Ken Brown is newly elected Chair of the Holiday Island Suburban Improvement District (HISID) board and led the monthly meeting Monday through a full three-hour agenda. Brown served on the board in the past, and stepped back into the role without difficulty, demonstrating an understanding of district policy, staff administrative duties, resident concerns, and the long-term goals of the district.
Brown appointed key residents who showed knowledge and willingness to commit time to temporary subcommittees. “This is the way that we might be able to work something out,” Brown said.
One project that Brown requested was reassessment of benefits for select properties. District Manager Lawrence Blood said there are specific properties, 11 or so, that need reassessing based on the assessment fee not matching the type of property.
For example, an exempt vacant property may now be an improved property, which should be assessed accordingly. Blood said he did not want to act as an assessor, nor did he want to incur the expense of hiring an additional service provider to perform the assessment.
Brown and the board directed the newly appointed group to work on a solution and come back with recommendations.
Another agenda item was public utilities. “Water loss is a chronic problem for Holiday Island,” Blood said. HISID services more than 69 miles of water and sewer pipelines, and is constantly monitoring water loss. Blood said one way to reduce water loss and is a PRV device that reduces and helps regulate water pressure.
In addition to PRV installations, Blood said that leaks have been repaired to specific properties, as well as the seals on pumps at the Eldorado Lift Station.
He presented a water and wastewater chart for 2019 that gave monthly production rates of each well and the percentage of the water that was billed to users. The difference of the two is the percentage of water loss. According to the chart, the monthly loss is between 72 and 84 percent of production at any given time during the year.
Blood then transitioned into consideration of water rate increases. The board unanimously approved a $1 increase to water and $1.50 increase to sewer for the minimum charge for the first 1,500 gallons.
The board also approved raising fees of amenity services by approximately five percent across the board to property owners and non-property owners. This will make the individual Holiday Island property owner annual golf rate go from $604 to $631, and non-property owner from $925 to $972, before tax.
Ken Brown reiterated to the public that fees to non-property owners are higher, making a $341 annual savings to property owners. However, it came to the board’s attention that some condo/complex owners who share a property lot have been denied amenities.
Three-year property owner Lisa Loftwood said she owns a middle-unit property and was denied amenities to the pool due to the administration informing her that amenities were a provision of the other attached property owner(s).
“That kind of bites,” Loftwood said. Brown responded that overall, amenities are underused and that it should be worked out that if assessments are paid the amenities are equally accessible to all property owners.
Administrative staff said that this is not isolated to just Loftwood, and that the subdivision of properties has created problems with access to amenities as it relates to assessment fees. Staff pointed out that assessment fees may not be evenly distributed among property owners within a single lot, causing amenity access to sometimes be denied.
The board vowed to make new attempts to remedy amenity access to all property owners especially in cases of more than one home on a single lot. “We can do this, we can do this with civility,” Brown said.
Blood also reported on improvements made to the marina, saying that four new towers had been installed, each made of 2,000 pounds of concrete to anchor docks and/or boats. He also said that the marina received five new weatherproof cables for added support in windy weather, and anticipates needing four more in the near future.
The next HISID meeting is scheduled for Monday, February 17th.