Members To See Budget Saturday

By Patric Hedlund

Some call it “paying double taxes.” Others like knowing their annual property owners’ association assessments offer amenities, security and snowplow services that are local.

Pine Mountain Club members will be shown the new budget Saturday, April 10 at 10 a.m. in the Condor Room. Assessment increases will be discussed. Member input will be solicited then and questions will be answered, said new General Manager Rory Worster.

“The biggest challenge,” Worster says, “is this economic environment, because the forecast is not great for California. How do we accomplish what is important for the association at this time?”

New Director of Finance Todd Draa reports, “The budget is 90 percent set.” He said the rumor that there will be a $170 assessment increase “is very inaccurate…changes have been [recently] made.”

Some committee members who worked on the new covenants, conditions and restrictions (CC&Rs—the documents that govern the association) asked management informally to consider the impact that a major assessment increase could have on members’ willingness to vote to reauthorize the CC&Rs. Some members have contacted the newspaper suggesting it would be better to let the CC&Rs lapse, which could leave the community of Pine Mountain as an unincorporated rural area with all services managed by the Kern County Board of Supervisors in Bakersfield. It is unlikely that Pine Mountain could be incorporated as a township under current California laws, according to state sources.

On Wednesday at 7 p.m. “a dry run-through” presentation of the proposed budget was scheduled to be given to the PMCPOA Board of Directors. Members did not receive notification of that, or much notice about the Saturday event.

This reporter was unable to find notice on the association website or in the April Condor. We are told an insert was placed in the PMCPOA newsletter, but members we interviewed missed it. On Tuesday, April 6, the Wednesday board meeting was cancelled because of the failure to notify members as required under the Davis-Stirling Act. Items legally discussed in closed executive sessions by POA board members are narrowly defined by the law, confined to individual personnel issues, contract negotiations and active litigation. Abuse of the executive sessions for discussion of other issues is a sore topic often voiced by members.

This is part of the April 09, 2010 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.

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