Chautauqua MUST tell its numbers

To the Anonymous commenter who recently asked if more information was available about the financial dealings going on between the homeowners association and the borough, let me throw this out there.

There is a PA law (in their Planned Communities" Chapter) that REQUIRES the seller of a Chautauqua home to provide a certificate that is supposed to contain a BOATLOAD of this financial information. Seller is also supposed to give you a full copy of the bylaws, etc.

The Seller is supposed to request that the Chauauqua provide this certificate--and the Chautauqua is REQUIRED to provide it, and then Seller is supposed to give it to you, with the bylaws and the other stuff, within ten days of your offer.

If you do not receive this certificate--in its entirety as spelled out in the law, then your contract is void(able).

However, in practice, you will find that the Chautuaqua has NEVER provided such certificate. And, essentially because no one knows their rights, they also never ask to see the information and never get a chance to protect their interests (like the money that they invested in a community that is really a fraudulent scheme designed to allow a small nucleus of persons egregiously inflate their salary and benefits at the homeowners and taxpayers expense.)

And, read the law and chapter for yourself before you let them tell you that the Chautauqua is "grandfathered" or exempted from this requirement. While some sections of the chapter apply to newer HOA's, lots of the laws (like this one) apply to ALL HOA's.

And, by the way, just back in February, Roger Groce ran a story where these same local real estate agents indicated a 12% price drop here and nearly a 50% drop in sales. Guess things changed fast since then....

Remember last November's Boro Proposed Budget

Well, the "final" numbers put the Borough's budget at around $200,000.
But, did you know that that document is more like a fanciful fiction than the legal truth that it is supposed to be?

"How is this?" you ask.
Well, here is how.
When Chucky and Linda "prepare" the proposed budget, they leave a lot of routine revenue out. In fact, they leave out hundreds of thousands of dollars of money that they know full well will be coming in to the Boro.

And, apparently, they leave a lot of the Borough's expenses out, too. Don't believe me?

Well, just look for yourself: look at the OTHER budget report that they are required by law to file every year: the Borough's annual financial report and audit to the state's Dept. of Community and Economic Development.

You can see Linda and Chuck's 2007 filing below by clicking on the docstoc link. I have even highlighted the "bottom lines".

And just remember these two things when you are looking through this report:

First, their proposed budget for 2007 would have been even less than last year's $200,000. So, Chucknuts and LindaLu are telling the state that the Boro has a budget that is 400% of what they tell us the Proposed Budget is. Why mislead us like that? If they urge that everyone is so happy with their delivery of PUBLIC services, then why hide the truth from us?

Second, when even just one of us says that its ok for public resources to be used outside of its legal purpose, you are also making your Boro neighbors pay for that. You may be willing to pay the extra costs that it is taking to keep a fulltime crew of 4 public works staff in a municipality that doesn't have any buildings or any public land, that doesn't have any sewer or water service responsibilities, or any paper trail evidence or actual evidence of sharing between government entities, but your retired 80 year old neighbor may not be willing to subsidize these illegal activities.


Mt Gretna DCED Report 2007

SPIN man Roger Groce

Ever notice that Groce's newsletter runs content that ignores the real and repeated comments that present concerns about the status quo that he sells? For example, over the last few years, I have heard several people complain about the Art Show being held in the Borough. Those complaints even came from one of the founders of the show, who said that he thinks the Art Show is too big for this community and should be held in a more appropriate location. He also told me that he has told Chuck Asswhine and the Board that several times. So,why isn't the Board or the Council responding to concerns like his? Its because they don't really give a crap.

And, why is it that Groce can get information that we lowly citizens can't? For example, he does not own property in the Chautauqua or in the Borough, yet he knows how much the Art Show made last year when we shareholders can't even get that information...Uhhmm, when were we shareholders given that info? Answer: Never.
And what would happen if we asked for it? Well, what would happen is we would be strung along and denied the information even if you made written requests and followed up with attendance at Board meetings.

And, how is it that Groce, on any given day, knows exactly how many people the Borough employs and their names when Borough citizens can't even get that info from the Borough? On one day, you can get three different answers!

The FACTS are that we shareholders can never verify Groce's information because the Board and the person who keeps the financial information refuse to produce the information for us. But, apparently, they can produce it for Groce...and you have to ask yourself why they don't want US to see the real numbers.

And, you have to ask yourself why, if the Art Show is so productive, our shareholder's fees are not offset by that activity's so-called "profit." Let's see, a $30K rake split among the shareholders would drop our annual fee by over $150.

And, why hasn't the Borough or the Chautauqua ever shown us exactly what Chautauqua financial secretary Linda Bell transfers (partially) to herself as the Borough financial secretary every year out of the Chautauqua funds? Why isn't that clearly shown to us shareholders every year, and why isn't the portion that she receives personally reported as a transfer of compensation to a voting Chautauqua Board member, because that's what it is?

Both the Borough and the Chautauqua want us to think that less of a transfer happens every year than what is really the truth. The Borough completely fails to report to us ANY funds received from the Chautauqua, and the Chautauqua apparently wants us to think its what's represented by their Buildings and Grounds Fund maintenance costs. But these representations are not even apparently close to the real amount of money Bell is transferring from the Chautauqua accounts and receiving and "recording" into the Borough accounts---including into her own payroll. So, again, why is it that they feel it is necessary to hide the real numbers from us? If nothing is criminal or unethical about the transfers, then why all the subterfuge and secrecy? Why only leak suggested numbers via Groce? Perhaps the answer is that they don't want us to realize that we are paying WAY TOO MUCH for something that we shouldn't be paying for at all.

It is because, yeah, "spin" appears to be his job, and he does it well. And, well, when your goal is to "con" and squeeze the citizens for every penny, you need a good spinman to help sell the organization and pass out the Kool-Aid.