The PLPOA board, and no doubt many of the staff, are passionate about building a new gym. It’s “exciting.” It’s the largest single capital project ever undertaken by the PLPOA. It’s the first time that a special assessment has been needed.
As such, our homeowners should have had a fair opportunity to hear the pros and cons of the project. They should have been given a fair, informative question on the ballot when asked to approve it. Neither has happened.
The board has ardently advocated for this project using their considerable power to control the flow of information. Their weekly eblasts to all 6400 members hammer home their highly controversial version of the merits. In the one public meeting dedicated to the subject (which attracted record attendance) all dissenting comments, opinions and statements of fact were disallowed; only questions were permitted, effectively eliminating opposing voices and giving the board the last word on every topic.
The board has consistently claimed that they are pursuing this project based on research and surveys of the membership. But here’s a few facts you should know about that research:
2023 survey data was altered to show support for a gym that simply did not exist and then sent out to all members. The survey itself made no mention of a gym. The questions about Rec Center improvements, such as a pavilion, pickle ball courts and an athletic field, specifically stated “Rec Center membership not required”.
The 2024 ballot question simply asked the respondents’ “Likelihood that someone in your household would use the new gym if it were to be built within our PLPOA community”. No mention of the costs involved to build or use it. Even so, only about 30% of respondents said they were likely to use the gym, which closely matches the roughly 31% of members who already have a gym membership.
The presentation of that ballot data was a mess. In order to create more lines of data showing a high level of interest, small subgroups of respondents were broken out, without noting that the group showing the most interest represented only 14% of responses, while those with the least interest represented 75%. One subgroup listed was actually a small subgroup of another one, so their preferences were displayed twice to help overwhelm the data representing the majority.
- More recently, the membership was surveyed regarding the payment options for the proposed special assessment. That survey included a question asking whether respondents supported the proposal. When publishing the results of the survey, that data was withheld. The results? 60% of respondents were against the proposal. There were 338 in favor and 511 not in favor.
Two reasons were given for not publishing this data. The first that the question was only asked to determine the payment preferences of those opposed, not to gauge interest. But it doesn’t matter. The question was asked. The data exists. The membership deserves to know.
The second reason was that the result “represents only a small fraction of the community, and it is even less than half of our annual voter turnout.” However, with 849 responses, out of about 6400 members, we have pretty solid data with a margin of error around 3%. Also, that total is quite close to the 881 responses received in the 2023 survey - the same survey that has been repeatedly used to justify the pursuit of this project. And importantly, it’s the only time the membership has been surveyed about the gym along with some context about its cost.
It's time to vote
When members were denied the chance to express their views at the public gym meeting, they were told the best way to do so is to vote. And now the time has come.
To make an informed decision on this important vote, the whole membership should have been given the chance to hear opposing views. They were not. So now it comes down to the wording of the ballot, which should be a fair representation of the question at hand. It is not.
For members that don’t have the time to dig into these details, the ballot question will probably summarize what they think they know about the project. Here’s what it will be:
Do you or do you not want a gymnasium in PLPOA for the PLPOA community, funded by a one-time $255 special assessment per property?
The question is misleading in two important respects.
- When reading that the gym is funded by a one-time special assessment, I think a reasonable person would conclude that the assessment will pay for the project. It will not. The estimate for the gym cost has quietly jumped $300K in recent weeks and now should “not exceed 2.5 million” dollars. But the assessment will raise only $1,638,885. That’s a deficit of $861,115. Where is the rest going to come from?
If you make it to page nine of the Gym Presentation that the PLPOA frequently refers to, you will find that $520,000 of our capital improvement funds will also be consumed by the gym, along with $42,000 of unspent funds from the 2024 budget. With the newest estimate, there’s another $300K of our money that will have to be poured into this. Nearly a million dollars above and beyond the assessment. 34% of the project funding will not come from the special assessment, but the ballot question maintains that the gym is “funded by” a one-time special assessment.
- The ballot question refers to “a gymnasium in PLPOA for the PLPOA community” and funded by an assessment. How is a reasonable person to understand from that question that, even after paying for the construction, they can only access their new gym by buying a membership or day passes? For those who are following the topic, this information is included in the PLPOA regular communications. But we know most members don’t have the time or interest to spend delving into HOA details. They are likely to take the ballot question at face value. That majority deserved a better representation of the project they are voting on.
In about a month, voting will be closed and the decision on this project will be made. For future large projects, I hope the PLPOA will make the effort to better inform their membership, allow opposing voices to be heard, and better represent the majority of members, rather than campaigning to push through what they have decided is best for us.