Maya Angelou
I'm Mike Ratchford. I'm a longtime resident of Ocean Ridge Plantation in Ocean Isle Beach, NC and I'm running as a candidate for the Ocean Ridge Management Association Board of Directors.
Please reach me at ratchfo@atmc.net if you cannot find an answer to your question.
I can work with any of them. While I disagree with many of them on certain issues, I believe that all of those who volunteer their time and energy for the betterment of our community deserve our appreciation and respect. I believe that we can disagree on the issues, but I will never question a volunteer's motives or integrity.
I have not yet seen any evidence of action by the board to address the community's concerns about the potential impact of this project directly with NCDOT. I believe that the board should be providing input to NCDOT requesting that the selected route for this highway be one that does not directly impact Ocean Ridge Plantation.
I don’t argue that there will be a need in the future to have additional amenity capacity than what we have today. The issue that I have is the process that has been used to determine the scope of the new amenity center. I believe that the survey and the reporting of the results were flawed and that both the new Amenity Center Adhoc Committee and the board are misreading the desires of the memberships and are proceeding with a project scope that is much grander than what many would support. To date, we have no firm cost estimates. There is only an estimate from the planning consultant that came up with the concept. We are moving ahead with one concept and not bothering to look at alternatives. I don’t believe that it is in the best interest of the Association to study only one concept and then have to make an all or nothing, yes or no decision. The Amenity Adhoc Committee should be looking at scope options and determining the pros and cons and the cost of each option so that we can then make an informed choice from among the options. The only commitment of resources we should be making at this point is the funding to conduct an architectural and engineering study to define alternatives. Moving ahead with detailed design drawings and obtaining bank loans are far too premature.
The simple answer is “YES”. The only reason for mentioning wanting to fill the role of President was that the nominating committee instructed the candidates to state in our opening statement which position we would like to fill on the board. As you know we are all running for position on the board. The board then elects the officers, we don’t get to simply choose our preferred position. I believe that I can have an impact in any position.
The question that you raise is a good one. The simple answer is "NO." I did not resign from the position of Chairman of the Facilities Committee because I got mad. If that were the case, I would have quit in May when the board removed the audio of my report to the board and asked me to modify the presentation that I made to remove any content that might be construed as being critical of other committees. I refused to do so because I had been working with the other committee chairs and what I had presented was not being critical of other committees but pointing out a dysfunction of our committee structure. Besides, I provided the presentation to all of the board members the day before the presentation and received no comments or complaints. I resigned as Chair of the Facilities Committee at the end of July because of actions taken by the board that made continuation in the position untenable. I then turned my attention to preparing to run for the board including taking the time to review all 3714 comments to the survey and doing an in depth analysis of the survey methodology and results.
I believe that I can work with any of the candidates. They all have solid credentials. However, I don’t believe that it is possible to be fully functional as a board member if you don’t live in Ocean Ridge. Of those candidates who do live in Ocean Ridge, I’m still doing my homework just like everyone else. Besides, we are all entitled to a secret ballot and naming two other candidates now would take that away from me.
Thanks for your question. I would not have supported the actions of the board at that time to stop landscaping the common areas still owned by the developer. That decision led to Ocean Ridge Plantation looking like a third rate development. I mentioned the landscape leases because we are obligated to provide and maintain the landscaping in those areas. Taking on a large new project without clear support of the majority of the membership in addition to our larger obligations is irresponsible in my opinion.
I've discussed this with the ORMA Treasurer and we both believe that the assessment travels with the land. Both assessments, the one due on January 1 and the one due on July 1 are treated as 12 month assessments. The due dates are just different. ORMA treats these as 12 even assessments, one per month. When the property is sold, the seller is responsible for the portion of the assessments that applied for the months that the seller owned the property. The buyer is responsible for the rest. This is what happened when I sold my lots in Jaguar's Lair in January of this year. I was credited for 11/12 of the total 2021 assessment.
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