Creekside HOA Board of Directors Pulls Out of Golf Course Funding Plan

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The Creekside Homeowners Association board is distancing itself from a proposal to assess each homeowner $90 a month to support a nearby private golf club.

HOA Board Chair Audrey Konold sent the 588 homeowners a letter outlining the plan, which would also impose a 1% transfer fee on home sales, over Memorial Day weekend.

The letter directed the owners to a website, www.keepourcreekside.com, which indicated that a group of HOA board members and golf club members had worked for months to reach a consensus on the plan.

But Konold now says that was not the case.

“The owners (of the golf club) have rejected all ideas provided by the committee and the owners have provided their updated requirements, which is the proposal you received,” Konold wrote in a “clarification letter.” from June 3 to the owners. “This is not the proposal that was recommended by the HOA Board of Directors.”

Konold’s letter did not describe the HOA board’s proposal, and she did not respond to attempts to contact her.

The owners hired a Salem marketing firm, Public Affairs Counsel, who created the website claiming it was a consensus plan, she wrote.

Golf club owners Larry Tokarski and Terry Kelly did not respond to interview requests.

Owners are due to vote on the proposal on June 29.

The board decided to remain neutral on the proposal, Konold wrote.

“What you do is your decision,” she wrote. “Your vote.”

Creekside Golf Club and the Creekside Estates neighborhood were created by the same developer, but otherwise have no legal or financial connection.

But many club members live in the neighborhood, and those with a view of the golf course have an interest in preventing development. Some residents said they bought their homes thinking the golf course would still be there.

Tokarski and Kelly have been threatening to shut down the course and turn the property into homes for years.

In 2016, Tokarski filed a pre-development application with the City of Salem for a planned 354-unit development at the golf course site. At the time, city officials said stormwater and wetland issues could prevent some of that development.

That same year, club owners petitioned the owners’ association to increase HOA dues by $60 per month, in exchange for a limited number of club memberships, raising approximately $400,000 per year.

When that failed, they asked the city of Salem to reduce the rate it charged for water, which could save the company $140,000 a year. This proposal, which would have increased residential water rates by an average of $8 per year, also failed.

The latest proposal would bring in around $4.2 million for the golf club over five years. In exchange, the club’s owners will suspend any development plans during this period.

“This all sounds very seedy to me and other people I’ve spoken to in the neighborhood,” Creekside owner Paul Hanz told the Statesman Journal. “If the golf course is not profitable, where do the owners get the money to hire their own marketing company, public relations contractors and engage in an awareness campaign to try to convince us of their to give money ?

“We are being extorted to subsidize a private club that we have no membership or tangible benefit to and also subsidize those who have yardside homes,” Hanz said. “Most people in the neighborhood can’t even see the course of their homes, so why would we spend so much to keep a company afloat that, in all likelihood, is going to try to hold us to the coals and extort money? money in exchange for not leaving yet?”

Tracy Loew is a reporter for the Statesman Journal. She can be reached at tloew@statesmanjournal.com, 503-399-6779 or on Twitter at@Tracy_Loew.

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