Not sure if you caught the show hosted by “30 Rock” star Tracy Morgan, but it’s about friends setting their friend up in a horrifying situation…of which it always ends, “Are you scared? You shouldn’t be…you’re on Scare Tactics.” Then everyone has a good laugh and often a few choice words are bleeped. Which is what I felt was about to happen last Thursday, Nov. 19, at a meeting with the board of the Twin Lakes HOA and concerned citizens and residents.
It didn’t happen, but given the build up and horror stories of greedy developers and hordes of families flocking to the edges of the golf course and laying in wait to stake their claim to one of the multi-family homes that’s soon to be part of the scenery of the “Back 9,” we’re supposed to be gripped with fear.
Truth is, banks can’t keep up with the foreclosures they have now. Real estate agents and mortgage brokers can’t find buyers. The general populace is already strapped with disposable income. Condos, homes and properties throughout the area lay vacant…plans shelved, half-built, unable to get financing. Credit ratings of every American have dropped as have the property values in Twin Lakes (check with your mortgage company). And if you live on the course, so has yours. That’s without any thing changing at Twin Lakes Golf and Country Club.
So what this decision comes down to is subsidizing through a bailout another private enterprise.
Has the club truly exhausted marketing efforts? Or lowered rates so more people could join? Waive initiation fees? Creatively offered more services? I have never been directly marketed by the course (and I have lived here for 17 years), other than their ad placed in The Mirror last spring. Why?
On one hand, I agree with voting to pass the $25/month fee because it means, as a local Twin Lakes business person, I can hit up all 1,400 homes to subsidize my local business because I need help too. And, I should have thought of getting each homeowner in the association to kick in just $5 a month last year, before we were forced to sell our coffee shop just four blocks west of the course. Enough Twin Lakes residents didn’t support that business, but we should have known the association could have been frightened into supporting our shop by convincing them bikini clad baristas might be waving at passing vehicles at the end of 320th Street. I am also sure there are several other local Twin Lakes businesses like a specialty pet shop that are looking for similar support.
So if this does pass, dig deep, residents of TLHOA — and expect to subsidize every other private enterprise. Because you never know what will happen to the empty space these days.
Are you scared yet?
Michael Dziak, Federal Way
