EMPOWERING
TELLICO VILLAGE
January - ATTENTION
Special
UPDATE
Our Mission....To
communicate critical village news in a fair, clear, truthful and concise
manner of key issues that impact our village.
Greetings Tellico Village - As many of you may know, an educational Not
For Profit (NFP) “Voice of Tellico” was formed to provide a counterpoint
to the information published and decisions made by our POA.
This distribution list has been assembled from many different sources.
You can “opt out” by unsubscribing below.
We are always ready to take advice and/or responsibility with anything
we have published.
Dear Villagers - This is a SPECIAL TIME SENSITIVE message. Our POA has
not fairly presented the facts of the proposed “buy in” fee that will be
discussed at the Jan 9th Town Hall.
Background...... the
original proposal was termed an “exit tax” and to be imposed on the sale
of your property in the Village. It
was not supported by our lawmakers
when they discovered our CEO had falsely claimed he had
"the support of the Village” when he did not.
From there it became known as a “buy in” fee. It was proposed as .5% of
the home’s value. For example, the average $600,000 home would yield
$3,000 to be paid by either the buyer or seller, to be negotiated. It
was shared and communicated to various leaders in our community and then
at a Town Hall earlier this year.
Now (third attempt) we were told at the last board meeting (December) it
has been changed again to a flat fee of $5,000 and will be called a
“Reserve Funding Fee." A flat rate is not a fair proposal.
Here is what we believe is wrong with this.
1) Our POA once again has gone about this the wrong way. Rather than
communicating this at either of the previous 2 cancelled Town Halls
(which would have provided enough time for us to understand and to have
our voices to be heard), our feedback to the board and/or our input to
state representatives will not be possible. There simply will not be
enough time for this to occur. Why? Because the Legislature has to
decide the following week which bills will be on the docket!
2) This
program is designed to increase our reserves. At the present time we
simply don’t know what our future reserves should be. Why? Because our
POA has admitted that the “reserve study” used to determine future
reserves is flawed and most likely overstates our need. We have already
accumulated more money than needed to pay for our future needs.
Currently, we have one more $25 mill in the bank, and are estimating
another $10 mill reserved each year.
3) When
this proposal was originally presented, we did not have a TAP fee of $80
added to our water bills to pay for our water/sewer infrastructure. This
TAP fee will yield approximately $30 mill, freeing up money previously
set aside from our reserves.
4) Our POA
has not given us any financial projections regarding the “lost revenue”
at build out. This was the rationale for this fee. We need to know how
much revenue will be lost and the associated expenses that will be
reduced, that support the need for this
revenue
stream. Without this information we can't make any informed decision.
5) This is
being sold to us as normal and customary for a community such as ours
and that our local communities have a similar a fee. This is false. Of
the three private communities in our area, only one has a “buy in/exit
tax”, Wind River. It goes to the developer to pay for building out
amenities. The other two have “initiation fees” which go to the HOA’s
NOT to fund infrastructure, but rather for the day-to-day operations.
Further, all of these communities spell these fees out in their
Covenants. Ours does not allow for this.
We will be
undertaking a new reserve study in March that will give us a clear
picture of what our reserve requirements should be. If this “Reserve
Funding Fee” is needed and remains something for the Village to consider
and appropriate financial projections are supplied, we will have plenty
of time in the coming year to discuss this and get the support within
the Village. And, most importantly, do this the right way with all of
our stakeholders and leaders involve with enough time to work this
through.
For now, we
need to just say NO! Please show up next Thursday January 9 at 3PM at
the Community Church to push back for the reasons stated above.
EMPOWERING TELLICO VILLAGE |