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.