Columbia Association

Columbia Association (CA) President Padraic Kennedy presented plans to the Columbia Council last night to spend $33.4 million on operations and $6 million on construction next year, including $1 million to buy land for a recreational vehicle storage facility.Mr. Kennedy called the association's fiscal 1996 spending plan a "fiscally prudent budget that continues basic services" with no increase in the annual property levy and small increases in fees for recreational facility memberships.The private association levies an annual fee on Columbia property owners to manage recreational facilities, run community programs and maintain parkland.

After 25 years of maintaining and improving Columbia, the Columbia Association's headquarters will finally be at the center of things.Tomorrow, offices of the association will begin moving from Owen Brown village to a new home in Town Center."

Columbia residents will have an opportunity tonight to ask for more -- or less -- from the Columbia Association.The Columbia Council has scheduled a public hearing on the association's proposed $31.8 million operating and $5.8 million capital spending plans for 1994-95, proposals that hold the unincorporated city's property assessment rate at 73 cents.The hearing will be held at 8 p.m. at Kahler Hall in the Harper's Choice Village Center.In a budget summary, association President Padraic Kennedy says the spending plans maintain existing services, keeps recreational membership rates low or unchanged in some cases, reinvests in facilities, finances two new swimming pools and reduces the $20 million accumulated operating deficit.

A consultant whose salary study justified higher pay scales for most Columbia Association managers will answer questions about the report at tonight's 8 p.m. Columbia Council meeting.But council leaders say it's unlikely the panel will reconsider the new salary ranges it adopted without public comment. The salaries were recommended by the William M. Mercer Inc. human resources firm. The new scales set higher maximum salaries for 31 of 36 association managers."I think a significant majority on the council think accepting the recommendations is a good idea," said council vice chairman, David W. Berson.

The Columbia Council voted last night to reinstate merit raise proposals averaging 4 percent for Columbia Association employees.In doing so, the council reversed its vote of last Thursday to reduce the raises to 3 percent to match the rate of inflation and save at least $70,000.Last night's vote -- 5-3, with one abstention -- was a straw vote to ascertain whether there was a consensus prior to tonight's scheduled adoption of the association's proposed $31.8 million operating budget and $5.8 million capital budget for 1994-'95.

The Columbia Council begins deliberations on the Columbia Association's proposed budget tonight, with some members eager to make cuts and others wary of tinkering.The council also will have a public hearing at 7 p.m., before a budget work session, to hear comments on a plan to improve Symphony Woods park.That multiyear project, estimated to cost $600,000, has been criticized by some as too extravagant. Residents and Columbia village board representatives have urged the council to move slowly on the project, especially since the 38-acre park is closed for Merriweather Post Pavilion concerts in the summer.

Willie Snowden struggled to maneuver the Toro Groundsmaster down the Columbia Road sidewalk, no easy feat in the 12 inches of heavy slush that had amassed along the roadside by midday Friday after county plows had cleared the street.The Groundsmaster -- equipment more typically used for cutting grass on balmy days -- stalled, spun and lurched forward in the pelting sleet as the Columbia Association maintenance foreman cleared a swath for walking with the attached V-shaped plow.While they may not have roads to plow, the nonprofit association's maintenance crews certainly have no want for pavement to clear when winter summons.

Sometimes it pays to be stubborn. For more than 33 years, Joseph and Shirley Poteet ignored annual Columbia Association bills and later threats of possible foreclosure for not paying the community's unofficial property tax fees that accumulated to more than $45,000. Now, a Circuit Court judge has thrown out the homeowners' association claim as too old to be enforced. But the Columbia Association is stubborn, too, and though the organization didn't sue the couple until 2008 - two years after they sold their property to a developer for $1.5 million and retired to Salisbury - the association's lawyers are appealing.

The Columbia Association's governing body last night elected a new chairman who wants to improve relations with the community's villages, consider acquiring more land from the Rouse Co. and streamline the council's biweekly meetings.Joseph Merke of Town Center was unanimously elected to head the 10-member council -- which sets communitywide policy for the 87,000 residents of James W. Rouse's planned community -- for the yearlong session that began Saturday.Merke, who described the position as "first among equals," served one term as council chair during the 1997-1998 session, but was defeated for re-election by Norma Rose of Wilde Lake.

The Columbia Association manages a peaceable kingdom, with carefully tended landscapes, a network of health clubs, an array of cultural and recreational activities and other amenities. But some residents of the Howard County city have come to view the nonprofit organization as too clubby, too generous with benefits for insiders and too secretive. So it is that the association has found itself under assault from the Alliance for a Better Columbia. The citizens group has called for lowering the association's annual assessment by 7 percent in next year's budget and eliminating employee bonuses, which it claims have increased by one-third over the past three years.