25 March 2014, Vol.1, No.23 > Snowshoe
RAD – PART II
The POCAHONTAS CRIER
The Pocahontas Crier is an independent Internet News
Service that has so far endorsed two candidates for County Commission
–
one a Republican & the other a Democrat –
in addition to providing in depth
news reporting on important
ssues directly affecting the Citizens
of Pocahontas County!
PART II > WHAT’S A…
‘SNOWSHOE
RESORT AREA DISTRICT’?
While ‘Part I’ was originally meant to be an inclusive summary in and of
itself, it quickly became apparent from the numerous inquiries that certain
additional information needed to be brought out into the open so that as many
as possible would know as much of the facts as possible regarding those areas being
designated as a ‘Resort
Area District’ (RAD), whereby WVC
§7-25-1, et seq. was to amend and
reenact WVC §30-29-1, and in particular the present
proposal for a ‘Snowshoe
Resort Area District’ (SRAD)!
Why is this important? Because so
far only two of the nine candidates for county commission, NORMAN LEE ALDERMAN (REP-SD) & PATTI HEINEMANN (DEM-ND),
both of whom have been endorsed by the Editorial Staff of The Pocahontas Crier, have shown the courage, duty &
integrity to tell all Voters not only the REAL ISSUES facing this county – but also their
united solutions to place ‘The Common Good before Self or any Special Interest’!
Part
II – Summary Analysis
Some of you may remember when
Snowshoe Mountain, Inc. came before the county commission several years back, BEFORE THE 2010
Winter Olympics, asking for the creation of a Snowshoe-TIF (Tax Increment Financing District) in
order to provide funds to pay-off revenue bonds and other financial obligations
to ostensibly finance all or part of an economic development project! THAT proposal was to allow the increased property tax income
provided by the proposed development project or coming from the increase of
value on all property within a development area to be used to pay-off the
bonds used to finance the project! And now that Intrawest & Fortress
are in DEBT pursuant to the 2010 Winter Olympics – they
are looking for a new scheme to provide them ‘Life-Support’ to at least pay the usury/interest on their massive
$1.5+ BILLION DEBT for as long as their creditors will permit – before the inevitable reality of bankruptcy
sets in! So now the new scheme is
called a ‘Resort
Area District’ (RAD)!
Now for those that know a little
about ‘business v. individual’ tax-advantages,
it’s also apparent that while all commercial-owners of Snowshoe & Silver
Creek properties can absorb any & all additional costs placed upon them as ‘business-expenses’
, i.e., the cost-of-doing-business, they can also take respective ‘tax-deductions’ for those costs-of-doing- business – and that such may not be the case for all
individual property-owners! So
once again it’s all about how well & how long the ‘shoemakers’ can hold out along side of the ‘tycoons’! In short, how
many times can you eat out at a restaurant compared to Donald Trump? And although Trump has filed ‘bankruptcy’ two times – he still
alleges that his personal worth exceeds $2.2 Billion – a lot of which is ‘other-peoples-money’ (OPM)!
What follows is a further summary
with an expanded analysis since a vote in favor of creating a Snowshoe-RAD by
the current county commission would establish a RAD as
a PERMANENT ‘Public Corporation’
& ‘Political Subdivison’ within
this county; authorize SRAD to levy assessments upon real property; pay
all assessments to the sheriff; provide for liens against property subject
to assessment; authorize SRAD-Rangers as law-enforcement officers subject
to the same training & requirements of other law-enforcement officers,
i.e., State Troopers & Deputy Sheriff Officers; and other sundry matters!
At this rate, with Snowshoe having
its own corporate ‘private-militia’ of ‘Snowshoe Rangers’,
and the new Federal Police Force to occupy & patrol the planned 123,000+
acres of the proposed new federal park designated as the ‘Birthplace of Rivers National Monument’,
there may eventually be more corporate ‘armed guards’ in Pocahontas County than working
Citizens! It’s almost reminiscent of the Coal Operator’s corporate army of ‘Baldwin-Felts’
gunmen in the Coal Field Wars trying to outnumber the Miners & Farmers! Or for that matter, it’s almost as if
someone is trying to turn all of Pocahontas County into one giant PLANTATION
with a few at the top and all the rest of us at the bottom treated as SLAVES
with ‘slave-wages’
– assigned to the ‘house’ or to the ‘field’ – and watched over by men with whips
& guns!
At any rate, let’s take a look at
what is in place & developing:
Mountain
Top Assessment Fee
Ever since Snowshoe Mountain, Inc.
came into existence, they created a ‘maintenance-fee’ for each property-owner called
a ‘Mountain Top
Assessment’ (MTA) based on 1.5% of the
assessed value of each property – and in times of prosperity that ‘fee’ was
acclaimed adequate for the upkeep of:
a. Public Safety;
b. Fire Protection;
c. Shuttle Transportation;
d. Common/Shared Roads; and,
e. Grounds Maintenance.
But now Snowshoe Mountain, Inc. is
alleging that due to the fall in real estate values since 2008, the MTA funding
is shrinking and may not or will not return even if real estate values again
increase! So Snowshoe Mountain, Inc.
wants to not only keep the MTA in effect – but also create a new ‘sales tax’,
aka, ‘resort
service fee’ via the creation of a ‘Snowshoe Resort Area District’ (SRAD).
Snowshoe
Resort Area District (SRAD)
The currently proposed 2% ‘resort service fee’
being touted by Snowshoe is only for discussion purposes at this stage – that will be decided
AFTER a new board is elected – and only promised for a period of
three-years if & when it goes into effect as proposed on 01 December 2014,
yet by law the ‘fee’
can go as high as 5% at any time the seven-person-board decides it’s
necessary. And
the ‘resort
service fee’ is
being proposed to be imposed upon all retail sales & services that take
place anywhere within the boundaries of SRAD! This new ‘fee’ will not replace the MTA, but become an
additional source of revenue in conjunction with the MTA. As such, this new ‘resort service fee’ will not only
go towards the same five services covered by the MTA, but
also go towards payment of any ‘debt
infrastructure’ currently incurred by Intrawest & Fortress, all new
capital improvements, and any future debt incurred!
The West Virginia Code at §7-25-20,
Indebtedness of Resort Area District, clearly
PROVIDES NO LIMITATION, to wit:
“No
constitutional or statutory limitation with respect
to the
nature or amount of or rate of interest on indebtedness which may be incurred
by municipalities, counties or other public or governmental bodies shall
apply to the indebtedness of a resort area district.”
There is no mistaking that NO
LIMITATION as to how much DEBT Intrawest of Vancouver & Fortress Hedge-Fund
of New York
can accumulate – before they ‘Go Bust’
once their creditors can take no more!
All of this current hooplah
appears as nothing more than a ‘smoke-screen’
to provide the owners of Snowshoe Mountain, Inc. ‘Life-Support’ for as long as possible!
Property
Improvement Equity
A sinister side of this ‘smoke &
mirrors’ is that Snowshoe-RAD can indebt all property-owners up to ANY
AMOUNT, when at first it was limited to just the amount of its annual budget of
about $40 Million in which about 80% was to be secured by residential improved
real property and enforced by governmental liens! The final version of the new law however left
out the limitation of the ‘annual budget’
and now it’s open-ended
yet still enforced by governmental liens under the ‘duties’ of the sheriff! See WVC §7-25-8. Powers of RAD.
WVC §7-25-8, Powers of resort area district >
(g) Upon following the procedures
set forth in this article, assess the cost of all or
any portion of a project on real property located within the resort area
district;
(k) Borrow money and incur indebtedness and other
obligations and evidence the same by certificates, notes or debentures;
(l) Raise funds by the issuance and sale of assessment
bonds and resort service fee bonds;
(m) Annually, on or before June 7, certify to the
sheriff of the county in which the property is located the assessments granted against all property in the district
for inclusion in the tax ticket;
(n) Charge interest and levy fines and penalties on unpaid assessments;
(o) Create and enforce liens for unpaid assessments;
(s) Provide services necessary to
protect the health and welfare of residents in a resort area district and the
value of property therein and to enter into agreements
with any governmental agency, public or private agency, institution or person
for the furnishing of such services;
(t) Provide for the public safety, including the appointment of resort area rangers…
Providing ‘health & welfare’ to both residents and SRAD board members,
and who knows who else, should prove interesting in the hands of New York Fortress
Hedge-Fund managers, don’t you think? And let’s not forget the additional miscellaneous expenses
incurred by having a private police force in effect! While the commercial business property owners
can pass these costs along to their respective customers so they can have a ‘show place’ to wine & dine clients,
girlfriends or mistresses – and occasionally maybe even a family member or so –
the same scenario may not be the same for individual and/or retired
property-owners who have to foot these additional expenses on their own! It’s anyone’s guess whether or not the ‘rental-income’
for their properties under the auspices of Snowshoe Mountain, Inc. will be
sufficient enough @ 60/40 split to cover all the additional expenses!
And if these ‘proposals’ aren’t sufficient to raise an eyebrow or two, consider
the fact that this county already suffers under two
alleged ‘public corporations’ stealing its assets, lands & funds for
the benefit of a few at the expense of the many! Since the former Pocahontas Development
Authority (PDA), a ‘public corporation’, was so corrupted by its
involvement with the Howes Leather ‘clean-up’
fiasco, along with the attempted theft of the publicly-owned former Hanover
Shoe Co. building & property by the private-for-profit West Virginia Shoe
Co. and its scam to get ‘government grant funds’ from State Agencies, and
then in its scam with the American Shoe, Co. to get ‘federal grant funds’, the PDA was
forced into bankruptcy & dissolved accordingly. BUT things only got
worse as the so-called Greenbrier Valley Economic Development Corporation
(GVEDC), a private-corporation that claims to be a ‘quasi-public-corporation’, replaced the former PDA and has been
STEALING LAND, FUNDS & ASSETS from Pocahontas County ever since!
And what about the
Pocahontas County Solid Waste Authority (PCSWA) established to
operate an ‘open-dump-landfill’ as a ‘public
corporation’, only to find that it has gone way beyond its statutory
limitations by creating & imposing an ‘assessment fee’, then illegally hiring a
private-collections-agency to collect the ‘assessment
fee’ by placing LIENS upon private-property & households! DOES THIS SOUND A LOT
LIKE WHAT A SNOWSHOE-RAD WILL DO, or what?
And in case anyone has any doubts about SRAD, take a look:
WVC §7-25-2. Findings.
(a) "Assessment"
means the fee, including interest, paid by an owner of real property
located within a resort area district to pay for the
cost of a project or projects constructed upon or benefiting or protecting such
property and administrative expenses thereto, which fee is in addition to all taxes and other fees levied on the
property.
(b) "Assessment bonds"
means special obligation bonds or notes issued by a resort area district
which are payable from the proceeds of assessments.
25%
Required to Oppose a RAD
Pursuant to WVC §7-25-4. Power and authority of county
commissions to create and establish resort area districts:
(a) The
owners of at least sixty-one percent of the real property, determined by
acreage, located within the boundaries of the resort area described in the
petition, by metes and bounds or otherwise in a manner sufficient to describe
the area, may petition a governing body to create or
expand a resort area district.
(b)(6) The
proposed rate or rates, not to exceed five percent of the purchase price, of
the resort service fee and the proposed classes of goods and services to
which each rate shall apply….
WVC
§7-25-6. Notice to property owners
before creation or expansion of resort area district; form of notice; affidavit
of publication:
(b) A
resort area district may not be created by a governing body if, at the public
meeting required by this section, written protest is filed by at least
twenty-five percent of the owners of real property proposed to be included
within the district. In the event of such a protest, the petition
for the creation of the resort area district may not be resubmitted to the
governing body for a period of at least one year
from the date of the original submission.
First comes a ‘review of the petition’
by the county commission, then comes a public hearing, then comes a vote by the
property-owners on the mountain, then comes approval or disapproval – and if
not approved – a year must pass before another vote can take place! Meanwhile, Frank
DeBerry, COO of Snowshoe Mountain, Inc., has indicated that there are no other
options available at this time if the proposed Snowshoe-RAD is not approved! The scheme to have property-owners finance
the 2010 Winter Olympics began with a proposed ‘Snowshoe-TIF-District’ around 2008 –
2009, and when the Vancouver Olympics became a financial failure, Intrawest
sold off 51% of its holdings to Donald Trump’s Fortress New York Hedge-Fund,
but then Trump failed to pay his share on time and creditors were prepared to
foreclose on Intrawest on the first Friday of the 2010 Winter Olympics! But Intrawest sold off enough of its resorts
to stay off the creditors until after the 2010 Winter Olympics closed. Now they are trying to stay on ‘Life-Support’ for as long as
they can by just paying the usury/ interest on the $1.5+ BILLION DEBT.
It would be a whole lot
simpler if the State of West Virginia took
over Snowshoe Mountain, Inc. and relegated it to Pocahontas County
for its day to day operations – as the folks in this county are doing already! Such an act would save a great deal of money
& pain-of-anguish upon the property-owners on the mountain! But since the State of West Virginia is not
about to bail out a private-for-profit foreign corporation, or one of Trump’s
Hedge-Funds – then the next painful option is to
pass-the-buck to those already caught in the ‘resort-trap’ – the existing & future property-owners!
Below is the footnote of the
recent WV Legislation for a RAD, see for yourself if you too want to own
property on the mountain under these drastic circumstances:
“NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to
authorize county commissions to create resort area districts; provide for the
petition process for creation or expansion of resort area districts; provide
notice requirements for creation or expansion of resort area districts; provide
that resort area districts are public corporations and political subdivisions;
set forth powers of resort area districts; authorize resort area districts to
undertake capital projects; authorize resort area districts to levy
assessments upon real property; authorize resort area districts to borrow
money and incur indebtedness; authorize resort area districts to issue
assessment bonds and resort service fee bonds; authorize resort area
districts to impose penalties for unpaid assessments; authorize resort area
districts to levy resort service fee on purchases of certain goods and
services; authorize resort area districts to provide public services; authorize
resort area districts to provide for public safety
and appoint resort area rangers; provide for official name of resort
area districts; provide for creation of resort area boards; set forth powers and
certain procedures for resort area boards; provide for election of resort area
board members; provide election procedures for resort area boards; require
certain resort area board members to give bond; provide notice requirements for
resort area boards election; provide procedures and notice requirements for
resort service fee implementation and administration; provide procedures
for implementing and providing services within resort area districts; require
adoption of budget annually; provide procedures for implementation of
assessments; provide notice requirements for assessments; provide
procedures for construction of capital projects; provide procedures for
revision of assessments; exempt public property from assessments; provide terms
for assessment bonds and resort service fee bonds; exempt assessment bonds
and resort service fee bonds from state taxation; provide that
indebtedness of resort area district to be paid solely from resort service fee
and assessments; provide procedure for payment of assessments to sheriff; authorize
sheriff to collect delinquent assessments; provide for lien against property
subject to assessment and notice thereof; provide for appointment of resort
area rangers; authorize resort area rangers to exercise authority of law-enforcement
officers; require annual audit of resort area districts; provide for liberal
construction of article; and provide that resort area rangers are considered
law-enforcement officers subject to the same training and requirements as other
law-enforcement officers.”
A cursory review of
this whole matter clearly shows that establishing a RAD provides the MANAGEMENT
a means FOR THEIR EMPLOYMENT at the expense of everyone else!
And as clearly shown in the new
law, as well as in the proposed ‘Petition’,
in all examples, as set forth in Part I of this exposé – ALL SEVEN BOARD MEMBERS FOR THE PROPOSED SRAD COULD COME FROM
INTRAWEST & FORTRESS were they to exercise all their control since
they own the overwhelming majority of all commercial property let alone all the
undeveloped land, including the ‘Air Units’ of proposed parcels not yet developed
but entitled to a VOTE since those units are already divided for development –
and those units constitute a ‘block-vote’ in the hundreds if or when they
would be needed for majority control! Even
so on the face of things, Snowshoe Mountain, Inc. will control 4 of the 7 seats
OUTRIGHT and maybe even one or more of the three seats allocated to individual and
commercial property owners – if Snowshoe voted its ‘Air Units’! And last but not least, let us not forget that
once a board of seven persons is elected – THERE NEED
NOT BE ANY FURTHER ELECTIONS, EVER – just a replacement for any one of
the original seven when the time comes!
By definition, as clearly set forth in Part I, this whole idea in both
form & practice constitutes outright ‘Corporate Fascism’ by definition – a top-down
corporate-government resting upon the backs of property-owners & workers!
Only two of the nine candidates
for county commission have had the foresight, courage & integrity to bring
this information before the public for consideration & review…so…
THIS TIME…there’s no excuse…
IT’S YOUR
CHOICE…
TO CHANGE FOR THE BETTER!
Just say ‘NO’ to
those who want to keep this county in Poverty &
Pauperism
– and –
Just SAY ‘YES’ to
real Progress
& Prosperity for the future!
On Primary Day – YOU have a chance to elect two persons
that will always put YOU first! They know that:
THE
GREATER COMMON GOOD ALWAYS COMES BEFORE SELF OR ANY SELF-SERVING SPECIAL
INTEREST!
Keep up to Date – Stay tuned to these Websites:
► IF YOU are registered to vote as a Republican,
you can
Vote for Norman
Lee Alderman in the Primary Election
on 13 May 2014;
► IF YOU are registered to vote as a Democrat,
you can
Vote for Patti Heinemann in the primary election on
13 May 2014;
► If you are not registered to vote, then you must
register
to vote on or before 22 April 2014;
► If you are registered to vote, but with no party
affiliation, then you must request
Loud & Clear either
a Republican or Democrat ballot
on Primary Day when
you go to the polls; &
► Since Norman
is unopposed, he recommends that you
request a Democrat ballot to vote for Patti so that
this
county can again have an Honest & Just county
commission!
► Early Voting is from 30
April 2014 to 10 May 2014 – so
Vote Early & avoid
the rush!
If you
wish to financially assist, kindly send all campaign contributions to: The United Campaign for County Commission (UCCC), c/o
Citizens for Common Sense Alternatives (CCSA), a registered Political Action
Committee, 7837 Wesley Chapel Road, Green Bank, West Virginia 24944-9063
Phone:
1.304.456.4565 or 3282 (also fax)
[The Pocahontas Crier is part
of The Crier Coalition of Internet News Services comprised of The Pocahontas Commentator,
The
Pocahontas Crier, Signal
Fires of WV & Echoes from the Holl’r.]
