Potential Problem with the RAD

Editor's Note:  We got a call from a concerned business person who may have to close their business if the RAD passes.  I just found out that wood suppliers to Snowshoe will be faced with new taxes that I never thought about.

Now----------even worse!!! The RAD proposal may not be dead, yet!!!   Frank De Berry seems to have a different interpretation as to what happened last night at the CC meeting.  There may be yet another push to put the new tax district into effect.  Perhaps it will be a "behind closed doors" effort to get Beard and Walker to change their vote. 

 Please beware!!!!

Good afternoon all,

The County Commission met last evening as planned in order to consider approving an order to create the Resort Area District for us here at Snowshoe.  When the evening was over, Commission President Fleming offered a resolution to approve the petition with certain amendments. Commissioners Beard and Walker objected to the resolution.  As such, Mr. Fleming’s motion did not pass.

 (Note:  Fleming has been voted off the County Commission and needs a job.)

At this time we don’t have much clarity on exactly what Commissioners Beard and Walker are objecting too. Both expressed that they would like to see us ‘work through some of the issues’, but were unclear on exactly which issues or what type of resolution they were seeking. No resolution was offered or passed to reject the petition, and so at this time our current petition still stands before the Commission for consideration at another date.

 It is my intention to reach out to the Commissioners in order to better understand their concerns. With that said, here is a brief summary of the issues that monopolized last night’s conversation:

1.       District voting:  It has been proposed for some time now that voting for the three homeowner seats be divided into districts so as to ensure that no one subset of interests is able to form a block of voters to elect representatives to represent their interests above the interests of other parts of the Mountain.  Snowshoe’s position on this issue has been that we are not against district voting, but believe that this issue would best be decided by the first Board of Directors as this will give the owners the opportunity to elect Directors who either support district voting (and a corresponding plan on how to break up the districts) or do not. At the same time, I also acknowledged that if the Commission wanted to amend the petition to require district voting, I would be amenable to such an amendment.  It is my unconfirmed opinion that if the organizing committee meets and agrees upon an appropriate course of action, and that if the public demonstrates support for this recommendation, that the Commission will accept our recommendation.

2.       The ability to dissolve the RAD in the future:  A hot topic for a few months now has been whether or not the Commission can amend the petition to require a mechanism to dissolve the RAD should the membership one day deem it to no longer be serving the public good.  The Commissioners have received legal advice suggesting that it is not within their power.  I have received the same advice from our attorneys.  Most Public Corporations in our state cannot be dissolved by the County Commission once formed.  With that said, the RAD can easily be essentially shuttered by something as simple as a board action; thus preventing it from assessing any further fees, assessments, or borrowing action, and thereby ceasing operations.  At the request of the Commission, we offered up an amendment to that effect.  There were those within the crowd who believe strongly that the Commission can, and should, mandate total dissolution, and they continued to assert that opinion in the meeting.  I will share that I have spoken with each of the Commissioners on this point and none of them believe that dissolution is within their rights. They have listened to counsel and are not prepared to defy their counsel’s advice. I do not believe that all of the Commissioners have formed their opinions on a ‘cessation of operations’ amendment.  My sense from last night was that it was the controversy over the issue, not the issue itself, that was giving them pause.

3.       County Occupancy Tax – Two Commissioners continue to express concern that the RAD is somehow a mechanism to steal the County’s Occupancy tax revenues from them.  I have pointed to state statute as an example of why this is not possible.  I have expressly stated that it is not now and never has been our intention to do so.  I have shared that throughout the process the organizing committee took a ‘do no harm’ approach to the County’s financial base.  We have always known that trying to take revenue from the County would be a non-starter both at the State and County levels.  Despite these assurances, commissioners Beard and Walker remain concerned that we will somehow use the RAD to take the County’s taxes from them.

4.       Amended Boundaries – During the public input period, we received information that the owners in Silver Mountain and Sunrise at Silver Creek have a running clause in their deeds that was negotiated by Mr. Charlie Bryant as part of his compensation when he sold the land that later became Silver Creek.  We listened, researched and now support Mr. Bryant’s position that this right not a mere oversight in planning, but a properly negotiated clause that recognized and compensated Mr. Bryant for the contributions he made in the sale of the land and for improvements that he had made to the land.  As such, we believe it would be right to support his position.  Mr. Bryant’s request was to be removed from the District boundaries.  We were able to oblige while still maintaining a contiguous outer boundary, and so we proposed an amendment that achieves the removal of these properties.  These properties do not contribute to MTA and therefore make no ongoing contribution to the operations of the RAD or MTA. I believe (again, my unconfirmed opinion) that the Commissioners all respected and approve of this amendment, but the last minute nature of the change threw them off-guard and again gave them pause.

These are the issues that received the greatest amount of consideration during the meeting.  I do believe that we can reach resolution on them all. I do not yet know if there are other issues that are preventing them from taking action. I intend to speak with them in the coming days and ask them for further guidance. 

Once I’ve received that guidance, I will invite the organizing committee (and any of you who wish to join) to meet and determine how we want to address the questions posed to us.

Please feel free to reach out with any questions or input. Any offers of suggestions are very welcomed. I will provide another update once I have more information.

Best,

Frank

Here's our video of the last moments of the meeting:

This edition of the Pocahontas Commentator Plus is in the public domain.  Feel free to share with affected homeowners.