What a difference a year makes.

After one calendar year since the community voted down the FYE 2024 budget, after Jerry Kafka launched a proverbial witch hunt over an alleged leak of the FYE2024 budget only to come up empty handed, after the 2023/2024 board effectively bilked the community out of thousands of dollars by awarding the guard house capital project to an out-of-county general contractor owned and operated by a relative of then president Paul Bradley for an amount that far exceeded fair market value, after Paul Bradley stepped down as as MXB community president effective Saturday, September 2, 2023, after Nora Alter failed to defend her seat on the board on Saturday, September 2, 2023, after former board members, Ron Thomas and Jerry Kafka, both declined to seek re-election on Saturday, September 2, 2023, and after Ron Thomas distributed what was widely described as a self aggrandizing, letter to the vast majority of the community members, today the MXB board, under new management, successfully led the community to vote in favor of its recommended FYE 2025 budget.

Forty one (41) association members, representing twenty four (24) residential properties, not including those of the board members, attended the MXB Community Meeting on Saturday, May 4, 2024. In a straw poll of the twenty four residential property owners in attendance nineteen (19) voted FOR the recommended FYE 2025 budget while five (5) voted AGAINST.

MXB board president, Dave Wiecking adjourned the meeting prior to the final tally. In any event if the trend line from the straw poll taken during the meeting persists, the assessment for the coming fiscal year will pass easily. On the event the final tally of votes are recorded the assessment for the FYE 2025 season will be 3,200.00 dollars per residential home owner.

In fact the final tally reportedly came to one hundred and two (102) FOR the recommended FYE 2025 budget versus eight (8) AGAINST.

Scott Van Ness, who reportedly voted in favor of the FYE 2025 budget, was concerned about the direction the future budgets are headed, after reading the pro forma figures put forwarded by the board. "It just keeps going up" Van Ness says. "Whether its landscaping that we don't need, it is always going up."

Jim Dempsey, who reportedly voted for the FYE 2025 budget, said the assessment was "reasonable". "I think [Ed Wood] did an excellent job on the budget" Dempsey said. "[Wood] put a lot of stuff together. There were [pro forma] projections."

Michael Ambrose, who reportedly voted against the FYE 2025 budget, was less impressed."[The assessment] is too expensive." Ambrose said. "The assessment has doubled since I was on the board." Ambrose served on the board as late as 2007.

Geoff Sella, who reportedly voted in favor of the FYE 2025 budget, was unmoved by the budget. "[The Assessment] was no surprise to me." Sella said.

The one budgetary line item that stood out in the board's proposed budget was clearly the one relating to the capital reserve. The budget seeks to increase the capital reserve by more than 141,000.00; a hike of more than 40,000.00 dollars when compared to the same figure from the last approved budget.

Regarding the 40,000.00 dollar plus hike on the budget line linked to the capital reserve, Sella acknowledge he had not read the report on the capital reserves. However, Sella did acknowledge that the association was short in terms of the level of accumulated capital reserves when he served as president. "We were nowhere where we needed to be." Sella said.