ArrowCreek411

By Dan Carrick (Original post is on the Voices to the Webmaster page)

I attended the ACHOA Community Meeting this past Tuesday evening (July 7) and was struck by the way I have emotionally responded to what was presented. Let’s just say that I am irritated, irritated by the ACBOD, FOA and the approximately 900 property owners who weren’t there.

Ostensibly this was a meeting of the AC Communications Committee representing the interests of the HOA.

It is my opinion that only the interests of the FOA were represented.

The advertised thrust of the meeting was to discuss the alternatives to having a golf course environment by transitioning the two golf courses to become brown native open space, a park-like environment with trees, pavilions, etc. to possibly having outdoor sports incorporated which would charge money to the public for participation.

The presentation was moderated by a professor at UNR and had as participants a landscape representative of Moana Nursery and the Washoe County Operations Superintendent (Parks & Rec). The purpose of the professor was to be a neutral person, the purpose of Washoe County was to discuss what failed golf courses were turned into and how they are managed and Moana discussed the estimated cost of going brown or conversion to another purpose (spreadsheet identified it was prepared for FOA).

The short synopsis is that nobody would ever want an expensive park which would charge money and be open to the public and it was shown to be clear that it’s much more cost effective to purchase the current golf club than doing anything else including a return to nature.

This whole exercise was a sham! I assume paid for by the HOA, you know, us, to positively show us that the FOA needs to be bought out!

Nowhere was there a whiff of the option of encouraging the FOA to become a raging success. Clearly it isn’t an option to the ACHOA BOD. Why not? Who drives these people to pursue what a whole lot of home owners don’t want. Is there any daylight between the BOD and the FOA? I really don’t understand what’s going on here; it’s enough to make me a drunken conspiracy theorist.

I have tried to attend as many of the HOA presentations and monthly meetings as possible. What has become clear is that participation in these community meetings is heavily weighted to people who have golf interests. Based on this past meeting I would say it’s probably 90% golf, 10% non golf. Someone stood up and pointed out that when a pro-golf person speaks it’s followed by clapping, when somebody else speaks it’s silence, sometimes with an air of disapproval (I am paraphrasing).

It’s clear to me that these community meetings are just sales pitches that will lead to only one conclusion. Somebody the other night wanted some hard numbers of what it means to our monthly fees. Well, so far the only answer is that nobody knows yet but it’s being worked on. Let’s face it, the hard number won’t be presented until the FOA finishes it’s sales campaign and the membership has been softened up a bit.

OK, here is my other gripe: People out there, where are you? What is this apathy?

I don’t understand it. Don’t you care? I personally am conflicted, it may well turn out that buying the property and leasing to APMG is the correct answer going forward, it may not. But why don’t you participate? Quite frankly the ACHOA BOD really only hears approval or disapproval of their actions from the golf interests. Is it such that if the HOA comes to you and wants a bump of any amount of money, say $10.00/mo., the answer is automatically NO! Well, that might not be very bright either, would it?

I would like to hear from others out there. Why aren’t you at these meetings?

Thanks

Dan Carrick