year 2000 fee ($24) adjusted for inflation. Adjusting for inflation, $24 in 2000 is equal to $35.83 in 2019. Annual inflation over this period was 2.13 percent. So the new rate actually is nothing more than a cost of living raise for the existing rate. How else can you continue to maintain current facilities? What would you say if your Social Security benefit had no cost of living adjustment for 20 years?

Ron Gass Bella Vista

2020 plan redux

Most readers are aware that the defeat of the 2020 Plan was announced at the member meeting at Riordan Hall on Nov. 19. Mr. Judson and the majority of our board of directors were not happy with those results, so they’ve decided to hold the election again. Only directors Steve McKee and Teah Bidwell voted against the re-vote.

This time around, the proposal calls for zero assessment increase for unimproved lot owners and a $13 increase for improved property owners. As is their custom, Mr. Judson and our board are once again pitting members against each other, seemingly with no concern about the division they’re causing within our community.

I should like to remind Mr. Judson and the board that we live in the United States, where elections are sacrosanct and results are final. To hold a re-vote because you’re unhappy with the results is the stuff of third-world countries. And while it may be legal, it’s hard to make a serious argument that it’s ethical.

It appears that a recalibration of your moral compass is in order.

Some members who support the re-vote may have become so dazzled by Mr. Judson and so preoccupied with winning that they lost sight of the larger concept of fair play. I would urge them to consider the bigger issues at stake. Does our vote mean anything? Or is it only meaningful when you get what you want? If the 2020 Plan had passed, would you then support demands for a redo from the side that lost?

These are serious questions. These are questions that define our character.

I’m calling on our board of directors to stop the revote immediately.

Consider the sanctity of each person’s vote and what it means when those votes are ignored. Consider the damage you’re causing to our community.

These are the bigger issues. We do not live in a banana republic. Kevin Dooley Bella Vista

Don’t vote

“DON’T VOTE.” there aren’t many times in American history that an American citizen has made such an outrageous statement. However, when an election is so rigged as the assessment increase proposal presented to the voters of the Bella Vista Properties Association on Dec. 12, 2019, what else is a person supposed to do.

The owners of unimproved lots outnumber the members of improved lots about two to one.

Each lot owner gets one vote per lot. The POA is offering the unimproved lot members a zero assessment increase added to their existing $16 a month while the improved lot members will be paying $13 a month more added to the current $24 payment.

In the real world, these elections would be dead on arrival before election day for some of the following reasons:

1. It is unfair to place propaganda on how to vote in the same envelope with the ballot.

2. It is illegal to pit the majority of voters with incentives to beat the minority.

3. It is wrong to drop the quorum of 51 percent on the first two failed elections to 25 percent on the third attempt.

4. It is unethical, if not illegal, to hold back-to-back elections over the same issue within a matter of a few days and keep moving the goalposts each time.

5. It is unethical to force us to sign our ballots. In the real world, voting machines do not require our signatures. It’s no one’s business how we vote. Voters should be able to vote yes or no without anyone knowing how they voted. No one wants to wind up on a blacklist somewhere, especially the POA’s or that of Cooper Communities Inc.

6. It is unfair for the POA to place propaganda in our water bill and we can’t.

7. It is unfair that we pay for the “VOTE YES ” signs when “VOTE NO” signs must be paid for out of our own pockets.

8. It’s not right for (CCI) to instruct its employees to steal and destroy any “VOTE NO” signs.

9. We have to pay almost $40,000 for another election that we don’t want.

COO Tom Judson has written that, after two failed elections with a quorum of 51 percent, the third election falls to a 25 percent quorum to pass. Some POA Board members have already said there may be that third election if this one fails.

The POA propaganda is that the election is needed because the POA needs more money. If that is so, why did the board vote last month to give the top officials another raise and a couple of big bonuses to two top employees? COO Tom Judson’s salary was $272,742 and now it is $273,659.

The Bella Vista Patriot plan is to go on a “DON’T VOTE” campaign and ensure that this election fails, and then we will go from there.

Don’t vote, go away POA. Jim Parsons Bella Vista

2020 Plan

Bella Vista gains more diversity with every passing year. We still have a good percentage of retired folks but also numerous young families. And we have an assortment of everybody in between, with different ages and lifestyles and family compositions.

We have golfers and people who wish the golf courses would go away. We have folks that use the biking and hiking trails and people that are not in favor of the trails. We have people that use the amenities and people that don’t. We have thousands of vacant lot owners that have never seen their lots. We have thousands of vacant lot owners that maybe see their lot once every 20 years or so. And we have a small percentage of vacant lot owners who bought the lots to use our amenities.

Putting together an assessment increase plan to satisfy such divergent constituencies is an impossible task. Kudos to Tom and his staff and the POA board for coming up with a plan that does its best to satisfy as many people as possible.

Yes, there are aspects of the plan that do not satisfy everyone. Would I like to tweak some things? Yes. I see two options. One is that we could pick out one part that we do not like and say, “I am voting NO.” I cannot live my life in such a negative and suspicious manner.

I choose instead to see that the 2020 Plan is the best that we could have under the circumstances. It allows us to move forward in a positive way. It allows us to continue to bring our amenities out of the 1970s and 1980s and into the current century while looking toward the future. It allows us to keep our property values leaning upward.

Let us choose to work together, respecting our differences, while realizing that we just cannot move forward on 2001 income. We moved to Bella Vista because of the environment, the amenities, the beautiful hills, the affordability and the friendly welcoming people. Let us honor that and vote yes.

Linda Lloyd Bella Vista

So much emotion

Wow … so much emotion being displayed about the proposed assessment increase. I’ve never seen so many letters to the editor as appeared in last week’s Vista.

I try hard to understand both sides of this issue despite my personal feeling that an increase is more than overdue. I take strong issue to the writer who suggests throwing your ballot away rather than vote no. That hardly seems the right approach but, in America, we are free to express our

opinion in whatever manner we chose.

Here is another solution to consider. I have always voted for an increase dating back to 2002 before we became residents. It has dawned on me that there is nothing stopping me from paying the increased assessment amount regardless of how the vote turns out. I am voluntarily going to pay the additional $13 starting in January. It’s time for me to put my money where my mouth is. Anyone care to join me?

Mike Deshon Bella Vista