Not long after Mr. Christie became the mayor of Bella Vista, I asked him to come to my house to look at a drainage problem caused by the city street. If it wasn't for the speed bump at the edge of my driveway, I would have all the water from the cul-de-sac blacktop run into my house. I showed him how the road slopes in my direction, causing the problem.
He informed me he had a study done to determine how much it would take to fix the roads in our fair city. He said the study showed a total of $12,000,000 worth of work. Then he advised he wants to try to do that without raising taxes.
"That will be great and how soon are you going to get started?"
He didn't know yet. But back to my problem, he said Cooper Communities is the cause of the drainage issue and the city is not responsible. Wow! It seems they took on everything else to do with the city except controlling the building of buildings, repairs and, I guess, the roads as well.
I now have a sinking cul-de-sac. Water comes up through the blacktop cracks and the water still drains up to my speed bump. I called the Property Owners Association out once in the summer and once in the winter; and they say it is groundwater. So, I called the city street department; and what do I get? Yes, they informed me it is bad and all they can do right now is put my street on a consideration list. That doesn't mean it will be fixed right away and it could be taken off the list at any time. (It probably will be after this letter.)
It seems the city can give our tax dollars to the POA even though we homeowners have monthly dues and amenity fees. The money goes for things like bike trails that maybe only about 5 percent of the Bella Vista population uses and other issues our dues and amenity payments should go to.
Why do we have an almost $8 million surplus, yet we can't get roads fixed? A new city complex is being considered and I am sure it is going to be a big-dollar complex. We have the money; don't spend it like the POA did, on a lot of things that didn't need to be done.
I think it is time for the city to clean this town up and fix what we have. Then look at building a new city complex, with costs being a consideration, so we don't have something that looks like it belongs in Washington, D.C. Think creatively! Because this is taxpayer's money -- use it wisely.
Clayton Thurman
Bella Vista
Editorial on 03/28/2018