When the Hodell-Cotti family needed to get an ambulance to their home on Sunstone Court in the Southern Walk community of Broadlands, they called 911. It took the ambulance more than 30 minutes to reach their home. The problem? The ambulance went to their old home in Ashburn Village.
"When we moved, we brought our number with us," Erika Hodell-Cotti said.
Dealing with an ongoing medical situation, Hodell-Cotti called ambulances to her home in December 2004, January 2005, twice in February 2006 and June 2006. Each time the ambulance first arrived at the Ashburn address.
"Both my husband and I called OpenBand each time and they stated they would fix [the problem,]" Hodell-Cotti said.
Hodell-Cotti is one of the Southern Walk residents who is disenchanted with the services they are receiving as a part of the Broadlands community; and the problems with OpenBand, the telecommunications company that services the community, is only part of the issue.
"Homeowners here have not been represented," Hodell-Cotti said.
Issues in the community range from problems with residents' cable service and phone service to mandatory Homeowners Association fees and lack of resident representation on the Southern Walk HOA board.
Roy Barnett, a senior vice president with Van Metre, said those homeowners who are unhappy with OpenBand's service are a "vocal minority."
"This is what you would have with any utility company," he said.
WHILE THE VAN METRE-controlled Southern Walk board recently appointed a resident member at its April HOA meeting, Hodell-Cotti said the person appointed was not present when his appointment was announced and had not been told he was going to receive the position or that there was a meeting being held.
"Per their own guidelines, we're supposed to have two resident members," Hodell-Cotti said. "We were told this was an interim appointment until we could have elections."
But at the April meeting, residents were told that the appointment was for a three-year term.
While the bylaws of the community say an election should take place to choose HOA board members, Southern Walk's articles of incorporation do allow the current board to appoint members.
IN ADDITION, Hodell-Cotti and her husband, Dwayne Cotti, said the April meeting was the first HOA meeting held since December of last year, with the January meeting skipped, the February meeting cancelled and the March meeting scheduled from 3 to 5 p.m.
"Who can attend a meeting at that time?" Hodell-Cotti said. "But I got six people to take time off work for a meeting. At 10:45 a.m. that day, they cancelled the meeting."
Hodell-Cotti said she would like to see the Van Metre members recuse themselves from the HOA board to allow residents to take control, but Patricia Leader, a Van Metre representative and vice president of the board, said that the board is following the proper procedure.
"We have certain points of time that we turn the board over," she said.
Van Metre started out with more than 2,200 votes in Southern Walk HOA and approximately 900 of those are now homeowners with a vote.
"Eventually they will equal out," Leader said. "Once we reach 1,100 homeowners, that’s what will trigger their voting rights."
Leader added that those numbers could change if more real estate is added because the numbers were based on the original community plan.
Barnett said that the board currently stands with three Van Metre representatives and two resident representatives, which is appropriate with only 750 homeowners in the 900-home community.
THE SITUATION WITH OpenBand is what is upsetting many Southern Walk residents.
"I have a list of 49 people I interact with on a daily basis who are unhappy," Hodell-Cotti said.
Besides service problems, residents are unhappy with the exclusivity of the OpenBand contract with Van Metre for the community. All residents of Southern Walk are required to receive cable, phone and Internet services from OpenBand and new residents sign an OpenBand agreement before they move in.
The contract between OpenBand and Van Metre allows the telecommunications company to provide exclusive service to the residents for a period of at least 25 years, with the option to extend to up to 75 years.
"We're hostages," Dwayne Cotti said. "We became hostages and we didn't even know it."
OpenBand representatives could not be reached for comment.
Barnett said that everyone who bought in, bought in knowing they would get OpenBand services.
"We're bound by a contract that was put in place well over five years ago," he said. "Five or six years ago there were very limited telecommunication services."
In order to get telecommunications services to its community, Barnett said, Van Metre needed to enter into a contract with OpenBand. He added that OpenBand initially placed a lot of the telecommunications infrastructure in the area.
"With that investment, to get any compensation then, they need some assurance of exclusivity," he said.
"Five or six years ago, it was a huge benefit to have OpenBand offer their services," Leader said.
HODELL-COTTI AND her husband, however, said they had no knowledge of the exclusive contract or the mandatory Southern Walk HOA fees when they purchased their home from the original owners in late 2004.
"The only documents we received were the Broadlands documents for the overall HOA," she said. "When we went into settlement, there is not indication of the Southern Walk HOA or that it would be mandatory. It was never disclosed during the Realtor process."
Under the Broadlands HOA, the couple pays around $108 and $149 for the Southern Walk HOA. In addition, the couple had to pay $200 to turn on their service and $450 each for two new cable drops in their basement.
"Our first bill was well over $1,200," Hodell-Cotti said. "It was never explained to us. We had to figure it out on our own."
Now Hodell-Cotti uses a dish instead of OpenBand's cable because of all the problems they have had with the company.
"We gave OpenBand 20 months to fix the problem," she said. When the problems were not fixed, she switched to Direct TV.
"Some of these issues are isolated and residents need to go directly to OpenBand," Barnett said.
Dwayne Cotti, however, said OpenBand tells residents to speak with Van Metre.
"Residents are left in limbo," he said.