So, at the special meeting on Saturday, there was a lot of discussion on the legality of how the board is planning to enforce an assessment on the property owners to pay for the paving project. First, I really appreciate not only the board's extensive work on this project - it is not an easy undertaking and is clearly a thankless position to be in. But I also appreciate their stance on "yes, we want to do this the legal route."
It seems like things from the board were left with, "we'll work closely again with our legal counsel to ensure that we're doing this the legal way." It's clear that the board has received legal counsel that conflicts in one way or another with legal counsel from others - clearly that's what needs to be investigated closer.
But I'm curious - If there's a majority vote to move forward with the paving project AND if it's found that the board needs to tackle this from a different legal angle, what would be the implications? Would we be looking to reassess the payment structure and would that negate the yes vote? Or would the yes vote stand, but the way we pay for it change over the next several months?
If the board has insight into this, that would be appreciated.
Thanks again, and thanks Whitney for setting this up! 😊
I'm going to take a stab at an off the cuff answer here from my personal perspective, having not yet discussed this with the other board members.
First let me say I'm pretty confident in our legal position for the following reasons: we've been working with the SDAO consultant, since last February, and the law firm since shortly there after. Financing special district improvement projects is what they do, its all they do. And they've been doing for a long time.
However, If this vote comes in with a majority in support of the project as presented, but we then find out that we can't can't pay for it with a equal per lot assessment, I would personally want to reconsider paying for the project with a property tax levy. Voting that way has lots of different challenges and we might have to wait for the 2022 midterm elections to get enough participation... I guess we'll cross that bridge if we come to it. Like I said, I'm pretty confident that the assessment as proposed is a perfectly legal, viable option. :-)