"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:
It is unfair to place propaganda on how to vote in the same envelope with the ballot.
It is illegal to pit the majority of voters with incentives to beat the minority.
It is wrong to drop the quorum of 51 percent on the first two failed elections to 25 percent on the third attempt.
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.
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.
It is unfair for the POA to place propaganda in our water bill and we can't.
It is unfair that we pay for the "VOTE YES " signs when "VOTE NO" signs must be paid for out of our own pockets.
It's not right for (CCI) to instruct its employees to steal and destroy any "VOTE NO" signs.
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
Editorial on 12/11/2019