The three-hour program on November 7 was wide-ranging, with many speakers offering thoughtful overviews of long-standing issues such as speeding and the need for volunteers at fire and rescue, along with insights into the budget.
WPOA posted a video of the entire meeting on its website, with a linked transcript. Here are the “news” items that emerged at the Saturday morning meeting:
Update on the mountain’s emergency exit
The new “Station 3” was built last year on the border of the National Park Service’s Blue Ridge Parkway and the Appalachian Trail [map]. It has two large bays for heavy equipment and supplies, a tiny office space with a cot and bathroom, and an outdoor bay that WPOA uses to store road treatments for icy roads.
It may not be needed as much as feared to house equipment to open an emergency exit to the Blue Ridge Parkway.
The Wintergreen Emergency Egress Act passed the House of Representatives in March, has been approved by Senate committees, and is expected to come to the full Senate in November.
“We do expect that it will pass,” reported Wintergreen Fire & Rescue Chief Curtis Sheets. “The elections didn't really change the trajectory of where we are in the process.”
Once passed and signed by the president, the Wintergreen Emergency Egress Act will direct the National Park Service to approve the exit if specific environmental conditions are met. “This is huge progress,” said Sheets. “We've gone from the National Park Service telling us there's no legal way we can ever grant your request, to now the National Park Service being told, you shall grant this request.” Sheets said it’s taken the community 25 years to get the federal government to this point.
If and when the legislation becomes law, Sheets noted that the “required engineering piece is not insignificant.” WPOA’s management is working with a team of lawyers, engineers, and environmentalists to be ready.
WPOA’s Jay Roberts noted how the new building has been designed to provide practical uses for public safety and road crews beyond the emergency exit, but WPOA Board Member Bill Martin was blunt that the building's initial focus is important now and will be later.
“There is no fooling around when it comes to the emergency exit on the mountain,” Martin said, explaining that if a wildfire overtook Wintergreen Drive, the only exit off the mountain now, the community is more ready than ever to “bulldoze the last couple hundred feet” to the Blue Ridge Parkway.
More perspectives on the proposed Buyers Transfer Fee
The proposed Buyers Transfer Fee is set up to fund WPOA’s reserve account. The reserve account is currently $3,830,000, up from $678,000 ten years ago. WPOA is in good financial shape. (Long-term debt moved from $1,386,000 to zero over the same 10 years.) So, why is a new fee being created to raise income?
The funds now in the reserve account will be spent, and the former income sources (payments from developers) are heading toward zero. Pointing to the $3,830,000 now in the reserve account, WPOA’s Executive Director Jay Roberts insisted, “This money is not going to touch 50-year-old infrastructure,” citing the dam expenses in Stoney Creek as one example of costly projects.
If enough people vote to reach a quorum, the new fee appears to be heading for approval, with 97% of the votes in favor. A November 11 email from WPOA targeted at non-voters said 511 more votes are needed for a quorum, however.
The goal is to have the votes in hand before the required special meeting to amend the covenants on Sunday, December 13, at 2:30 pm in the resort’s Commonwealth Ballroom. That deadline could be extended if needed.
WPOA has these “questions and answers” on the buyer transfer fee issue.
New high-profile projects
WPOA Jay Roberts stressed that details on the new designs shown at the annual meeting for the sign at the mountain’s entryway (which was greeted by the audience with spontaneous applause) and the additional landscaping on the Blue Ridge Overlook on Devils Knob Loop were still being refined, but the goal is to create “wow.”
Roberts explained that this work is part of how WPOA is taking responsibility for building the “Wintergreen brand.” He pointed out how WPOA is working with the Wintergreen Community Foundation to pay for projects such as the Founders Vision Overlook, Black Rock Park & the Plunge Hiking Trail, Ravens Roost Park, and more. WPOA is also now leading an extensive collaborative branding effort focused on hiking.
Roberts used the word “brand” several times throughout the meeting. The property owners should “own the brand,” he said.
Other notes
• There were complaints about setting up WPOA’s new owners’ portal, created so that property owners can go online to vote, pay bills, have access to a neighborhood directory, and so on… All of the complaints came from WPOA’s Jay Roberts.
“It's really painful. We're still trying to work through it. We will make it work,” WPOA’s Executive Director said. So far, 55% of the owners have online accounts in the new system. Some 1,653 are not in the system yet.
Some 577 of the owners' accounts at WPOA do not include an email address, Roberts noted.
To set up access to their account in the portal, owners should email admin@wtgpoa.org with the addresses of all their Wintergreen properties.
A new short ski trail through the woods will open this year, Wintergreen Resort’s Zach Marlowe announced at the WPOA annual meeting. “It will be a nice trail to have some fun with the kids,” he noted, adding that he’s looking at some terrain on the Acorn side of the mountain that could add more ski trail.
Marlowe said the resort was open for skiing for 92 days last season and saw “well over 125,000 skiers, which was great.”
• The three incumbents on the board were re-elected for another four-year term–Robin Pullen, Bill Martin, and Matthew Stegman.
-Charles Batchelor
