Myth Buster Index (Previous Myth Busters appear at the bottom of this posting)
Myth Buster #1: "A Small But Vocal Minority"
Myth Buster #2: “The Worst Case is That The City Gets a Golf Course”
Myth Buster #3: "The Arnold Palmer Signature Golf Course was Fatally Flawed and Destined to Fail"
Myth Buster #4: "Smoke and Mirrors -- Lots of Revenue and Lots of Jobs?"
Myth Buster #5: "Jobs, Revenue Streams and HAPPY-HAPPY... REALLY?"
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Check back regularly as we take each myth, one by one, and provide information the proponents of this plan would really rather you didn’t know. Read on for previously published Myth Busters ...Myth Buster #3: The Arnold Palmer Signature Golf Course was Fatally Flawed and Destined to Fail
Myth Buster #3: "The Arnold Palmer Signature Golf Course was Fatally Flawed and Destined to Fail"
Myth Buster #4: "Smoke and Mirrors -- Lots of Revenue and Lots of Jobs?"
Myth Buster #5: "Jobs, Revenue Streams and HAPPY-HAPPY... REALLY?"
Myth Buster #5
Jobs, Revenue Streams and HAPPY-HAPPY…REALLY?
The article in yesterday’s News-Herald exposes everything from simple spin to outright lies put out by the pro-annexation/pro-Camp-land side of the fight going on in the Refuge.
But the single most important piece of information, especially for Lake Havasu voters, has to do with the fact that the City Council has never done an objective study of the Aldridge’s business model. Not one. Nothing. Not even an in-house subjective look to see if what the Aldridges are promising has any basis in reality.
Yet, at the same time the Mayor and crew were sitting on their hands and choosing to look the other way, this very same band of carefree keepers-of-our-coiffeurs decided to spend way more money on an unnecessary vote than they hope to take in some day way off in the future.
Voters should be asking questions here, and demanding answers. Especially in light of all the campaigning individual Council members have done in attempts to sell what is looking more and more like a fiasco to the voting public.
And at the top of a list of those questions is: What is the basis for all these touted benefits? Where is the “Cost-benefit study” the Mayor said he was going to work from way back when those first “special” hearings about the water-swapping deals were being held?
Without those studies—the ones Mayor Nexen now says would be too expensive to conduct—everything the Aldridges keep bragging about may very well amount to nothing more than hocus-pocus or the “smoke-and-mirrors” brought up in MB#4.
From mythical revenue streams to completely bogus win-wins for the City to fairy-tale job increases for fictional employees, everything the Mayor and the Aldridges keep going on and on about is absolutely baseless.
Yet through media outlets, special endorsements from the good-ole-boys, radio talk-shows, hired spin-slingers, and a ton of palmed cash, the Aldridges have been able to keep the public’s eyes off of the reality that what they want to do is first of all very likely forbidden and second a bad idea from a business perspective.
Now, actual developers from within the Refuge community, as well as very accomplished business people have taken the time to do preliminary looks into the Aldridge business model—some of those “looks” very much in-depth—and in every single instance critical, if not fatal, flaws were uncovered. And these have been offered up to the Mayor and his merry band of part-time politicians. But they weren’t interested enough to look, learn, and then hopefully comment on that work.
Apparently they had already come to their conclusions on what they were going to do. But the question is: what did they use as a basis for their conclusions? Touted jobs? Revenue streams? Reality…?
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MYTH BUSTER #4: SMOKE AND MIRRORS -- Lots of Revenue and Lots of Jobs?
The Aldridges and City Council would like for you to believe that the RV Park that will replace a portion of the Refuge golf course land will create buckets of money for the citizens of Havasu just as many dozens (65…really?) of year-round jobs magically materialize.
The reality is no independent study of this business plan or a truly objective evaluation of its projections has ever been made public…thus fostering the suspicion that such a “study” and or “evaluation” has never actually been done at all. In fact, the city officials who have approved the partial-annexation of the golf course didn’t even do their own critical analysis but opted instead to simply take the Aldridge’s promised (projected) numbers and multiply them out over a “projected” 10-year period of time.
On that note when one considers the ever-present potential for small-town cronyism, especially when part-time politicians (City Council members) are rubbing up against old business and city associates like the Aldridges (Cindy was appointed to the Council at one time) one would think that extra efforts would have been made to keep the above mentioned “projections” above-board. That was not done, however, or apparently even requested by any of the sitting City Council members.
The fact is there is no public record to be found that reflects any “independent feasibility study” of the Aldridge RV plan. At the same time there is this giant hole containing no information regarding critical analysis, there is a disclaimer on every single page of the Aldridge website stating in the clearest of terms, they may not do the things the City is now relying on (and making projections based on) them doing.
Is this small-town “cronyism” or is just incomplete homework? No matter how one answers this question, it is not good for the citizens of Havasu.
The oldest myth prompted by the Aldridges and their agents has always been directed at the Arnold Palmer Signature (APS) golf course. The myth itself is that the course was fatally flawed in its original design. It was just too long and too difficult for senior and or newer golfers. As such it was destined to fail…the thinking being, apparently, because most golfers in Havasu are either too old or too new to handle such a challenging course.
In the minds of the myth-makers, this meant: Because “older” and “newer” golfers found the course too challenging, the course as it was, was a liability to the community created around it. Well, as fortune would have it, it just so happened the Aldridges could kill two birds with the same stone. Not only could they provide a service to this community by cutting down the course, in that “cutting” they would just so happen to clear 50 acres of pristine land, that land crying out to be an RV Park.
Speaking of luck, as it turns out this 50 acre parcel that was a poorly designed golf course, and valued as such, would jump, overnight, from somewhere just south of a million dollars to somewhere just north of 20 million dollars. Wow! Was this a capitalistic home run?
The problem with this home run is not all the bases were covered and the pitch that presented itself to the Aldridges is more of a self-serving T-ball than something our good friend the Terminator would serve up for them. The reality is there is a fine line between reality itself and a profit-driven myth. Riding both sides of this razor-thin line are facts and fictions that can be manipulated.
The fact is the original developer did default on their loan; that loan secured by the golf course. And, the course did operate in the red during its short-lived and initial 5 years of operation. But these two facts alone come nowhere near telling a full or complete story, nor do they even approach the level of directed inferences or extrapolation needed to get the Aldridges where they want to go.
The fact is, not one reputable golf-course developer we have been able to locate has been of the opinion that a championship golf course is ever expected to be profitable initially. Throw in some mismanagement elements and a crashing economy going down within that initial five years of operations and problems with profitability should be expected.
As to these mismanagement issues, they very likely stemmed from the fact that the original business-model put into action by the original developer was predicated on land-lot sales, not the on-going operations of a golf course.
With the word “mismanagement” on the table the real focus here is on the mismanagement of the truth. The Aldridges have taken license with the truth as if they are the sole proprietors of it, but then used that license to distort facts, and in ways that invariably work out to be in their own best interest. With these facts gathering like clouds on a distant horizon, the storm of reality the Aldridges are going to have to deal with is: no one benefits from the myth that the Arnold Palmer Signature course in the Refuge was destined to fail, except the Aldridges themselves.
In truth the APS golf course at the heart of the Refuge community was and is an asset, not only to that community but to the city of Havasu
The myth that there was something fundamentally wrong with this course’s original design is just that…a convenient myth. But it is in that “convenience” that the true reason for the Aldridge’s spinning of it in the first place is to be found. Sadly, it doesn’t end here. There are three more “convenient myths” around this golf course that the Aldridges and their agents have fostered. Those will be addressed in future articles.
Check back regularly as we take each myth, one by one, and provide information the proponents of this plan would really rather you didn’t know. Read on for previously published Myth Busters ...
Check back regularly as we take each myth, one by one, and provide information the proponents of this plan would really rather you didn’t know. Read on for previously published Myth Busters ...
Myth Buster #2: "The Worst Case is That The City Gets A Golf Course"
During one of the public hearings for the Refuge partial annexation, Mayor Nexsen said that the worst that will happen "even if the project falls flat on its face" is that the City will get a golf course. This is false.
Additionally, the Aldridges have made repeated false statements about the “golf course being annexed”.
The annexation is for 49 acres earmarked for use as an RV park. The land that is left for golf purposes is NOT included in this annexation and will remain in its entirety in Mohave County.
If this partial annexation moves forward as planned, the annexed land will be outfitted with 279 concrete slabs for the Aldridge’s proposed RV Park. The City would get another RV Park at best, NOT A GOLF COURSE.
In fact, the golf course that used to be an Arnold Palmer Signature Golf course, open to the residents and visitors of Lake Havasu, will be replaced by a PRIVATE short course that will remain part of Mohave County.
The City does not "get a golf course". The reality is that both the City and the County LOSE a world-renowned championship golf course that could otherwise have attracted visitors and golfers to the area.
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Check back regularly as we take each myth, one by one, and provide information the proponents of this plan would really rather you didn’t know. Read on for previously published Myth Busters ...
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For the past year, Jerry and Cindy Aldridge have continually and consistently fostered the myth that there is only a “small but vocal minority…” of Refuge property owners who oppose them.
Outlined below is some important history that shows a different picture. After reading this history, you can decide for yourself whether the property owners in OPPOSITION to the RV Park and partial-annexation are a “small but vocal minority”, or instead, if they represent the majority of property owners.
First, in February of 2010, a legally binding and democratic election of The Refuge Board of Directors took place. Ten candidates were on the slate, three who openly and publicly supported the RV Park, five who opposed these drastic changes and were endorsed by the Rescue The Refuge (RTR) opposition group, and two who claimed neutrality. The results of that election were four of the five RTR-endorsed candidates won. Even more telling was that not a single one of the candidates who openly supported the Aldridge plan were elected.
It seems fair enough here to at least suggest that a 4 to 0 outcome of an election should be a strong indicator of some pretty major opposition. But not to the Aldridges. Their immediate response was to put out a fake press-release stating that the opposition only represented “…a small but vocal minority.”
In response to this challenge by the Aldridges, the newly-elected Refuge HOA Board of Directors conducted a simple but comprehensive survey to determine how many property owners were supportive, opposed or were neutral to City Center
· 68% of the total who responded were OPPOSED (116 total votes)
· 17% of the total who responded were NEUTRAL (29 total votes)
· 15% of the total who responded were IN FAVOR (25 total votes)
These results provide a clear statement that a majority of Refuge property owners OPPOSED City Center’s plans for the redevelopment of their community. (*See Footnote.)
So what was the Aldridge’s response to this? They claimed that the process wasn’t FAIR because while each property owner got to vote (as in an annexation vote), they didn’t get to cast a vote for each LOT they owned. You see, the Aldridges were only allowed to vote for the one lot for which they pay HOA dues (NOT the other 23 lots for which they do not pay HOA dues). In all fairness, this process did not allow other multiple lot-owners to cast more than one vote either. Each “owner” got one vote. But because the Aldridges didn’t like that process, they chose to deny the reality of these results.
Additional signs of opposition came in several forms: 1) Signed petitions to the County (prior to the annexation request) that represented 140 lots in The Refuge, 2) Signed statements of participation in the formalized Rescue The Refuge, LLC representing well over 100 lots, 3) Approximately 70 personally written letters to both County and City officials stating strong opposition to the proposed plans.
A more recent indicator of opposition came in the form of an official recall of the one Board member who had originally “claimed” neutrality. Even with Aldridge’s formal and public letter of support for this individual requesting the HOA membership not to recall him, the recall petition had over 90 signatures in less than 48 hours. In the end, the recall vote itself was a landslide, even with Aldridge’s 24 votes (again, 23 votes for which they do not pay HOA dues) against the recall.
Isn’t it fair enough by this point to be able to say, at the very least, the Aldridges are being opposed by far more than their alleged “small…vocal minority?” After losing an election (is 4 to 0 a fair assessment here?), coming up short in an official property owners survey (by a 4 to 1 margin) and then their inability to save one of their own from recall, wouldn’t it be more truthful to acknowledge what is really going on?
The answer from the Aldridges to these questions: they choose to either completely ignore or simply not acknowledge any of these realities. Instead, they continue to foster the illusion that they have the support of most of the people who make up the Refuge community.
This is wrong and should seem so to any rational person. We know it and they know it. But is it so wrong that the Aldridges have crossed an imaginary line that separates myth-creation from outright lying? You, our reader will have to be the judge of that. But in that judgment you should know the Aldridges point to their own statistical events. And to date, there are three of these so-called “events” or “indicators.”
As these are described below, a fair question to ask all along the way seems to be: Are the results of these indicators being represented truthfully, or have they been purposely manipulated in an effort to mislead the general public? Furthermore, if the answer is YES at any point along the way, have the Aldridges crossed this imaginary line?
The first indicator of support the Aldridges have ever referred to was an informal show of hands the day their plan was first presented in October 2009. This “show of hands” was by an audience who may or may not have been comprised of all property owners. Furthermore, we can never know to what degree those unknown people actually understood the Aldridges proposed plan. But there are two things we do know with absolute certainty: 1) There were a significant number of HOA members not in attendance that day, and 2) None of that matters anyway because the plan presented on that fall day was vastly different from the one now before the City. That original plan did not include overnight RV rentals, a formal subdivision of our already subdivided neighborhood or a fabric tent that is inconsistent with the design guidelines for the Refuge to be used for noisy private and public events. And it most certainly did not include a partial-annexation of our master-planned community.
But if a “show of hands” seems weak in comparison to formal and approved votes, it gets even worse.
Beginning in November 2009, the Aldridges published a letter of support and asked every property owner to sign it. Just exactly what those who signed were signing up for was not at all clear. It most certainly was NOT for the Aldridge plan now before the City. At any rate, a few months later the Aldridges began publicizing the fact that they had received at least 100 of these signed letters.
That number turns out NOT to have been true. Either that, or somewhere along the way the Aldridges lost some of those letters; or perhaps some of those letters had been signed—as was most likely the case in the show-of-hands event—by non-property owners in the Refuge.
This statement of untruth is predicated on the fact that once these documents were introduced into court, the alleged 100+ letters dwindled rapidly to such a point that at the very best, less than HALF that number now turns out to be valid. Additionally, because these letters were signed in November 2009 and the plans have changed so dramatically since that time, even those letters would be questionable, at least in a courtroom environment.
The only remaining “indicator” referred to by the Aldridges involves a survey/ballot that became officially invalidated after not achieving a quorum of HOA votes (even counting the Aldridge’s 23 unpaid-for votes). The primary problem with that survey had to do with its wording. It was so misleading and manipulative that even staunch opposers of the RV plan, such as the co-plaintiffs on the lawsuit, couldn’t find an option to be in favor of. A “yes” vote essentially meant agreeing to pay thousands of dollars per lot into a litigation plan that was not articulated or defined. Further still, when questioned, the authors of the ballot were unable to explain how or where monies would be spent. These problems, along with the lack of a quorum, prompted the HOA Board to officially invalidate the survey and to this day, it does not recognize its results.
Do the Aldridges share these details when they tout the so-called results that only they seem to recognize? If they do, we have been unable to locate that. Sadly for the Aldridges, it seems the very best we can say about their version of the truth of this matter is myth…and that is the best that can be said.
In the end, the “truth” is that the majority of the property owners in the Refuge do not support the Aldridge plan.
[*FOOTNOTE: Re: HOA Survey Results - An Aldridge-supporter on the BOD at the time (the individual who was later recalled) interpreted the survey results to indicate that those in opposition did not represent a majority because 116 is less than 137 (half of the 274 individual property owners originally surveyed). Using that same logic, the 25 who indicated they were in favor of the Aldridge plan represent only 9% of the owners…a number that not only seems more realistic, but also seems more like a “small minority.”]
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Check back regularly as we take each myth, one by one, and provide information the proponents of this plan would really rather you didn’t know.
