April 11 MCA Board meeting recap

In an impressive turnout by MCA Homeowners, it was standing-room only at the April 11 MCA Board meeting. Well done!  Next meeting is Thursday May 9, 2:00 at the Meadows Community Lifestyle and Wellness Facility.

As always, if there is anything inaccurate in this post, let us know and we’ll fix it.

The Treasurer summarized the estimated outcomes from expected interest rate increases when the loans have a rate reset:

In 2025 they expect a $50,000 increase in interest expense. He didn’t note that this alone will require a 1% increase in MCA assessments.

In 2026 they expect a $127,000 increase in interest expense. This alone will require another 2.5% increase in MCA assessments.

In 2027 with the repayment of a portion of the loans, MCA’s “cashflow” will increase $500,000 which may indicate that they expect to continue spending that amount. $500,000 is equal to 10% of our annual assessments and if we’ve paid off debt this should result in a DECREASE our assessments which are now two and a half times what they were in 2017 due to the forced purchase of TMCC assets.

In the President’s MCA report (reminder that they are a TMCC member) indicated they are contemplating 2 options for additional pickleball courts. One is converting 2 tennis courts to 8 pickleball courts. If this MCA option isn’t written into the new lease, TMCC will control whether this happens since they will control the facility when/if it is leased to them, not MCA. Given TMCC’s history of clinging to their private club experience, it seems unlikely that TMCC would allow this to happen if it is their decision. These are MCA Homeowner’s assets and they need to be used on MCA Homeowner best interests. If pickleball is as big and important to the Meadows as the President says, make this conversion option part of the new lease. MCA Homeowners will be the one’s paying for the additional courts so it should be 100% our choice which option is chosen.

The President noted that insurance contracts have been adjusted so that the MCA policy covers “the Country Club assets”. THEY AREN’T THE COUNTRY CLUB’S ASSETS ANY MORE. MCA PURCHASED THEM FOR $6 MILLION IN 2018. This is one of many examples where the MCA Board continues to view the MCA Homeowners’ golf course/tennis facility/pool/dining facility as still “owned” by TMCC. And TMCC members view it likewise. Both TMCC and the MCA Board view MCA Homeowners as the piggy bank for funding TMCC’s private club.

Reminder that moving $200,000 cost of insurance from the TMCC lease to MCA expense is part of the MCA’s efforts to obfuscate that MCA Homeowners are still subsidizing TMCC by $600,000 + use of $10 million of assets for free.

The President noted that TMCC will be providing their first quarter results on April 25 and that if you want to come discuss them, just contact MCA. As TMCC has no obligation to provide their financial results to MCA under the lease terms, and MCA’s liaisons do not collect them for MCA, we don’t know what the President is talking about. Most likely she is confusing her role as a TMCC member with her role as MCA Board President. But you don’t have to set up a closed door 1:1 meeting to view TMCC’s Q1 results (if they’d even provide them). Just click HERE. Short version: In their most important quarter of the year they are $70,000 behind budget.

When it came to MCA Homeowner comments, two homeowners described problems with the large community pool and hot tub often being out of use due to maintenance issues. Under the terms of the lease TMCC is responsible for maintaining the pool. TMCC’s poor financial condition means they don’t have money to properly maintain the pool, same as they don’t maintain the Highlands course. But as it is run by TMCC, MCA Homeowners don’t have any direct influence on this. It is up to the MCA to enforce the lease terms and maintain the assets, so we have to go through the MCA. Whether it is the pool, or the Highlands, send your maintenance concerns to MCA francesrippcondi@meadowsca.com. Make them enforce the lease terms.

Two other homeowners asked questions about the lease negotiation process, including who was representing the MCA Homeowners. The President indicated 75% of the MCA team were not TMCC members (probably 3 out of 4) “so there is no conflict of interest”. This of course means that 1 of the 4 team members supposedly representing MCA Homeowners is a TMCC member (our guess is the MCA President). HOW IS THAT NOT A CONFLICT OF INTEREST? Despite making it obvious that there are 4 specific people on the team, the President would not say who they were, only that it would be sent to MCA Homeowners via Constant Contact. Why? Because the MCA almost NEVER answers questions from MCA Homeowners. They (begrudgingly) let them speak for the minimum legal time of 3 minutes and implied that their 3-minute speaker time limit prevented the MCA from answering questions in the meeting. They will only respond in a private closed-door meeting, where only 1 person gets the information and can ask questions back.

It has now been over 3 weeks since that meeting and the MCA has not communicated this information (which is the normal practice: evade the question by stating the answer will be provided later, then not provide it).

The second homeowner also directed a comment to the Treasurer, asking if the Treasurer has never seen an entity (MCA) invest someone else’s money (MCA Homeowners) for a negative return (by design). To be clear this refers to our investment in the recreational assets and then not getting a return from our lease of the assets to TMCC. The Treasurer did not respond.

Next meeting is Thursday May 9, 2:00 at the Meadows Lifestyle and Wellness Facility.

KEEP SHOWING UP. SIGN IN TO ASK QUESTIONS AND DEMAND ANSWERS AT THE MEETING.