(06/06/24) Area 6 Meeting Report
Indian Hills Urban Service District
As always, my personal thoughts, insights, or notes are stated as such and in no way reflect anyone else's thoughts or opinions other than my own. (sorry for any typos)
The area this meeting was set for was titled "Area 6" for IHCC mapping purposes, but anyone was welcome to attend.
I counted ~87 homes in this mapped area. The smallest "group". Homes close to the lower lake.
There were 7 IHCC board members attending.
I counted ~14 others in attendance**. (not including 6 of us who have attended multiple meetings)
**I was surprised at the low turnout
Also in attendance:
Paige Eichkorn, reporter for AR Times-(she did an article from the Feb. 2023 meeting in the AR Dem Gazette !)
AND
City Councilman for Ward 4, Vince Insalaco (that's our ward)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Things I noticed about last night’s PPT that were different than other meetings:
No slide talking about how IHCC had struggled to keep the pool open ever since IHCC was formed in 1965
Slide talking about Winrock purposefully building the development around “nature”
Board member statements I had never heard before until last night:
IHCC is running out of time to submit the USD petition due to small income but still having bills.
Sell memberships to those outside Indian Hills after(if) the USD passes
QUESTIONS & ANSWERS:
Asked how Lakewood handles their parks/lakes (I believe this comes up at every meeting) – There were differing opinions on how Lakewood handles their parks/lakes.
Representative Insalaco said (to us) later that evening – “I have verified the Improvement District fee in Lakewood IS mandatory on their property taxes.”
“Memberships” for the Lakewood POA are NOT mandatory.I asked exactly HOW MANY homes are in Indian Hills.
The USD petition math is based on 1200
The ex-board member (and realtor) Brandon Musick recently posted on FB there are 1300 (I asked for confirmation, he never responded)
Homes.com states there are 1,565
The answer I got from the board members were not exactly what I would call helpful:
“Count the houses for yourself on the maps.”
“Print them on bigger paper if you can’t see them.”
“We don’t know where Brandon got his data.”
AND
“We counted 1240 at one point”
My husband and I HAVE counted the homes on the maps and came up with 1277. So what is the actual number?
Personally, I think the IHCC board should know exactly how many homes there are, since they plan on submitting a petition to the City to charge every one of those homes a monthly fee for the next ten years.
POLICE PRESENCE
Once again, there was a member of the NLR City Police Dept. at the entire meeting. Rumor has it they are there b/c "someone feels threatened by the language used on Facebook." I would love an answer to this.
My only question is -- who pays for that police officers time?
STATEMENTS & COMMENTS
One resident stated they would be better with this plan if the fees were NOT on the utility bill.
Unfortunately, the USD law doesn’t allow for any other collection mechanism.One resident expressed concern about the cost of everything going up now – home insurance, car insurance, property taxes, grocery bills --- adding yet another fee on top of this was not something they wanted.
They later gave me the analogy of:
Add one pebble
Add another pebble
And another.
Eventually, the pile of pebbles crashes under it’s own weight.On this note – it was again discussed that $8.50 may not seem like a lot to some, but for others IT IS.
There was again talk of neighbors sponsoring other neighbors who can’t afford the USD fee.
A counter argument was, “What happens if you are sponsoring someone and you move or you lose your job, etc… Who is then going to pick up the fee for those who can’t pay?”
Answer: “Don’t take the money out of their pockets in the first place.”Indian Hills Schools – it was stated they were ranked “F” which was not a draw for people with kids to move to the neighborhood.
I pulled up an article in the AR Dem-Gaz (Nov. 20, 2022) “Six of 13 schools got a D letter grade: Indian Hills……” (https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2022/nov/20/district-reports-on-index-grades/)
Homes.com states the schools are ranked “C”
