Well said !!

The board already has three  places to hold meetings-- the small room in the administration bldg.  The large Assateague room in the community hall, and the medium size room in the golf clubhouse.

I've often heard gripes about the sparse attendance at those meetings, compared to decades ago.  Also there's the gripes about lack of a quorum at the annual meetings.

And then there's the trend of online participation at the board meetings, cutting down on attendance in person, these days.  Sparse in person audiences are the new norm.

Heating, lighting, A/C, rest rooms, general maintenance and additional parking would add additional cost burdens into the mix.  And would be benefitting fewer and fewer attendees with current trends of declining audiences.   A poor matching of costs vs benefits.   

The mention of church style benches IF planned for such new facility also have a major drawback.  When portable chairs are used, a meeting room is capable of multiple uses, for example, situations needing folding tables.  Or even for kids indoor games, during bad weather.  Benches are heavy, tough to move, tough to store, costly, and restrict the flexibility of any meeting space.

Seems that I'm on a similar, or same page as you, David.   

Why not push towards lowering assessments?   Would be very welcome in today's rising costs-  There's so many other inflationary pressures.  Especially for folks on fixed incomes. 

Is a new board room an unneeded luxury??  Wondering how many folks would also think that way??

I still remember the days when half a million was nothing to sneeze at!

Me too !!