This Is our Village

Monday, August 6, 2012

UCO has the cash needed - no need to panic

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13 comments:

  1. AnitraAugust 6, 2012 at 11:02 AM

    Having accounting education, I am in shock at the reasoning of the treasurer on the matter of getting this loan. She is seeking a secured loan where we are placing a matching amount of money in a frozen account. To most accountants this is ridiculous. Why not just use the money we have and work at building the reserves. All I see in getting the loan is that the people lose the money that is paid in interest. It in no way puts us in a better situation. Our available cash does not change.

    We may be tight on the finances at this time but we are coming up to a new budget time. think that adding the amount we would be paying on the loan as a part of what is needed to replenish the reserves is a better way to go.

    Having lived on a tight budget most of my life, I am aware that major issues such as what happened at Bath and Borden really puts a squeeze on the finances but you pick up and start to rebuild the savings (reserves) to get ready for the next time that something breaks and it will but we don't borrow trouble.

    We have been shown that we have been in this tight cash flow before and we have survived. We will survive again but we need to stay calm and not panic.

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  2. anitaAugust 6, 2012 at 3:18 PM

    Thank you, Ed and Anitra. There is no reason to borrow money and hopefully, delegates will say so at the next delegates meeting.

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  3. AnonymousAugust 6, 2012 at 6:46 PM

    They own their house free and clear and now they want to take out a home equity loan.

    What's next, a reverse mortgage? An ARM with a five year balloon? The Indian Chief on TV offering payday loans at 975 percent?

    These people walk among us. Beware.

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  4. Lanny HoweAugust 6, 2012 at 9:43 PM

    I know very little about accounting and for some reason am very slow at learning it. With all that's been said about it before now, I still haven't been clear myself about our UCO situation. You can correctly attribute this to my own laziness, or perhaps because learning more about it just hasn't been a priority with me.

    But what Anitra says rings a bell with me. I think I recall Dorothy Tetro saying at a delegates meeting that we needed to take out a loan, and in order to satisfy the lending institution we needed to come up with something to secure the loan. Did Dorothy say, as Anitra says, that we would have to allow an account to be frozen? IF SO, I can exactly see Anitra's point. I wish Dorothy would answer in this Blog.

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  5. PlcruiseAugust 6, 2012 at 10:03 PM

    Hi Lanny. I suppose the larger point in this discussion is that credible and sensible UCO Board members do NOT think we need to take out a loan or mortgage. If the previous UCO Administration had taken Mark Levy up on his offer to rebuild the UCO Building after the hurricanes, UCO would have another $750,000 more in reserves.

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  6. UCO PresidentAugust 6, 2012 at 10:10 PM

    Hi all,
    Forget that Line of Credit, that train has left the station, it is not under consideration.

    What the malcontents want to do is MORTGAGE the UCO building, which is debt free and clear of all financial encumbrance. (don4060 has it exactly correct)

    One of the first major responsibilities I was tapped for was Chair of the Cable Committee, I led the Committee to an excellent agreement with Comcast which, among other things netted us a signing bonus in excess of Two Million Dollars. This money allowed us to clear the UCO building construction loan, which never should have been taken out.

    Now, the same people who were responsible for that debt want to relive history and take on yet another unnecessary debt on the UCO building.

    To all of the Delegates, I say; it is not needed, do not vote for it!!

    Dave Israel
    President
    United Civic Organization

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  7. UCO PresidentAugust 6, 2012 at 10:19 PM

    Hi Plcruise,
    August 6, 2012 10:03 PM,

    Also absolutely correct, we could have had a beautiful two or three story building shared with WPRF.

    The cost to us; wait for it folks!! One dollar per year in perpetuity. Again, the same people who made that travesty of a call are the ones who are calling for this ridiculous MORTGAGE.

    Please do not let a small group of malcontents drive the more rational of us over the cliff.

    Dave Israel

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  8. GraceAugust 7, 2012 at 9:50 AM

    Does our treasurer have a clue????

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  9. bill kAugust 7, 2012 at 3:30 PM

    Grace,

    The delegates voted for this treasurer, so they brought this on themselves and us. Makes you wonder.

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  10. AnonymousAugust 7, 2012 at 5:57 PM

    What else will be borrowing money for - we have money in the bank now - so lets just move on and build our recerves -
    VOTE NO!!!!

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  11. AnonymousAugust 7, 2012 at 6:04 PM

    Normally, I would see no value in rehashing past events, but in this case, the people who "made the call" on the UCO building in 2006 are, according to Dave, the same people who are fomenting fiscal panic today, clamoring for a mortgage on the building that they built, and will very likely run in future elections.

    So, some questions about events that happened before my time, and before the creation of the blog:

    UCO could have occupied a new office building, owned by WPRF, for one dollar a year. The building would have been shared with WPRF, creating convenient "one stop shopping" for residents. What were the stated reasons or arguments for building a separate UCO building? I assume that a majority of the Delegates, mostly reasonable people, voted for the separate building, so the idea must have made sense to many people at the time.

    Was the "one dollar a year, in perpetuity" agreement revocable? In other words, if the UCO/WPRF roommate arrangement wasn't working, could UCO withdraw and build its own building? If so, why didn't UCO go with the free building and keep the option open for a separate building if the free one didn't work out? The current building was financed, so using up cash on hand was not the issue- the building could have been financed in 2006, 2012, or whenever.

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  12. PlcruiseAugust 8, 2012 at 11:25 AM

    Hi don4060:

    You should probably ask the current UCO Officers for some past history on this. In any event, it was a BAD decision (not to go with Levy's offer) that was not fully vetted with the delegates--apparently with just a few members of the then UCO Executive Committee. We did not need to spend the $750,000+ we did to get the current too small replacement building. That money is GONE.

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  13. AnonymousAugust 8, 2012 at 5:14 PM

    I just did.

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