Per Deschutes County Guidebook: " A successful budget process gives district members and the board an opportunity to be involved in budget decisions."
2019-2020 Budget:
Engineering $0.00 in the budget $6,000.00 actually spent
2020-2021 Budget
Legal $2,000.00 in the budget $18,250.71 actually spent
Road Maintenance $67,000.00 in the budget $36,148.00 actually spent
Insurance allows for $5000.00 for responding to Ethics complaints and $100,000.00 for criminal defense. So, for neighbors wishing insurance could somehow save the day on this huge waste of tax payer money ($24,250.71) that looks unlikely. The only line item the board spent under the budgeted amount for was road maintenance (they spent $30,832.00 less than projected to maintain the roads).
Timeline:
January 2019 -Road improvement discussion starts.
February 2019- Board member Annie confirms; must have an election ballot to fund such an improvement.
May 2019 -Guest speaker, Jake Atkins of Tri county paving states "OTTA seal is a bad choice" and declines to give a bid.
July 2019 -Board declines to form a Local Improvement District. Speaks to SDAO David Ulbricht , he advises of 2 options 1) local option (bond measure) 2) pay as you go.
September 2019 -Lawyers get involved.
December 2019- HA McCoy engineering study approved
January 2020- Doug Gannon questions board on legality of expenditures. He was told they can legally spend the money because the engineering study "will be used to plan all future work."
February 2020- Dave Cosper presents engineering study. Two important facts here 1) Nyle disregarded this information and will not be using the study for "all future work" therefore wasting the $6000.00 spent and 2) Nyle literally just told me that this engineering study did not include OTTA seal. It absolutely did, check the minutes.
May 2020- Board decides with no explanation that a Bond is not needed to proceed.
July 2020-Ethics issues. A board member must declare their possible conflict of interest and abstain from speaking about the topic that caused the conflict, the board member is allowed to vote. The conflict currently only pertains to Nyle Head and it still exists and he has not declared it. Basically, because his home is high end, he benefits more from an equal per lot assessment versus a bond that assesses based on the value of the home where he would pay more.
October 2020- David Ulbricht confirms that the board should not allow prepayment of assessment before construction costs are done this is "legally tricky" he also confirmed the need of a trustee to handle funds at a cost of $1000.00 per year until paid. David also confirmed what Glenn Brown had contended which is "No road district in Oregon is funded this way- lenders prefer bonds by a taxing authority."
March 2021- Jim Becker admits that funding this way could result in foreclosures
April 2021- Kitsap Bank committed to funding project. Board says if the project is not completed in 2021 the project will be unaffordable. Lee admits that no other District has funded an improvement project this way.
May 2021 - Legal stuff amps up.
July 2021-Annie leaves the Board.
August 2021-Validation process begins
March of 2022- Validation process scrapped. (8 months has passed waiting on judge to rule at this point.)
Sidenote: I have followed the "communications guidelines" to a fault. I have been kind, have used no profanity, did not make unsupported accusations or false claims. All info was obtained directly from the Panoramic website. I personally attacked no one. I would also like to say I have been called a liar and ignorant. To be completely transparent I have called the Board corrupt on more than one occasion.
I previously had asked for answers from a current or former board member, no one answered so I did my own research.
Thanks Shiela
If you read the post, the point of the post is that 3 years have been wasted along with approximately thirty thousand dollars.
That's fine
\ If its okay to make these statements
2019-2020 Budget
Rather than address each budget item above in my experience as an accountant it is not uncommon not spend the exact amounts budgeted or in the same fiscal year as noted above. A budget is just that the best guess at the time it is prepared. I was not on the board during the timeframe above so I can’t address the reasons why the variances but I can give you an accounting view overall.
May 2019 –“Guest speaker, Jake Atkins of Tri county paving states "OTTA seal is a bad choice" and declines to give a bid.”
It is my understanding that Tri County paving does not do OTTA seal so it is not surprising he said it was a bad choice…..they don’t/can’t do it. I have never go into a Chevy dealership and they would quote a Ford
July 2019 “-Board declines to form a Local Improvement District.”
As discussed in previous board meetings.
I was on the road committee at that time and 2 of us met with Chris Doty of the County road department.
He stated no Special Road District had ever successfully formed a LID.
He estimated the Otta Seal project would be $ 4.3 million due to the county’s involvement.
He suggested we contact Vic Russell since he had done Otta Seal projects
We did contact Vic Russell and 2 other road districts that were going to use him to do Otta Seal projects
March 2021- “Jim Becker admits that funding this way could result in foreclosures”
Yes I did say that. But your statement makes it sound as if the assessment process was it used it would be the only way foreclosure would happen. Not true if a landowner doesn’t pay their taxes the county would foreclose for nonpayment. What is the difference?
Other I want to reiterate your statement that no one answers your requests, do you remember
Mar 23
Shiela please relate our conversation at Christmas time when you had asked for the financial information. We agreed that we would wait until you kids were back in college until we got together per your records request.
I told you that we had most all of the information for you
You withdrew your request. You were not beaten to give up as you stated in one of your posts. If I had time I would get that quote
Thank you Shiela, Deb and I appreciate the thoughts.
I will respond to all posts as soon as possible.
Shiela let's take time to think of our communications, I know from past we can move ahead with both feeling better about it.
Jim Deb
Shiela please relate our conversation at Christmas time when you had asked for the financial information. We agreed that we would wait until you kids were back in college until we got together per your records request.
I told you that we had most all of the information for yo
You withdrew your request. You were not beaten to give up as you stated in one of your posts. If I had time I would get that quote
I will answer your statements above as soon as possible.My wife and I are on the way to Kansas for my sister in law's funeral. I JUST have not time the past few weeks to answerer all the forum requests I normally would.
I will as time permits.
I am so frustrated by the outright misstatements, and other stuff
Please try to be civil .
Shiela. Thank you for a fairly complete review here. Thank you for that!
Our feelings are the board should proceed with their (our) validation process, that money has been spent on, that they felt they would 100% be on the positive outcome of OR put the ballot option out there. They can choose to work with or against Glenn. They should have told him NO a couple of years ago, when he demanded a second attorney's opinion, setting a precedence for him to demand more. We have not read the liability insurance policy that Whitney added, but have printed it so that we can do that.
Regards,
Henry & Kerry Zenich (Neighbors Green Ridge Loop)