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.

 

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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

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1/6/25