FINANCE AND BUDGET Committee Members-- COME OUT

 DECLARE Your Golf Memberships

Are you a golf member now? Have you been a golf member in the past 2 years?

Responsible government members disclose their recreational benefits and activities that could most likely influence their vote and preferences. Full disclosure is what community members are entitled to from anyone proposing to spend vast sums of other people's money. Finance & Budget Member, do you have a Conflict of Interest? Do you have what could be perceived by some ECA members as a Conflict of Interest? The citizen decides.

Answering these questions is an open transparent act. It is what citizens are entitled to and expect of those in positions where trust in decision-makers’ objectivity is mandatory. It is expected of volunteers and compensated government officials. When volunteers refuse to be open, to COME OUT with this information their motivation is to be questioned.

As the Referendum explanation document pointed out, we only have “preliminary plans for building and will be subject to modifications as the project moves forward.” Never in the history of Eastman has such an affront been issued by a few people running the community to so many: the 80% who are not golf members. In this case, any proposal other than to fix what needs to be fixed in the Center is no more than a “spending blank check”. Why would any responsible financial individual support such an irresponsible financial decision?

You have produced no financial forecast whereby this decision will increase demand or increase property values in the community. The past 5 years have seen a dramatic downward trend in Eastman property values when compared to NH property values which have increased 11% in that time period while Eastman’s have dropped 21%. (See: http://eastmanblog.blogspot.com/2014/07/are-eastman-properties-worth-more-today.html) How is it that by increasing Eastman home ownership costs that our property values will not continue to deteriorate??

There is absolutely no evidence or document by a reliable source that indicates that the Center needs anything other than to fix some components based on the recommendations of the engineers and architects. In those documents, it is clearly stated that improvement work to such things as the Center's windows could be done gradually over a three-year period.  Indeed some "improvements" while of questionable economic return could easily be funded in a specific time frame by using the membership fee moneys EXCLUSIVELY for that purpose for a three-year period. Those capital monies --now exceeding $250,000 per year were intended to alleviate the capital fees paid by Eastman members. It is time to mandate that that be the case. The Council Chairperson should lead demanding that this be the case. Why instead are these funds being spent to buy and accumulate land among other less critical expenditures?

Additional Capital Assessment monies are required to compensate for the more than 400 Retired Lots whose Assessments, we the remaining 1450 owners, are required to pick up. In FY2015, the amount paid for the retired lots by ECA members is $616,529 (that is $421 per ECA member). Almost 50% more than the debt we are paying annually on South Cove.

The Lot Retirement Program was instituted to create less demand on, and less cost of amenities to ECA owners. Instead we have more than doubled our Annual Assessments. We are building more elaborate country club-like facilities for a diminishing population desired by about 22% of those footing the bill.