The recent Hidden Valley Lake Community meeting on April 27 to discuss rebuilding the Hartmann Golf/Restaurant complex made one thing perfectly clear to everyone in attendance: the five members of the golf clique that dominates the seven-member HVL Board of Directors have little intention of listening to community feedback about the high price tag of their proposed plan.

They made it quite clear also that they have little intention of allowing members of our community to vote on this project, a right that is mandated by the Davis-Stirling component of the CA Civil Code governing Homeowner Associations, as well as by our own CC&Rs.

For Madeleine and me, just arriving here in Hidden Valley Lake about 18 months ago, it seems like we have walked into a wrongdoing in progress.

We can either turn away and get on with our busy lives, and allow the misconduct to continue because it’s trouble to get involved with these kinds of things. Or we can try to act to stop it, and help bring fairness and caring to the situation, if that’s possible, which thankfully a number of concerned residents are already doing.

In fact, it’s been inspiring to witness the creativity and perseverance of the many people here who are working for a more equitable allocation of funds.

Understandably, the perpetrators don’t like any meddling with their plans. In this case, it seems a tiny elite of Hidden Valley Lake, about 1 percent of the residents, have succeeded in seizing control of the board and aggressively pushing through an agenda that benefits their interests to the detriment of the vast majority of the residents.

While it’s well understood that only about 10 percent of the HVL residents use the golf course, and about 5 percent are members of it, what seems especially interesting is that it seems to be just a small minority of this 5 percent, the particularly hard-core golfers, who are pushing hard for the expensive ($5 million to $7 million) version of the Hartmann complex. This 1 percent apparently learned a few decades ago the importance of getting what it wants by dominating the Board of Directors.

In contrast, most of the golfers are aware that their pastime is a heavy load for the other 90 percent of HVL residents to carry, year after year, averaging around $700,000 annually.

Demanding an unnecessarily expensive new golf clubhouse/restaurant complex on top of the huge annual subsidies for golf and burgers is unseemly to most of the golfers, but to the 1 percent, it seems there is a sense of entitlement.

“What’s good for the golfers is good for the community” seems to be the mentality, and it reflects the basic attitude of entitled elites in governing bodies at every level of governance in societies around the world, unfortunately.

The argument is that even if we never set foot on the golf course or in the clubhouse, pro shop, bar or restaurant, that these automatically raise our property values, and make our community more valuable.

This is an enormously dubious claim. It flies in the face of our experience moving here, for example, where we saw clearly that home prices in HVL are lower because many potential buyers don’t want to be burdened with ever-rising annual assessments of close to $2,000. And as these assessments go up, property values here tend to go down.

The board’s golf clique, with it’s anti-democratic and relentless pressure to spend millions of our dollars on this Hartman project is not only harming the other amenities and services, which are cut in order to pay for this boondoggle, but also attacking our basic financial stability and viability.

There is no assurance that the larger economic picture is improving, and a lot of evidence that it isn’t and won’t. Golf could easily become less popular here in the coming years, given that there are many other courses around and if people have less disposable income, they will golf less. So it is risky to commit ourselves to an overly expensive project in these uncertain times.

Additionally, think of what we could be doing with the millions of our dollars that are going into the golf course, restaurant and now the Hartmann complex! Wouldn’t it be terrific to have leadership that would encourage the membership to come up with ideas that would benefit the community as a whole?

Funds that are disproportionately directed to chemicals and petroleum to run a golf course that is off-limits to the very residents who are paying for its upkeep could go instead to help beautify and maintain our wonderful lake.

Golf courses are plentiful, but a spring-fed lake like we are blessed to have here in dry Northern California is a rare and precious jewel, and we are not giving it the attention and care it deserves.

And funds that have been cut from security could be restored, and we could have better buildings and programs for our kids and youth, and more activities for adults and seniors, and more hiking/walking trails and community gardens and spaces, and upgrade and beautify our parks, and perhaps set up funds to help residents beautify their properties, and create amenities that serve the broad spectrum of people who live here. Not to mention just saving the money.

This is our community! We are not medieval vassals working in a feudal system to support the lords of the manor in their high-consumption lifestyle.

It’s past time for the residents of Hidden Valley Lake to wake up to the fact that we are being deceived by the chicanery of the golf clique, and to take back control of the governance here.

Let’s make an effort to understand what’s happening, and spread the word to our fellow residents so that we can not just stop the unfair and unhealthy allocation of resources, but move forward to make Hidden Valley Lake a vibrant, creative, forward-looking community that will attract people because of its beauty, dynamism and positive community spirit. That is probably the best way to raise property values as well.

It seems the two most important things are first, to broaden the base of people here who understand what’s going on, and educate and mobilize people so that we’re more numerous and informed. As we build a strong and solid grass-roots movement of caring residents, our success will be assured.

Secondly, we need to set a spending cap on the Hartman project. The board has failed to do this properly, and so we as a community are called to decide how much we’re willing to spend to rebuild/renovate the structure. I propose a spending cap of around $2.5 million to $3 million.

I’m deeply grateful to the creative and hard-working folks at HVL United and others who have helped raise consciousness about this. And it’s also important to remember that we’re not criticizing individuals, but rather pointing out behaviors that aren’t helpful and fair, and that our goal is to create a positive alternative. It’s time to shed more light, and inform more people here. Any ideas about how best to do this would be helpful!

Dr. Will Tuttle lives in Hidden Valley Lake, Calif.