Are Eastman Sewer Users being Bamboozled?

Let’s go back a few years. In 1980-1981 the ECA Board decided after a non-binding vote of all property owners to acquire the Eastman Golf Links/Center from the developer. The acquisition was done after community officials committed to operate the Golf Course/Center as a stand-alone financial operation.  It is stated on the deed that it be run only as long as it was economically feasible. The intent was that community members would not subsidize through annual assessments the operation of either the Golf Course or the Center.

Some years later, around 2000, the golfers (we were golf members) determined that the golf course needed an automated irrigation system. The then owner of the golf irrigation system (CEC) required that the community buy, not only the irrigation system, but also the sewer system, the dam and certain lake rights. Up until then the financial stand-alone commitment had been maintained for the Golf Course and Center. In acquiring the Sewer Company, which all property owners paid for (on the sewer or not)-- ECA governance committed that the Sewer Company would also operate independently and stand on its own financial capabilities--the same conditions as the Golf Course/Center. Golf members and players were required to pay incremental annual or per round assessments to fund the acquisition of the irrigation system and to fund the improvements to the golf course. Then as ECA members recall, before the golf members paid their full agreed share of the irrigations system, the Board forgave $65,000 that then became the responsibility of the community.

A few years later
while most ECA members were sleeping or otherwise occupied with life, golf members with the strong support of the current Board President elevated the Golf Course to a special amenity--its members have direct vote for the Golf Committee members, who then recommend a budget to the Board, set fees etc. and declared that henceforth all golf capital improvements would be paid for by all Eastman property owners. The mechanics to achieve this was that the ECA Board, created an “Eastman Golf/Country Club” entity with members embedded within the ECA Council, ECA Board and the significant Committees. Of course many ECA members did not realize that this was the beginning of a propaganda and financial campaign still underway today by the Board and golf members to ensure that a Golf/Country Club Complex is the single most important component of what they now declared was a Four Season RESORT. Eastman was defined as a Four Season COMMUNITY by its founders and so it was for its first 30 years.  The takeover leaders kept the word COMMUNITY so as to foster the illusion that a Country Club Complex (CCC) for 250 members of a special Eastman amenity, that it was absolutely mandatory that all golf operations and capital needs would be financed by 1800 ECA property owners, which has now shrunk (thanks to lot retirement) to about 1460.  Now they need a new Clubhouse/Lodge for the members.

This illusion is supported by incomprehensible “Community Declarations and Covenants” and “financials” for the Eastman ENTERPRISE which presumably is at a higher level than RESORT. So what has happened in this century as the CCC have implemented their planned Eastman makeover once more? How does this bamboozle the sewer users? Stay tuned.