Star Tribune Tue, 05 Feb 2008 21:24:04 GMT
'Model' community goes to war with itself
The Jonathan Association in Chaska is mired in a bitter power struggle; many want to disband. Since opening, the original community has been absorbed by the city of Chaska, and the Jonathan Association -- while it has provided amenities -- is locked in a bitter internal power struggle that is threatening to drown members in a sea of debt and acrimony. "It's local politics run amok," said Mike Sibley, a former member of the Jonathan Association board, which is at the center of the dispute. The controversy reads like a TV soap opera script pitting neighbor against neighbor amid shouts and whispers about financial improprieties, questionable elections, hidden agendas and internal power struggles. The only thing missing is an evil twin brother coming back from the dead. A majority of the board wants to break up the association -- the largest such group in the state with more than 2,900 households -- or significantly reduce its scope by allowing neighborhoods to secede. "Most people don't think they're getting their money's worth," said Tom Davis, president of the Jonathan board and among those pushing for the break up. "Everybody pays the same dues" -- about $195 a year per household -- "but not everybody gets the same services." The board's attorneys have estimated that it could cost $125,000 to $150,000 to prepare for a legal battle in which the association would sue itself in hopes a judge will rule that more than a dozen neighborhoods were added illegally after 1979, when the original developer of Jonathan went out of business.
[[keywords: LandUse;Legal;Metro;]]
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