RSS Feed
Email Us
Follow Us
Like Us
Photo Gallery
GeistTV
This mailer is going out today, January 5th. With the holidays, it was delayed a bit and unable to be processed and mailed according to the original schedule.
Like any heated debate with a lot of people involved, there has been a lot of rumors and misinformation floating around concerning the status on the Geist Clubhouse.
Just to clear the air, here is where the issue stands:
The Geist Harbours board is mailing out a “Homeowner Feedback Response Form” the first part of next week (Week of December 22nd) to all the 2,380 lot owners in GHPOA. In the letter, it talks about the previous decisions by the board to not purchase the 10+ acre property and the efforts by the Geist Recreational Facility group to get the board to overturn their earlier decisions. At the bottom of the letter is a “yes” or “no” box which residents will need to check and mail back in the postage paid envelope provided or fax to 317-875-5614. A “yes” vote indicates that you are “in favor of our association purchasing and then maintaining the Geist Clubhouse facilities” and a “no” vote says you are “against our association’s purchase and maintenance of the Geist Clubhouse.”
This letter is merely a survey of sorts and is non-binding. I repeat, no matter how the votes come back, the votes do not bind the GHPOA board to a decision either way.
Also enclosed is a two-page letter with the pros and cons of purchasing the facility and absorbing it into GHPOA. Both the Geist Rec group and opponents to the purchase cooperated in the drafting of this informational piece.
Feedback forms are due back by mail or fax by January 20th so that the property management company can tabulate the responses before the special meeting scheduled for January 26th at Amy Beverland Elementary.
I spoke with Alan Rosenberg Jr. at the Marina Limited Partnership, the current owner of the property, and he will wait to hear from the GHPOA board at the end of January before they move forward with any other plans or offers. He reaffirmed that they would build single family homes on the property “conducive to the surrounding homes” in the event the GHPOA board decided to not pursue the purchase.
It is very important that everyone in GHPOA mails or faxes back their letter by January 20th. Just over 30% of all residents signed a petition in favor of purchasing the Clubhouse in early November. Those petitions forced this special meeting and also gave the GHPOA board members a sense of the willingness of the residents at large to purchase and control this property going forward. However, the discussion on January 26th will revolve around the feedback form results and the board will need to see a compelling number of “yes” responses to overturn their earlier decision. That’s why your response is so important.
In the meantime, I encourage you to contact your GHPOA board representatives via email. Their contact information is available on the GHPOA website.
This economy is in a recession and especially the real estate industry. Some residents have lost their jobs and some are worried about foreclosure( are in or could come). The GHPOA delinquencies have gone up in 2008 causing less operating capital coming in to pay our current bills and is expected to not get any better in 2009. It is hardly the time to be considering dues increase and possible assessments on the backs of GHPOA homeowners for an asset that 90+% of the residents never supported in the past.
One last note for the readers. Back in 1995 or 96 the Shorewood Company offered the pools and a clubhouse to the GHPOA Board. The Board overwhelmingly voted no to the offer and declined the purchase. Mr. Rosenberg bought the assets from Shorewood including the very nice set up of a pool, tennis courts and park like area right on the water that was primarily for the Masthead 1, Masthead 2 and the Beam Reach residents. Well many of us no what he did with that! He bulldozed everything down and put up homes on the property. He sure did not take a poll to see if we were upset with that decision.
To those who think not purchasing the pools and clubhouse will have a major affect on their values of there homes, I say this- When Rosenberg took ours away it had -0-, zero effect on our values in Masthead the past 13 years.
Hi Steve,
First, I think the board was short-sighted in that decision. I’m not sure why the residents didn’t take up the cause, perhaps they did and the board was not receptive. I wasn’t living here at that time, but I can assure you that I would have supported you even though the removal of that facility would not have had a direct impact on me. I would have supported you because that’s what neighbors do. I would have supported you as I will in the future when there are projects that will only help MastHead or Feather Cove I or any one of the many subdivisions that make up our community. It should not be what is in the best interest of one group of residents because that only leads to divisiveness and during these difficult financial times it would be nice if we came together and not apart. I ask that the residents not let two wrongs happen, the first of which being the loss of your facility.
To find more information please visit the following web site:
http://www.geistrec.com/
To find previous discussions, as I’m sure many will have similar questions that were raised from an earlier article, please visit and read the comments at the following link:
http://atgeist.com/blog/geist-clubhouse-issue-headed-for-a-vote/#comments
I hope everyone looks at this decision as how they would like others to react and treat this situation if they were in one of the communities more directly affected by the action of our board. I am sure that in the future there will be another matter in which those in unaffected communities are called upon to help with an expense, support a community initiative, lobby government (“friends don’t let friends get annexed” as an example), etc. I hope that when that time comes we can all look back at this decision as model of what we can accomplish when we come together for the betterment of the entire community.
Thanks as always for listening,
Steve