Ballot will divide and conquer
After attending a Rejuvenation Plan meeting led by Bella Vista chief operating office Tom Judson, I was concerned about how the proposed assessment election is to be conducted.
For the following discussion, improved lot owners will be referred to as "residents" and unimproved lot owners will be referred to as "non-residents."
Tom Judson was contacted to confirm that the ballot will basically contain two measures to be voted upon.
Note that 19,000 of the 38,000 ballots, using rounded numbers, sent must be returned for the election to be valid.
Measure 1: Increase assessments of residents by $9. Yes or No (Circle One)
Measure 2: Increase assessments of non-residents by $3. Yes or No (Circle One)
There are approximately 12,000 resident lots and approximately 26,000non-resident lots in Bella Vista.
As you can see, 12,000 (32 percent) of the ballots will be sent to residents, while 26,000 (68 percent) will be sent to non-residents. With the non-residents having over twice (2.16 times, to be exact) as many votes as the residents, it is evident that if only 19,000 of the 26,000 ballots sent to the non-residents are returned, the non-residents will have complete control of the assessment election. With the incentive of keeping non-resident assessment fees at their current levels and increasing the assessment fees of residents, it is expected that ballots of non-residents will be returned in higher numbers than in previous elections.
Please understand that if all residents of the Village vote "No" on Measure 1 or do not return their ballots, it will have absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election. The non-residents will decide what the residents will pay in assessment fees.
When an election creates the possibility that one class of property owners can decide what is required of the other class of property owners it is, at a minimum, unethical.
And that is exactly what this election does, and it is unethical. Even proposing such an election makes one wonder about the make-up of the current board.
Using this divide-and-conquer approach to accomplish an assessment increase seems to violate the trust that residents and non-residents have placed in the current Board of Directors, not to mention the precedent that would be set.
It is believed that all Bella Vista lot owners would be better served if the Board would undertake a course of action to alter the Covenants, whereby only residents would vote on issues pertaining to residents only and only non-residents would vote on issues pertaining to non-residents only, thus eliminating the divide-and-conquer potential in future elections.
Jack Bartlett
Bentonville
Editorial on 08/24/2016