When the POA board postponed an assessment election last year, General Manager Tom Judson told a very vocal group at the Metfield Clubhouse that the POA management had misread the membership. The leadership was surprised by the amount of opposition to its plan. This time will be a little different.
"We listened to the membership," Judson said, after a recent board work session. The proposal to hold another assessment election was on the agenda.
The latest proposal calls for an increase of $11 for improved lots and $2 for unimproved lots. But along with the increase, a new fee schedule will be adopted that will eliminate dozens of fees and address some problems with the current schedule.
Board chairwoman Ruth Hatcher said the new schedule will encourage more members to use the amenities.
"We want members to use amenities. We want them to be active and to be involved," she said.
Some members said the fees were enough to discourage them from using amenities, Judson said, citing a 2015 survey.
Not all fees will be removed. Golf and tennis will still have fees. The annual green fees for golf will go down to $1,600 (if paid in one lump sum). It is now $1,800 for the first member in a household. There is a different fee for the second member which will go from $1,400 to $1,300. Members who pay the annual fee on a monthly basis pay a little more.
Guest fees for golf will go up from $50 for 18 holes to $52.
Tennis fees will go down for members but remain the same for guests.
Other amenities will be closed to guests unless they are guests of a member and have a guest card. Those amenities include the pools, the beach, the fitness centers, parks, lakes and the gun range.
The fee to register a boat will be simplified with only three categories: non-motorized; under 18 feet; and 18 feet or over. Slips without covers will be less expensive.
The photo ID card will be replaced by an activity card which will be only $30. Members with an activity card can get into recreation facilities without a fee. A member who has only the paper membership card will still pay a fee for daily use of the pools, fitness centers and the gun range.
One problem the new schedule will address is the difference in price between members and guests on the golf courses, Judson said. By lowering member prices and raising guest prices, there will be a bigger difference, making membership more appealing.
"Property owners were choosing outside amenities," Judson said. "We want them back."
He uses fitness centers as an example. The annual fee for the fitness center in Bella Vista is significantly more than Planet Fitness in Bentonville.
"This is going to help property values," Hatcher predicted, "People will get excited."
After the board identified what it believed was wrong with the fee schedule, POA staff members worked on the new proposals. Focus groups were consulted along the way. At last weeks work session, the board members indicated they would support the proposal. The official vote will be at this week's board meeting on Thursday, Aug. 22.
Judson plans to speak to as many groups as possible to explain it. There are already 25 meetings set up, he told the board during the work session, and he hopes to set up another 25.
He has a very specific breakdown of where the additional $11 a month will go. Six dollars goes to replace the current fees. Two dollars will go to the costs of the Trafalgar fire and, when that's completely paid, the money goes into reserves. Two dollars goes toward operational costs and capital improvements and one dollar goes to reserves.
Marketing materials also contain information on where the money won't go. There won't be a new community center and there won't be any additional POA funds committed to the expansion of the trail system until at least 2023.
There also won't be any fee increases until 2023, the literature promises.
Another issue that came up in 2018 was the concept of the POA board casting the votes assigned to lots owned by the organization. A change in the bylaws that was recommended by the Rules and Regulations Committee will make that impossible. The board will vote on that change in time for the bylaw to be in effect for the proposed election, Judson said. No vote will be cast for the POA owned lots.
The last assessment increase for the POA was in 2001 when members approved the two-tier system with a different fee for unimproved lots. In 2016, an increase of $9 for improved lots and $3 for unimproved lots failed by less than 1 percent or, according to Judson, 28 votes.
General News on 08/21/2019