Lack of payments have municipality on borrowed time
Rob Hardy
Fontana Dam – Almost five years ago to the date, Fontana Village Resort & Marina owed the Town of Fontana Dam $95,000 in unpaid user fees.
Fast forward to Nov. 20’s council meeting, where the board discussed a grim reality: that same amount is past due – and unless the balance is paid, one of the newest municipalities in North Carolina will seize to exist.
Fontana Village Resort has gone through a rocky period of ownership since November 2019. Once the pandemic shuttered businesses worldwide in March 2020, the lessees opted out of their contract. Since the town was never able to get a user agreement with the lessee on paper, Fontana Dam had little choice but to accept a settlement for pennies on the dollar: $40,000 (54 percent of what was owed in June 2020, $74,041.78). BCS Fontana, LLC stepped in as the business owner and kept user fees up-to-date, but Fontana Ventures, LLC stepped in as the lessee April 27, 2023.
Fontana Ventures has taken perhaps the biggest steps toward modernizing the aging resort, which opened in 1975. A complete, aesthetic overhaul of the exterior and interior of the village and cabins – as well as changes to day-to-day operations – are visibly noticeable.
But the town indicated that Fontana Ventures also would not sign a user agreement. Fontana Dam provides services such as trash pick-up and water service to the resort, which are supposed to be billed monthly.
In the very definition of a “one-horse town,” there is no other source of revenue for the town. Fontana Dam became incorporated June 8, 2011, but could be short-lived in the scope of time if revenue does not pick up.
“We are looking under every rock; exploring any and all possibilities to generate revenue,” said mayor Rob Hardy. “If we can’t get some funding to keep the town going, this will force us to ask some questions about the future of the town.”
At Jan. 17’s meeting, Becky Garland with the Local Government Commission warned Fontana Dam of what was to come if revenue did not increase right away.
“There are towns that have gone out of business,” Garland said. “If there’s no revenue coming in, some hard decisions are going to have to be made.”
Garland told the council in January that at the rate it was going, the town could operate for eight more months. Fontana Dam has managed to hang on until now, but the forecast presented Nov. 20 is ominous: the town had a $94,551 fund balance – $33,665 of which was restricted (utilities).