Senior Community Being Railroaded

This letter was submitted to several Arizona media outlets by a FOS home-owner's family member who is a journalist in another state for potential journalism investigation.

This is a story of bureaucratic greed run amok, a board railroading a community to destroy open green spaces for a project that the majority of home-owners do not want.

About three years ago a special interest group of home owners decided that hey would like more pickle ball courts, and they proposed using the only two green space areas in the development to build them. These green spaces are surrounded by homes in the middle of quiet neighborhoods.

This first proposal was voted down by the entire community, the members of which were, at that time, allowed to vote on such proposals.

These two green spaces also serve as crucial water drainage areas. The home owners adjacent to these parks paid $10,000 to $25,000 more for their homes to have backyards that look out onto a nice green expanse.

After the first proposal was voted down, the special interest groups who wanted this sports activity projects merged the Community and Home owners boards into one; and they have began changing by-laws so that they could vote on issues in board meetings, just with whoever was there, not getting an accurate reading on the entire community.

The special interest groups wanted to look past any opposition and bypass majority voting.

They also stopped watering the green spaces years ago, leaving them dry and ugly dustbowls ... taking away the enjoyment of those seniors in the last years of their lives. My parents are some of them.

The push to have the entire community be forced to pay for building these new pickle ball courts has not stopped. The board went ahead and hired planners to design a noisy concrete nightmare with parking lots for 30 cars, bathrooms, 4 pickle ball courts, batting cages, shuffleboard courts, and a concrete wall to replace the green spaces.

There are other areas that could be used for the special interest groups objectives. A current horse shoe game space that is rarely used could be considered. It is in a common area that is not close to houses and green spaces.

The community is pushing back and has started a group called Keep Fountain of the Sun Affordable. They oppose this noisy and expensive project and held several meetings in the community facilities.

But after this group grew past 600 members, the board decided to refuse to allow them use the community auditorium to meet in. This is a building that belongs to all of the property owners and is intended for everyone to use. The reason given by the board was that the group was too politcal.

Meanwhile, the Board is pushing ahead with their plans for a large sports complex and they are ignoring all opposition. This is adversely impacting the seniors in this community by leaving these green spaces poorly maintained and looking dingy, dry, shabby, and not kept up.

This is not the same place that people first saw when they purchased their homes in this community. The green spaces used to have quail and a variety of wildlife that no longer lingers in the dry grass, which has also become a fire hazard.

The board thinks they can shove this through and just start building and assessing home owners for more money. The community members fear that construction will begin soon even with so much opposition.

Several members have advocated retaining a lawyer to seek an injunction. While this is difficult for seniors on a fixed income, that potential course of action is still being contemplated.