Message to Property Owners
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QUICK UPDATE: SEPTEMBER 26, 2025
Great news! After legal review by county attorneys, we have been told by our team at DPW they will be including an increase to the already-established assessment max in next year’s annual board letter that goes forward each June with rates for all PRDs.
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UPDATE: AUGUST 14, 2025
Administratively a lot has happened over the past months. To kick it off we held an in-person meeting with the new DPW team the end of March which resulted in a very productive conversation. The first order of business was acquainting the DPW folks with some of the unique aspects of PRD 102's structure and history and how that has helped create the financial shortfall we now face. The ensuing discussion focused on what could be done to increase the property owner assessment to the maximum that was authorized when the PRD was established in 1980.
Historically the annual assessment was based on the next year's budgeted spending limited only by the established maximum. This practice was working well up until the Board of Supervisors made a "policy decision" to freeze PRD assessments at early 2008 levels. As this was a policy choice and not a legal requirement, we hoped there would be a way to either alter the policy of obtain an exception. The meeting closed with a commitment from the DPW team to address a workaround.
On the project side of things, as we had projected in our February update, there was no activity in FY24/25. Total spending for that period on road/culvert maintenance services was $0. DPW staff and administrative costs were $26,014.
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UPDATE: FEBRUARY 20, 2025
It's been a while since our last update, and not really much to talk about. Since we last spoke our contact points with the County DPW changed twice and new senior management came on board. Once again, we are still working to reestablish effective working communication.
On the operational side of things, we have been told that as a result of work backlog there is a good chance we will not see anything other than emergency repairs this summer, although we are still in conversation to see if we can change that and will report back if we get a different answer.
For the time being there is no active effort to address the annual assessment amount but we hope to put something together with the help of the County soon.
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UPDATE: MAY 5, 2024
Not much to report in the way of financial or assessment news, but we have been active in performing some emergency repairs and in addition were able to perform a bit of preventative maintenance work.
The biggest accomplishment of the past year was the total rebuild of a culvert at the end of North View Court. The failing culvert and resulting sinkhole required a complete dig out and reconstruction with the project costing over $70K. In addition to the culvert work we were able to find enough available funding to remove and replace a section of asphalt on Meadow Glen Way West.
All totaled in FY23/24 $127,767 was spent on road/culvert maintenance services and another $35,385 on DPW staff time and administrative expenses.
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UPDATE: NOVEMBER 28, 2023
Unfortunately, we did not meet our goal on the initial petition drive, but a lot has been going over the summer. Click here Letter to Property Owners (hiddenmeadowsprd.com) or on the tab above "LETTER TO PROPERTY OWNERS" for a complete update.
On the administrative front once again there has been a change of personnel at the Department of Public Works with most of the staff we had been working with re-assigned to new roles and a different team now supporting PRD 102. The new folks all seem knowledgeable and eager to address PRD issues but there still is a bit of a learning curve as there come up to speed on issues particular to our PRD. Of the many challenges we face, the realignment of our support at the DPW seems to be an annual affair.
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UPDATE: JULY 1, 2023
Thank you to the over 100 PRD members who have submitted their signed petition supporting the modest increase in the annual road maintenance assessment. We are more than halfway to the goal we had hoped to meet by early May in order to impact this year's tax rolls. While we didn't make that date, we are still seeing signed petitions coming in and the County has indefinitely extended the submission deadline, so we are continuing the initiative.
If you haven't already sent in your petition, please consider doing that now. If you have already sent in your petition, please talk to your neighbors and ask them to do the same.
If you or anyone you know has any questions at all about the PRD process or the assessment, please submit questions to HiddenMeadowsPRD@yahoo.com.
If anyone needs a petition form, please send your request to HiddenMeadowsPRD@yahoo.com .
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ORIGINAL POSTING: APRIL 19, 2023
By now you should have received a letter in the mail requesting your signature on a petition to increase your assessment for road maintenance. While it might seem an unusual request to have you ask to voluntarily pay more for something, the reality is at the current rates we are losing the battle to maintain our roads.
We are at a point where what funds we have are being consumed by needed repairs leaving nothing for preventative maintenance. With no preventative maintenance, repairs are needed more often and are generally more complex and of course consume even more of our limited funds. We have struggled for years to squeeze the most out of our limited dollars but the fact that we are in a downward spiral is now quite evident.
Please take a moment to familiarize yourself with the content on this website in order to better understand the decision you are being asked to make. For some basic background on the PRD, click on "News Articles" (particularly the May 2020 article), to understand our request click on "Letter to Property Owners", for some more specific answers on the increase check out the "Frequently asked Questions" tab. If you have other questions, you can email us at: HiddenMeadowsPRD@yahoo.com.