Most of us have read the Bella Vista Property Owners Association 2020 Plan. (This plan is subject to change the day after the election Nov. 9). Now here is the Bella Vista Patriots 2030 Plan:
Dissolve the BVPOA.
Keep most of the amenities as they are, but place them under the operation of the city's new Municipal Parks and Recreation Department.
We don't need seven golf courses. Some should be transformed to make room for revenue sources for the city and building sites for schools.
Form a Bella Vista Public School District.
Form neighborhood POAs such as Lake Avalon POA, Lake Windsor POA, Highland Golf Course POA, Country Club POA, etc.
Dissolve the Architectural Control Committee. We can have city ordinances for those duties.
Transfer the BVPOA Water Service to the Bella Vista City Water Department.
In the past few years, the BVPOA Board has either broken the law or violated its own policies at least 20 times. The POA continues to treat non-members better than assessment paying POA members. The POA members now have to pay over $4 million for the illegal stump dump fire that the POA hierarchy created. I personally have to pay the POA and Cooper Communities Inc. attorneys $10,224.50 because I informed the Benton County Circuit Court that I thought those two corporations were involved with operating an unpermitted stump dump. What egregious crime did I commit to receive such punishment?
For more than 20 years, many people said Bella Vista would never become a city. In 2005, the Bella Vista Patriots rented a bus and took a group of Patriots and members of the Concerned Citizens of Bella Vista to Little Rock to lobby the Legislature to create a law that would make it possible for us to become a city of the first class. Most of the voters at that time voted to become a city because, by doing that, they thought in time we would no longer be a POA- or Cooper-controlled community.
The word has almost always been that we would never get the bypass built around Bella Vista, but if we can hang on for another year or two, we are going to get to drive on it.
Those who think the BVPOA 2020 Plan will lead us into the future need to think again because the POA is not through paying for the damages to individuals who will be filing their claims soon. The bills may be more than the POA can pay and bankruptcy may be in order. Let's pray that the judicial system will not order that we as members need to come out of pocket to pay for the stump dump damages. The only money the POA has is our money. All the money it wastes is our money.
Jim Parsons
Bella Vista
Editorial on 11/13/2019