From the LJPOA President...

Post date: Aug 31, 2020 7:39:23 PM

To the the Lake James Community.

FYI: We have two members of our community (Mike O’sullivan and David B. Adams) who has sent a request that we furnish them or make available to them all of our members information... They want to access your information (to look at or copy it) but have not stated why, and want to copy it or look at it for apparently, their own reasons... Mike states that if this is not done in a timely manner, he has basically stated that legal action maybe taken...

I do not intend to accommodate his request until I get a decision from our attorney...

Note: This is not being posted to embarrass anyone, but to just inform the Lake James Community/Owners that your personal information will probably have to be released and for what reason?... With a lot of people wanting their information keep private, I figured you should be informed... I know that I would want to know that... Also all costs will be passed along to them, if the association has to pay anything, we will inform the community of the costs... They each have sent individual request...

We have a group in our community that is spreading lies and mistruths and so on... One of many is that the Treasurer Michelle Clark is married to our accountant George Clark(a CPA), there is absolutely no truth to that at all... There idea is to try and make people think that there is a conflict with our associations money... That’s exactly why we gave our check book and all the dues checks to George(our CPA), so there is no appearance of a conflict of interest... Also when we have a check written out, it takes two board members to sign it...

We have done everything we can to be as transparent as we can... I do not get into answering their questions, because you can never give them enough right answers, it turns into a never ending road... You have ex president al asking all these questions about the two lots that were sold, but he knew way back when he was president that they were on the table to be sold and now he acts surprised... Actually he lives right next door to one of them and his problem is that someone bought it, cleared it and built on it and so now he has a neighbor... That lot was for sale for several years and he could have bought it, but chose not to...

There is a segment that wants to turn the lake James Association over to a land management company... We have people that’s using our current lake situation, because of no rain and also the fact that we had to cancel the annual meeting(due to covid-19)as an excuse to try and promote their agenda... Their feeding the lake James Community a bunch of BS, and trying to convince the members that there’s a bunch of mis-spent money... There real goal is to try and get this board to quit and when there’s no one left that will freely spend their time running the association (which takes up a lot of a persons time), then they will come to you with a proposal to let a land management company come in and run this HOA and that will be real expensive, no matter what they say... And back to the no rain, check out or get on Houghton lake and Higgins lake social media sites and you will hear all there complaints about low water, can’t get boats off lifts, etc...

There are a few people that are having a fit because we cancelled the annual meeting due to the governors orders (due to covid-19), they want zoom, to which a lot of people have never even heard of or can’t get and would not know how to use, so then they want to have it outside, there again the governor has a limit on that also, so what do we do, tell people, sorry but you can’t come in... Some people need to grow up and accept the fact that this is an unusual circumstance... Not our fault, not your fault, just an unusual circumstance, I mean who would have thought you would have ever been locked up in your home for months or been forbidden to go out except for essentials or could not go to a second home, etc... But all of a sudden there are all kinds of questions that they need answered and/or accusations to try and make us have a meeting... Apparently they do not care about the health and safety of people in our community... No, we have to talk about our lake being low(because of a big lack of rain), or weeds,(which look bad)because the water is low, which helps the weeds look worse because they are closer to or at the top of the water and also probably grow faster because they get more sun light... You didn’t hear any of these concerns this spring when we received a big rain that caused flooding... Then it was blamed on the dam operator, being accused of not getting the dam open fast enough... I think our dam operator did a great job and all he could do... We went from one extreme to another... That’s just Mother Nature and you never know what your going to get... While other dams failed, ours held up good... But there are people that have to put the blame on something or someone and that’s a shame...

There are some who are saying we cancelled the meeting because of a couple of people who have an agenda to turn our association over to a land management company, but the fact is, the annual meeting was cancelled by the board on July 9th 2020, way before it came to light about the plans of a couple of individuals to turn our HOA over to a land management company, which came to light around the first week in August, after they found out the meeting was cancelled and one called me and got all frustrated because I would not agree to go ahead and have the meeting, so then she went on next door and lied like hell about our conversation and then brought out her/their plan on next door... Apparently for them it was more important to try and turn our HOA over to a company, than the health of our people, what a shame... Also it was put on my letter sent out with the dues, because I wanted to make sure everyone received the notice, instead of relying solely on them seeing it on our website or getting it mass e-mailed... Some people don’t have access to these...

Then there’s people that do not know how to read our by-laws nor comprehend them... We have a person that just never wants to be wrong and demands we change things so he’s right(even if he is wrong)... He states that the dam fund is suppose to have $65,000.00 in it... But in fact in article 1 section 5 of the by-laws and contrary to his claims, it states: If on June 30th of each year, the association’s cash on hand exceeds $65,000.00(excluding the dam fund). Note: I only put the part in that covers this misconception... It does not say anything about how much the dam fund has to have in it or that we even have to have a dam fund... The dam fund was depleted when the drain tube was replaced at the dam a few years ago... The board decided this year to start putting money back into the dam fund... We decided to start with $10,000.00 but may put in more as this year goes on... We would like to put $20,000.00 to $25,000.00 in a year, until we get it built up to a comfortable level, but we will do it cautiously, so as not to run low in other areas or for other projects...Note: That section

(Section 5)deals with the factors/procedure as to whether the dues are raised or not...

With an annual income of say approximately $100,000.00 this board does a good job of managing it and continuing to get things done... And as many will tell you, we are really low on our dues... Which is not necessarily a bad thing, because raising them or raising them to much would put an undue burden on some or a lot of our residents... But for big ticket items, like whole sale dredging and things like that, your talking about a lot of money... We are looking at and checking out some other things and options... When I say we, I mean the board as a whole is supporting it, but Rocky is doing the leg work and checking things out... As most of you probably know, Rocky is also trying to get goose busters in here next year, but it’s not as easy as let’s just do it... He has to get a DNR permit and to get that he must get a vote of at least 50% of the residents... Must know how many full time people are here... Must know how many lake front homes and so forth... And I probably missed some of what he has to do or get done...

Also, we have a person that mention that a person called me to say she got swimmers itch and that I didn’t put it on our website, this person is steady on pessimism and he tries to put out his petty grievances... Let me set the record straight(because he can’t get his stories straight), I actually have received about 4 calls on swimmers itch and I passed the messages along to Rocky, because Savin may have something he can use to help take care of it... But to be honest with you I don’t know what the answer is, because Houghton lake and Higgins lake have been fighting this for years... Also some people are more susceptible to it than others, and I know this because I’m one of them... I got a real bad case of it in the 90’s and everytime I go into the water, I end up with some swimmers itch, but yet someone else can go in right by me and not get it at all... So it’s not new to this lake... But we will see what can be done about it, if anything... I figure this person will next be whining, because I didn’t post about mosquito bites, his negativity will never stop, it’s just part of his personality...

Also, I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again. The whole board lives on the lake and we experience everything you experience... Unlike some land management company, who would just come in collect their money, give orders, etc., and then go home, we actually live in the community and on the lake...

Then you have someone make a sarcastic remark about what is called Blessing of the Walleye... This person said, we should call it funeral of the walleye... We seem to have our fair share of sarcastic people and people who just want to tear apart and/or bring down our community... I say cheer up, be positive, be neighborly... By the way and also on a good note, I have not seen a floating fish yet this year...

Arnold Chema

President LJPOA