Letter: ‘Cash Cow’ Rebuttal

Editor, The Friday Flyer:

Response to George Williams “Cash Cow” letter suggesting Corporate Counsel’s greed:

First, our lake lease gives the water district well over a million annually and it’s escalating rapidly – currently $300 a year/lot. Soon it will be $2,000 per lot based on their current formula. To realtors who pushed to ‘just keep quiet and pay,” I ask how will sales be affected when the cost gets higher?

Their lease formula isn’t based on any fair scale. They take our millions; then charge us again for household use. Nice double profit. They then spend OUR money mailing out letters telling us what good guys they are and how hard they’re trying to fix the problem. They recently claimed they made a good/fair “cost of living” increase offer. They didn’t mention they added a very dangerous legal indemnity clause and removed their required lake level maintenance. The offers they’ve made – never acceptable – would be detrimental to the POA. There’s been no discussion that would in any way benefit the POA – only their pockets.

For years the Board’s tried to negotiate a better lease. They consistently refused to negotiate. Finally, the Board withheld payment and filed a lawsuit to get their attention. The suit was based on a state law preventing public utilities from charging more than their cost to process product.

They then agreed to “come to the table” if we would pay them. We did. Then they immediately cancelled the arranged meeting and filed a counter lawsuit, while sending out mailers with threats to open the lake to the public, drain it, or not allow members to use it. All false threats using our money to intimidate the public. Not nice!

The court decision was made by one liberal judge’s interpretation. His opinion should bechallenged.

Dawn Haggerty