I received the following information from a “highly respected” Big Canoe insider:
The real question is should we have a CIF or raise our monthly fees to cover the new amenities?
A CIF requires a vote of the property owners while the POA board could raise our monthly assessments to over $400 a month without any vote on our part. This CIF is equal to about a $40 a month increase in assessments.
To me this is all a big discussion on the wrong subject. Our operating budget is growing very rapidly.
Two years ago our operating profit was around $1.5 million. The 2008 budget calls for an operating profit of about $500,000 or $600,000 and my guess that next year will be close to negative without a big increase in assessments.
You can ask Sandy Filkowski for her one page summary financial report for the last few years and see the numbers for yourself.
7 users commented in " An insider’s view of the Capital Initiation Fee "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackWe might as well understand that whether we vote for this or not we are going to have it. The only question is do we want to pay for it by the month or do we want to take the chance that we may have to pay it when we sell. It has been said that the fee would be a detriment to sales. I also submit that an increase in the monthly assessments would be a negative and would be a hardship on some of our residents. If the “highly respected insider” thinks it will be a $40 increase, I would stand by for $80+. Add on top of that the almost certain imposition of a monthly minimum for the new Sconti and you are looking at $300 a month just to wake up in Big Canoe. Remember, we don’t get to vote on the assessments.
Please help my memory. How could the Sconti Restaurant project have been a NO-BID project?
Once the POA Board’s Capital Initiation Fee is approved, how many more NO-BID Sconti Restaurant type projects will we see and how many more NO-BID Sconti Restaurant type projects can we afford?
No one could possibly believe that the highly experienced and respected Building Committee consisting of volunteer property owners would manage a no bid project.
Duh?
You said: “We might as well understand that whether we vote for this or not we are going to have it.” and “Remember, we don’t get to vote on the assessments.”
Vote it down, and challenge your Board President to raise the monthly assessments to fund his capital improvements. Remember, you can recall/impeach any Board Director that does against the wishes of the membership.
You will remember that the architects for the new Sconti recommended Integra as the contractor, since they had a working relationship with them. There was some discussion on the BC bulletin boards about the no-bid contract but, as usual, our board ignored our thoughts and pressed on. As far as I recall, there was no opposition from our rebuild the Sconti committee. In my entire business career, I never heard of anything like this going unchallenged.
As far as recalling or impeaching any board member that goes against the wishes of the property owners, good luck.
As far as challenging the board on assessment increases, good luck again. Remember that we were told that if we didn’t vote for the last amenity package, which included the Sconti debacle, they were going to increase the assessment by a large amount to pay for most of it anyway, whether we liked it or not. Setting the amount of our monthly assessment falls under the control of the board according to our bylaws.
The biggest problem with challenging the board is that the majority of the residents are like a bunch of sheep and blindly go along with anything. Combine the apathy of the average resident with the voting control of the developer and you just run up against a brick wall.
Several years ago after the CFO/GM financial debacle the board implemented a policy of requiring three bids on all projects over $1000 and all capital items were approved by the Board late in the prior year to the project being undertaken. It is therefore ludicrous that a no-bid policy was used by Crouch for the Sconti project…he should be impeached!
Sconti is surely going to run at a bigger loss than before, so why not implement a annual food and beverage minimum so we at least get something for our money as well as giving Sconti a healthy base to work from; instead of having to increase our poa monthly fees to cover these anticipated restuarant operating losses!
Yes, The CIF need to be introduced…but do it gradually, beginning with a 1/4% and increasing over the next ten years to the 1%
combined with small annual poa fee increases along with the F&B annual minimum.