At the April 30th “Let’s Talk” session, a board member asked what has changed in the past year except Villagers’ attitudes? Do our toilets still flush? Do we have roads to drive on? Are our lights on? In other words, we have nothing to complain about because everything is going fine. We just have bad attitudes.
REALLY?
This just demonstrates how far off track the POA board and management has ventured. They not only have NO idea what they are doing but they also have NO idea where they are heading.
So, what has changed in the last year?
1. The POA board has spent well over $1 million to craft, sell and defend a broken Comprehensive Master Plan (CMP) that is mostly dysfunctional.
2. The POA has spent countless money to promote a “Declarations” change vote that seems to be a “last second Hail Mary” to eliminate CCI (developer) from the Village. All because no one, during the months of charettes and discussions, saw that without CCI the CMP could never be implemented. … OOPs! Major oversight by our great leaders!
3. The POA is embroiled in numerous lawsuits mostly generated by mismanagement and inexperience … at the POA board level and at the CEO level.
4. The POA has a plethora of maintenance and functional issues that continue to be delayed.
5. The POA continues to add layers of management to serve the implementation of the CMP which cannot be accomplished without CCI’s approval. And, they continue to support an amateurish marketing strategy that is not improving revenues.
The list of POA board and management failures is extensive and could cover numerous pages.
Bottom line
The bottom line is that our POA (board and management) has demonstrated a consistent incompetence and ignorance for many things they have done over the past year. It is blatantly obvious they are hopelessly lost. A CMP Advisory Committee, “Let’s Talk” sessions (even with the “fun facts”) and a “head in the sand” mentality will continue to deteriorate our Village brand and worsen our financial problems. They are already contemplating borrowing money to pay overdue maintenance… fee increases and special assessments cannot be far behind!
Some POA board members want to negotiate with CCI to get them out of the Village (how will we pay for that?). I believe the November 2018 “Declarations” vote stated how Villagers felt about this. Not only is our POA board and management incapable of negotiating this purchase but it would place the future development of HSV into the hands of people who cannot get a gate security system to work, take two years to decide to build a pool nobody wants and all the other management debacles we have seen. Just in the last year!!!
And, the last time I went to Sears …. their toilets still flushed and their lights were on … BANKRUPT!
Written by a Villager, May 8, 2019
Lloyd Sherman
05/08/2019 — 1:42 pm
Keep in mind that if you don’t know where you are going, that is exactly where you will wind up!
Let’s hope the new board members will be able to influence and hopefully moderate this slow swirl down the toilet bowl. The toilets may be working but we know where it all winds up!
Melinda Alvord
05/08/2019 — 2:34 pm
To whoever wrote this…. thank you. I was there and felt there were several elephants in the room when a board member kept pressing this question… things that people might have been feeling but just didn’t want to say. I know I did.
David Vuurman
05/08/2019 — 3:52 pm
My question is can a non-profit corporation borrow money?
Andy Kramek
05/08/2019 — 5:41 pm
I believe that it can. The problem is finding a lender because, since a non-profit corporation by definition does not make a profit, lenders tend to regard them as high risk candidates. Some specialist lenders will, apparently, fund specific types of loan – usually for physical improvements (new equipment, purchasing real estate etc) or to bridge cash flows when waiting for things like government grants.
Karen Lundberg
05/20/2019 — 1:19 pm
David Vuurman, an even better question is, can a non-profit corporation “loan” money? Every bit of research I have done has stated that the answer to that question is that a non-profit corporation cannot loan money in cash or in kind. So why did our non-profit corporation loan anything to Johnna Westermen, and even now that there is a default judgment against her, we will never recoup a dime of that money. Everything I have read regarding a non-profit corporation loaning money is that they are putting their non-profit status at risk.
Linda Anderson
05/08/2019 — 5:38 pm
Great Article. This demonstrates the inability of the Board to understand the needs of HSV. I would compare the Board to Deer in the headlights-clueless about how their decisions have split the community and broken the TRUST.
Brooks W. Outland
05/09/2019 — 5:23 am
This is all well and good and if accurate, we are still in trouble! The only important thing missing is a suggestion as to how to fix it!
There must be a way to get rid of our current so-called CEO and all board members who follow the CEO like sheep! We need to reconstitute the leadership of our POA and we need to do it quickly.
How can we legally “fire” the CEO and sheepish Board members? If we cannot fix the problem, of what use is the information provided by one of our Villagers.
Don’t get me wrong, my wife and I do not have an ounce of confidence in the present POA leadership! We are unable to trust the future of the Village to such incompetent people! We thought we had found the perfect “last stop” for us; perhaps we were wrong!
We need to create a Committee (outside the eyes & ears of our POA leadership), and find out how to fix this unacceptable situation!
Andy Kramek
05/09/2019 — 11:30 am
Alas, I fear another Committee will not solve anything. A pressure group might be able to achieve something in the way of making more property owners aware of just how bad the situation is. However, the problem is, and will remain, the intransigence of the collective Boards of Directors over the past few years and their apparent reluctance to assert control over the actions of the GM/CEO and their respective cohorts.
In order to be effective anything that could be done would definitely require unfettered access to information and documentation held by the POA. Recent events have shown just how difficult it is for outsiders (by which I mean mere property owners like us) to get access to anything significant.
As for removing the CEO, as far as I am aware there is no mechanism for us, as property owners, to do that. As I understand it, he CEO is appointed by the Board, and has a contract (just renewed). Presumably there are specific conditions under which the CEO’s contract could be terminated, but what they may be is a mystery.
Sharon Welborn
05/09/2019 — 10:50 am
Do NOT borrow money for basic necessities. That is the dumbest thing yet. If you can’t pay your bills because you spent it on pie in the sky stuff, then you shouldn’t have that job. That’s just irresponsible.
Frank Leeming
05/09/2019 — 10:51 am
Good article. Well written. But articles like this should not be published anonymously. No one is going to shoot the messenger.
Tom
05/09/2019 — 12:35 pm
Frustrations of the day ! Kick the CAN down the road !
I to was frustrated by the comment made by the board president at that meeting . Using the terminology of do your toilets work was very disrespectful , and her demeanor seemed to be like she was talking down to us . I kept raising my hand but she kept avoiding me only to take other people questions multiple times . We were invited to a Poa volunteer luncheon by a card that came in the mail , thus requesting us to call them and let them know if we would be attending . Problem is you can never get to talk to the person your suppose to talk to . Why ? No body is working , answer phone over ,over , over. For 2days the same old story ! If you by chance do get a live person , that person only kicks the can and transfers your call to another answer service ,
So you see they can not do a little thing like answer the phone and just do there job , so now you see my FRUSTRATIONS with the poa.
Karen Lundberg
05/20/2019 — 1:13 pm
From what I heard, it was Cindi Erickson, who asked the question, “Do our toilets flush?” I was amazed when I heard about it. Even more amazing is that after last Wednesday’s Board meeting, as Nancy Luehring was leaving, I attempted to talk to her in the parking lot. I simply called her name, and she turned on me, screaming and saying, “Do you have any idea what you all have put us through in this past year? Do your toilets flush?” That now makes it two Board members who have used our toilets flushing as a glorious gift to the members of HSVPOA. I would hope that they could come up with something better than that. At this point, I’m not sure they can.
Kirk Denger
05/10/2019 — 12:33 am
“Let’s talk” means if we attend we are there to listen to the BOD talking down to us. Any questions asked are quickly changed to the BOD’s narrative. The let’s talk at the Granada has not been published because there were some points made about no bids on the pool that the BOD does not want public. Let’s talk is a one-way town hall communication, the name could be changed to let’s listen if it were not just a stall for time while the CNU’s CMP strangles us tactic.
JAYNE DELL
05/11/2019 — 11:14 am
Who in their right mind would join a CMP Advisory Committee or even approve of it? We do not want the CMP so why endorse it or even acknowledge the committee. It’s all propaganda in my opinion to make it look like villagers want the CMP.