POA wades into Loudon County politics

After discussing in February a need to see more support from local government, the Tellico Village Property Owners Association Board of Directors voted to form a Political Education Committee.

The goal of the committee is twofold: Inform Tellico Village residents about what is happening in local politics and educate local politicians about the value of Tellico Village.

“We generate a tremendous amount of money that goes to the county through various ways, through property tax, through facilities tax, through all the service work that people do through building homes and all of that,” Bruce Johnson, POA board president, said. “We are basically an economic engine for the county. So much so that the county hasn’t had to raise property tax in over 30 years — one time in 30 years.

What we’re looking at is ways we can tell the county — we’re doing all this for the county because we are part of the county,” he added. “Now we would also like the county in return to look and see if there are ways they can assist us just like they do the rest of the county. To date they have not been able to do that, from their standpoint, because they believe the law prohibits them from doing that because we are a private community called a 501(c)(4).”

Henry Cullen, who serves as Tellico Village’s representative on Loudon County Commission, said in February there is not much the county could do.

“The POA says they don’t get anything back, and, yes, they pay $7.4 million in taxes, which is 20 some odd percent of the total, but the issue comes down to Tellico Village is a private subdivision in the unincorporated part of Loudon County,” Cullen said. “Therefore, it is illegal to give public funds to a private entity like Tellico Village.”

Richard Blough proposed the committee and recommended passing the charter, which Johnson assured would be made public soon.

“Part of the reason that we need to do this is we need people in the Village to understand what the issues are that we face as an organization,” Blough said. “In the last election, 25 percent of Villagers voted. That’s not very good. As recently as 2009, that number was well over 60-70 percent. What we really need to do is activate the opinions of the people in the Village so they actually are engaged in the process of deciding things … and deciding who is going to be able to change rules so that we have some benefits coming out of this.”

The POA has been petitioning lawmakers in Nashville to view Tellico Village as something more similar to a city in order to grant the Village more benefits from local government, Blough said.

Incorporating has been examined but is not believed to be an option. From a financial and from the perspective of what we would have to create as far as infrastructure … the cost of that is just exorbitant, and you can’t get the benefit right away,” Blough said. “We don’t have that option available to us no matter who says that to you.”

Johnson believes state law prohibits the POA from incorporating because Tellico Village is too close to other cities in the county.

“In addition to that, we would have to come up with a five-year plan for taxes,” Mike Colacone, board member, said. “So you would be doubly taxed.”

You’d be having to pay Loudon County and taxed if we were called a municipality, plus your assessment. You can see that this board is not looking favorably on double taxing any of the residents.