To the Massanutten Community:
Next week (9/15 – 16), MPOA and Massanutten Resort will engage in mediation. It’s our hope that this discussion, which will be overseen by a retired judge approved by both parties, will resolve differences between us, and move us toward a permanent resolution.
To clear up any confusion, what will happen next week is NOT arbitration. Instead, it’s the first step of the non-judicial dispute resolution process. The goal of Mediation is for the parties to work toward a resolution together, as opposed to trying to convince a disinterested judge or arbitrator that they are right, and the other side is wrong. The idea is that a non-interested but highly-experienced third-party mediator can guide both parties to a mutually satisfactory agreement.
If the parties make progress next week, but are unable to reach a final resolution, then the Mediation can continue on a future date. If mediation fails, the next step is arbitration. We sincerely hope it’s not necessary – and we suspect that many who fully understand arbitration would prefer to avoid it as well. That’s because although mediation is informal, it’s a structured process that allows the parties the freedom to negotiate their own solution in the form of a written settlement. Unlike other negotiations, it is essentially a professionally guided conversation that (it is hoped) will lead to common ground based on the parties’ creative solutions.
Arbitration, by contrast, is a formal legal process. A decision is imposed on the parties by the arbitrator, and like a court proceeding, it involves numerous legal filings, responses to those filings and limited remedies. It depends on evidence of the facts and the application of law. It can take many months – an arbitration case such as this one could easily stretch well into the next calendar year – and as the hours, weeks and months pass, so do the costs to both parties.
Over the past few months, we’ve posted several documents in these pages – specifically, in this section – including items related to 1) the history of agreements between MPOA and the developers, and 2) a legal analysis of why the Summit, Eagle Trace and Shenandoah Villas developments are not required to be MPOA members. These are the types of considerations that would be formally entered in an arbitration proceeding.
Although our temporarily-halted financial support of MPOA seemed to take much of MPOA’s membership by surprise last December, we actually notified the MPOA Board of our concerns about its roads, security and finances roughly six months in advance of our withdrawal, in order to permit time for a negotiation. Since January, we have deposited funds in an escrow account nearly equal to the amounts that we paid to MPOA in our last year of voluntary participation in MPOA. We fully intend to release those funds to MPOA if a mutually satisfactory agreement can be reached.
This has never been about Massanutten Resort trying to save money or stiff MPOA. Instead, it’s simply in the interest of paying for shared expenses using a different funding model, with greater transparency than was provided in the past, and in order to ensure that MPOA builds adequate reserves to fund its significant future maintenance capital needs. We’ve explained why in previous GM Corner and Community Issues posts, and I invite you to read those, too.
We sincerely hope for a successful mediation, so that we can move on to a better relationship with MPOA and better address our mutual needs and interests.
Sincerely,
Matthias Smith, VP/General Manager, Massanutten Resort
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