The Best Kept Secret in Norwich VT

Bread sales are down everywhere on Fridays except on Bragg Hill Rd in Norwich. Suzanne Lupien is at the outdoor wood fired oven turning out a few hundred loaves every Friday barring rain. She has raisin bread, walnut bread, olive bread, rosemary bread and plain sour dough type. You must come at the end of the day for the country style sour dough because it requires the longest rising times. Loaves are $6 a piece and you may want to buy more than you think necessary in case it rains the following Friday or if you are coming from a long distance, they freeze well.

Notes from the April 2014 ECA Council Meeting

In case you missed the Council Meeting, Council Chair Mr. Parker stated (regarding the vote that would be taken to spend $5.7 million and to borrow $7 million) that “whatever decision is made today, the Council will still move forward in one fashion or another.”  

Addendum: As you all know, the $5.7 million option was defeated. This means, barring a serious “no” vote in September, there will be several million expended on the Center.

Some of the items that Board President Goldman touched on are:

·      Now that the Sewer Company has been acquired by the VDE, sewer users will see no changes except that bills will now be issued by the VDE.

o   Sounds like you can relax—until you got your bill.

·      He also mentioned that a decision from Superior Court has not been rendered but is expected soon.

o   Decision has been made and you can read all about it at http://tinyurl.com/p4f4fns

·      New Member Fees are up from a budgeted $220K to a received $347K, showing “positive real estate activity”.

o   How is this positive for Members? Yes, it is positive for Real Estate Agents. It is positive for ECA governance. However property churn at Eastman has driven down Average square foot cost in Eastman 21% since 2010. There is a 2 year inventory in Eastman with 126 units on the market This is not positive for members.

·     

Are Eastman Properties Worth More Today Than in 2010?

·         Since 1999 our Annual Assessment has climbed from under $1200 to $3189 (a 166% increase). In comparison, Grantham’s property tax rate has risen only 20% since 1999.

·      When the Member Buy In Fee was instituted in FY2005, the ECA Board committed that it would increase property values and reduce our Capital Assessment Fee increases. In FY2005 our Capital Assessment Fee was $295. In FY2014 it is $890, which is more than a 200% increase. Likewise a Special Capital Assessment Fee has gone from $100 to $250 or a 150% increase.

·      At the same time the Community has collected $2,349,620 in Membership Fees or $1566 per property. None of that money has been returned or lowered your Capital Assessment.

·      When the South Cove Activity Center was built, the ECA Board claimed it would increase Eastman property values.

·      In the past 10 years the ECA Board has spent almost $4,000,000 of your Capital monies “improving” the golf course grounds and upgrading golf equipment, claiming it would increase property values.

·      With the re-build or renovation of the CENTER/RESTAURANT, the ECA Board is claiming it will increase property values.

The Center Bait and Switch

Are ECA members being snookered again? Is the Hoopla about the Center structural problems a manipulative move to build a luxury restaurant/bar/clubhouse with a GM Suite?

The current condition of the Eastman Center is and has been the responsibility of the current general manager for the duration of his 11 years at Eastman. We as members of this community who pay all costs for capital and operating expenses to maintain our community's infrastructure are entitled to a complete accounting of how the Center, a 16 yr-old building is in the supposed poor physical shape that has been portrayed. Simply put, the general manager needs to be accountable for the current state and what has created the portrayed dilapidated condition of the Center building.

Before any Council vote to spend millions of Eastman's capital monies occurs, all Eastman owners, are entitled to a full disclosure of the following financial information.

STEP 1: Financial History--Accountability that includes a detailed inventory of all capital expenses for the building done since it was built including:

•          Cost of the tavern addition

•          Cost of the upgrade work that was done for the kitchen and the furnishings for Brian McKenzie (Pleasant Lake Inn) when he agreed to a contract to operate the restaurant. In that contract were stipulations to upgrade the facility which included:

◦       Upgrading the kitchen

◦       Renovating and upgrading the furnishings, light fixtures etc.

•          Cost of the Draper Room re-designs and re-decoration which has been done at least twice.

•          Cost of upgrading the building air-conditioning system

•           Cost and scope of all repairs and upgrades that have been done in the entire building including the pizza ovens, the kitchen air-conditioning, the septic system etc. since the building was built.

•          Cost of all major operational/maintenance items which have exceeded $10,000 (in the past 3 years alone, we have paid almost $500,000 to a corporation owned by a unit owner and a unit owner for repair and maintenance—Note M Audit Report FY2011, 2012, 2013)

Thought for the Day

A society that is based on money is aggressive, and those with power can  bully and behave cruelly  to others.

A society that depends on money has problems that reflect it's beliefs.

In this kind of society, people who value affection and compassion are treated like fools, 

while those whose priority is making money become more and more arrogant.

---Dalai Lama

No Voting Rights on Spending

Happy Fourth of July—Let Freedom Ring! Are we free? Are we equal? Well, according to Leonard Cohen “Everybody knows the fight was fixed --The poor stay poor, the rich get rich. Everybody knows the deal is rotten—Old Black Joe’s still pickin’ cotton.”

Each person having a vote is a first step toward establishing a democracy, something for which people around the globe are still dying. Denying that right keeps the status quo. It worked for the wealthy whites in the South who denied blacks the right to vote, for a very long time. 

Every system is perfectly organized to achieve the results it is getting. So if the people of Eastman want to be able to vote on how their money is spent, it is going to be difficult. The ECA Board and Council deciding how to spend our money are not interested in how all of us would like to spend it or not to spend as much. They would like you to speak to your Council Reps who are also not necessarily interested in what you think. If they were interested, they would put in place direct vote where all voters were equal and voted on major community expenses and decisions. 

So you say there is a community wide referendum coming up? I can assure you that the Board is happy to go through the motions of a “non-binding” referendum. If you vote as they wish they are happy to go along. If you don’t vote as they wish, they will do what they want. Your Assessment Fees are “binding”, they will increase and you can not vote otherwise. This is taxation without representation.

There will be neither rest nor tranquility in Eastman until residents have direct vote. Let Freedom Ring!

A Call for Eastman Governance Change

It is evident that the current Eastman Governance model disenfranchises the vast majority of Eastman Members who do not have equal voting rights except for direct vote for Board Members. Furthermore governance actions and transactions are often protected by Eastman privacy policies. ECA members lack direct accountability as to activities or decisions made by various community officials. Members of this community have been wrongfully bullied and improperly discredited by community officials. Financial Reports are produced without independent non-governance validation. No financial details substantiate the content.

It is time for total elimination of antiquated Declaration of Covenants and Restrictions style governance, which does not provide governance for the people.

In the interest of simplified governance, we are proposing the dramatic reduction of Eastman’s governance. In its place there will be a limited number of responsible, directly accountable members of governance. We are also proposing equal voting for all ECA members for all governance matters. Furthermore, we are proposing compliance with New Hampshire Right to Know laws as a "Core Value" of this community.

Much as the efforts 50 years ago in the South provided voting rights for the blacks, we at Eastman, all of us, want EQUAL voting rights at Eastman on Governance Actions/Decisions.

Here is a preliminary draft of the components of this new governance.