At the Annual Membership meeting that wasn't held (yet again), there was a good question from a board candidate that didn't get elected. If it ever gets posted you will hear her inquire about the status of the Mountainview project as it fits into the long range plan. You can see the current long range plan here. Mountainview is slated for 2020. It was kind of blown off, which surprised me. Then when seeing the 7 million dollars allocated to Grand Ave it sent me looking at the PIF account. It was interesting to note, in the Dec report (end of November accounting) there was some 16.7 million plus another 570K collected for the month). That is a healthy on-hand balance of 17 million. When i watched the Feb meeting i noted a dramatic drop in totals. The Feb report showed 11.2 million plus 600K collected in Jan. Nope, not suggesting anything wrong, as they regularly pay bills that come due. Not sure if it went to the Willowbrook/Willowcreek project or if it reflects the payoff of the solar lease (5. something million). I am more curious about the longer view look of those resources. If it is for the payoff of the golf courses in phase 3, that is troubling. Here's why: We will collect approximately 6 million dollars this year. We know now 7 mil is for Grand Ave, 5.5 million for the solar, no idea how much for the new South course pro shop but it's safe to speculate that is 2 million and they are rebuilding the golf maintenance shed at the Lakes courses this year. You can expect to see 1.5 million for that, but it could go higher. Essentially, that will take all of the money available from the PIF account through this year. To do the Mountainview project, they will need to have the cash on-hand, in that they cannot go in debt or they violate the Articles of Incorporation prohibiting indebtedness of 750k or more. To do that, they need a vote by the membership. It would be nice to see better accounting of the money and the interesting thing is under T33, that would be the case. Under T10, we can request the information, and the board can agree to show us individually, or they can refuse.
And the proposal on the agenda for Motion 10 is that the PIF account only be reported quarterly. Is this a new way to slink money out of accounts and not have to tell anyone?
Pretty simple Carole; when there's 17 million dollars in the account, showing monthly totals is a no brainer. By years end as those numbers are rapidly depleted, they are going to be doing some catching up. Showing the results every three months gives them some flexibility and may keep them from revealing numbers they don't want people to see. There is no logical reason for doing away with the monthly treasurer's report that shows the PIF account and what is collected each month unless they are worried about account balances. A month ago i asked the question if home sales were down? No one answered, but sales across the country have dropped, so we may well be moving into a downturn. If that is the case, the PIF accounts will show and feel it. I suppose the next thing we will hear is it's time for a PIF increase. How about if we hadn't pissed all that money down the rat hole called golf, maybe we could have done more things in the community and not be worrying how to get some of this other stuff done. And by the way, when it finally gets posted watch the video on the Membership meeting that wasn't. You will see/hear two things: We did all that golf course money because it was better to do that than reline the lake (has anyone ever seen that "agreement" between Jan and the State?). And, the president will tell you loudly and proudly the golf course maintenance buildings aren't golf related but belong on the facilities side of the PIF ledger. And so we are clear, doing golf course redesign has nothing to do with water conservation.
Does someone actually try and push that fluff which would have one believe all of this money spent on golf was to save water? I am not a golfer, yet even I know the millions spent will not save water. It was discussed several times that desert landscaping at the golf courses actually costs more money than maintaining the greens. An agreement between Jan and the State? Whatever agreement Jan has with the State would be to Jan's benefit, not the RCSC's. If we are talking about the relining of the lake, then why go to the expense of digging a new well for water? The new well was supposed to get us away from the well agreement and water sharing with what is now EPCOR. It was supposed to save us money. I am hearing a recurrent theme, let us continue to spend millions of dollars on Jan's ideas of saving money, and then have the membership pay the savings. I am not sure we can afford any more of Jan's "savings" opportunities.
