A Big Win!!

So, here it is after 10 p.m. and I'm so incredibly jazzed I can't even think about sleep. I did something tonight I've never done before and quite frankly had no desire to do. I went to a City Council meeting. I know, I know, it might not sound exciting but believe me, the end result was!

They recently did some landscaping on the main road in front of our subdivision. We knew we'd have to pay a portion of it. I guess that comes with buying a new home in a new subdivision. Well, 5 years ago it was. Anyway, we went to a meeting 2 years ago - that's right, 2 years - and we were told we'd have to pay $404 and the total project cost was $33,000. Okay, I could live with that but then nothing happened for a really long time. So, I began to check on it.

After much back and forth I was told last December that we'd be informed well in advance of the actual assessment. Fast forward to July. I noticed they are doing the landscaping but I'd never received a letter about it. So I called. And called. And called. I was finally told a month ago it would be $1,025 per homeowner. I almost fainted. Then a week later we got the letter. The project total had jumped to almost $80,000! We were given a whopping 2 weeks to pay that amount or it would be assessed on our taxes for 15 years at 5.6% interest. (As a side note, I saw the breakdown for the first time. They chose the highest bid, the trees were $420 each, and the extra cost was a $25,000 well and $20,000 in engineering fees. Seriously, $20,000 to say "put a tree here...and there...". No, that's not excessive at all.)

Believing this was unethical, I dug out my previous paperwork and my friend Sara (who lives in the subdivision) and I headed downtown. We sat through an agonizing 2 hours of testimony about a different initiative thinking that by the time they got to ours it would be 3 a.m. We were #7 on the agenda.

Well, after the first one, it went really fast and as it turns out, around 12 people from our subdivision were there too. We all had the same story--because it was the truth. Around 4 of us testified and I told them that almost tripling the amount and giving us only 2 weeks to pay was an unethical way to do business. One of the councilmen also backed our story so the mayor said "you know, there are 3 other special improvement district initiatives on the agenda and nobody was here for those. Something has to be amiss in this one."

So, this item was postponed to allow time for us to get all our documentation to the council and the city can get theirs. They claim they have copies of letters sent out informing us of the end cost. There is no way they can back up their claims because every single one of us have the same story. At this point they'd have to fabricate a letter. I wouldn't put it beyond them either but I digress.

That means we don't have to pay the $1025 by the 30th AND the city may end up absorbing the additional $40,000 rather than assessing it to us. YEAH FOR DEMOCRACY! The little guy CAN win.....I told you it was exciting!