HERE ARE THE RESIDENT'S COMMENTS:
I have just a few thoughts about the county meeting on June 1st. First of all, thank you Brian for your time. You did a good job on the presentation and thank you Justin Flowers for the use of your community church and the gift bags, you are a great and welcoming neighbor.
Okay.... something for you all to think about.
Folks, in my long professional life, I worked with federal, state, and county grants and contracts and the administrators of those government programs didn't always budget money sensibly or encourage contractors or service providers to spend the taxpayers money wisely. This is what we all know as government waste. Money was never given back to the taxpayers because of frugal government spending. The motto was "use it or lose it." Providers knew in order to survive they had to exhaust all the money in their grant because it meant they could justify getting more in the pot the next fiscal year and they did.... courtesy of the taxpayers. I know how numbers and projections can be manipulated and call me a skeptic, but signing on for a $500 a year tax or fee for 3-5 years or until the golf course stops losing money just reminds me of the days when my administrators had me re-figuring numbers until we had just enough padding to justify more funding. We will never have any real idea how the course fiscally performs unless we visibly witness an full or empty parking lot day after day; and even that's not a legitimate measure. We will only know when the $500 fee is due and the consequences for non-payment.
My hat is off to those residents generous and charitable enough to put their trust in the county plan. I'm just not one of them. We worked very hard for our money, it wasn't always easy, and we sacrificed to get ahead, like most of you probably did. So taking on an additional tax or fee for something that won't give us a return in our investment is not what we're eager to do. I never took a handout so I find the county plan offensive in a way; their hand in my wallet. You can say my house will decrease in value if I don't get on board, but no one knows that for sure. It's the only reason supporters can come up with to get you to sign on to the plan. I'm just not swayed by this. My guess is the housing market in all of Georgetown is generally down, not just in Wedgefield. There are no jobs in Georgetown, people aren't exactly knocking down doors to move here, I would bet the population isn't growing, and there is just no big housing demand as a result of these factors.
How can we turn Wedgefied around? For one, if a private buyer purchases the course, we can support it. If not, we should start grumbling about buying it ourselves. Think about it, instead of paying a $500 fee or tax to the county, you can invest the money in your community and future. There will be a clear start and end date to the payments. And it would probably be paid off before the county golf course even started making money. Whether we use the course as a private park, a 9-hole course, renting out the Manor House, using some sections as a community garden or community recreational areas that will bring us all TOGETHER,..... we can consider all the great ideas that come out of the mouths and minds of our great residents. If we build and promote the community, offer quality of life, safe neighborhoods, and make the plantation more appealing to the public, then we will increase the values of our homes and market demands. It's a do it yourself approach that will be harder than writing out a $500 check to the county to maintain the course for an indefinite period of time, but it's much less of a gamble in your investment. After 3-5 years, it would be our very own, not the beginning of another round of taxes or the closing of another failed course. Something to think about.
