The Sounds of the Grapevine is a meant to be a fun, information and gossip column that should not be taken too seriously, but may give the readers some insight into happenings in Lake Forest.  The webmaster makes no promises of accuracy, but does promise not to print out and out lies.  Vulgarity will not be allowed.  Nothing that could be considered libelous will be printed.  Anyone who is interested in Lake Forest is welcome to contribute.  Unless the contributor specifically indicates that we do so, we will not print his or her name.  However, we will not accept anything that is anonymous.  The most recent contributions are listed first, so if you would like to read the story in the order that it was presented, you might want to jump to the bottom of the page and work your way back up.  The text that is seen in bold and italicized print is usually a cut & paste of someone's contribution.  Anything submitted may be filtered to avoid the above mentioned no-nose.  Determining what content is inappropriate for the Sounds of the Grapevine column is at the sole discretion of the webmaster. Statements proceeded by a are comments made by the webmaster.   A submission to the Grapevine may be made by Email to the webmaster or selecting the Suggestion Box graphics from one of its many locations on this site.   

4/1/2009

Our Fees in Lake Forest are already significantly higher than other local developments (ie. Chaimberlain $250 yr.). This is because of the amenities they say. But we still have to pay to play. We are assessed $50 a year "because they can". Then, when there is a "catastrophic event", they simply send us a bill (3089 members paying $25=$77,225.00: that's a hefty deductible). The restaurants lose hundreds of thousands of dollars a year so that a few members have a nice place to play cards. Nothing changes. In business, if you are unable to turn a loser into a winner in a reasonable amount of time, you cut your losses. We should sell the Yacht Club or at the very least try to find an experienced restaurant operator to lease the restaurant, making the public welcome. This would at least give it a chance to be profitable and stop obligating the members to cover the losses.

I'm a little curious as to how you happened to zero in on the Yacht Club.  Not too many years ago, 2004, a plan was submitted to the membership to not only sell the Yacht Club, but also dispose of the swimming pools, tennis courts and nine holes of the golf course.  The membership overwhelmingly rejected the proposal.

You may remember last December I was complaining about the pitiful shape of the street on Rolling Hills Dr.  Then, lo and behold, a few days later the city came out and patched it.  Believe me when I say, that was a coincidence.  My complaining has little affect on anyone.  Nevertheless, the patchwork was a typical City of Daphne halfway attempt at Lake Forest road repair.  Actually, halfway is being generous.  My wife, you may recall, gave the repair a week.  I had more faith and gave it a month or so.  Well, here we are about three months later and the holes are back.  We both underestimated them.  The patchwork made it about three months!  Now, let's not blame the recent rain storms.  The holes were back before they came. 

This example brings me to an issue that has been bothering me for some time.  I want to admit that a position I took during my tenure on the Lake Forest Board of Directors was wrong. I always thought that the association's responsibility was limited to its own property and its own services and that its participation in local politics was out of order otherwise.  In fact, I thought that such political activity was dangerous in that backing the wrong horse could leave us out in the cold for four years, when it came to getting city help for Lake Forest.  Well, as they say, hindsight is 20/20.  Playing nice with city fathers and mothers has gotten Lake Forest nowhere.  It is time for our community to start playing hardball along the lines of the Olde Town bunch.  Our streets are a mess.   Our drainage is a mess.  And we get the table scraps of city services in general.  Lake Forest people have failed to elect their own to council positions for the most part, and those few candidates that we have elected almost immediately forgot who they represented.  It's time for the association to start getting cranky.  It's time for Lake Forest to start flexing some muscle.  The Lake Forest Property Owners Association has money.  It can put some of that money to work getting good people elected to city offices.  It really wouldn't take much, only a little.  But, a little money spent on intelligent advertising and promotion of LAKE FOREST candidates could yield an outstanding return for our community.  

3/34/2009 Report from the Golf Course Superintendent

This was not a very productive week unless the object was to keep payroll down, if so then we were super productive. We only had 2 full days of work, on those 2 we got a good bit done. Monday all 27 tees were fertilized and treated for mole crickets, the fairways were fertilized and it included a pre-emergent. The greens were topdressed, and we made great headway building the new pole barn on the east side of the building. I was able to get a good assessment of the course this morning, considering that roads washed away in some places I think we did well. The bridge at 1 on the Lake 9 lost some pilings and is closed, we have a contractor coming out tomorrow to look at it and hopefully start the work.  We had a main line break on 6 fairway, not sure why yet, will know more Monday. All the bunkers washed pretty bad and they will take a good bit of work to get in shape again. 

3/26/2009

The Golf Course superintendent's report

Since last report we have removed another 10 trees on the course, we also cleaned out the wooded area to the right of 5 green. The old shop has been demoed and removed. To date we have received 2 fairway mowers, a greens mower, sod cutter, and a buffalo blower. We will receive a rough mower next week, and at least 2 other pieces.

We had an outbreak of curvularia on the greens this week, due in part to slow growth, low night time temps, and excess moisture both rain and dew. The greens have been treated and will receive a follow up next week. The "spots" should start disappearing by Sunday if the weather cooperates. The greens have since been fertilized and the tees will be on Monday.

See the Greens Committee Report

3/26/2009

Somehow my retraction was lost in the process of updating the Grapevine.  I had written that I apparently made a mistake in my comments regarding the $25 charge.  I had thought that the membership had already been assessed this year, but my friend, former LFPOA president Ed Kirby, informed me that I was mistaken.  In that case, the $25 assessment is perfectly legal, since the by-laws do provide for as much as $50/year that the membership may be assessed.

3/26/2009

This last action of the Board with the $25.00 "charge" crossed the line. I would also be happy to tell you about the 2009 budget that began $85,000 in the RED and how this $25.00 "charge" was passed. I have missed the last few meetings since knee surgery, and I return last week to witness one of the most outrageous actions in my 2 years on the Board. Out-voted 8-1 not unlike many other motions. I think I'm becoming the B.T Cocke of the current Board. Who would have guessed? -Clint Martin

B.T., like most other people who have served on our board over the years, generously donated his time to help the community.  He was a dedicated and enthusiastic board member who served with a passion.  Perhaps there were times when that passion may have grated on the nerves of some of his fellow directors, but I will always give him credit for being one of those who would put his efforts where his mouth was and not just give lip service to a problem.

3/25/2009

I just received my $25.00 assessment fee bill for April. I believe the salaried employee responsible for insurance coverage for Lake Forest should be held liable for under insuring the equipment shed. What are we paying them for? The buck stops with that person. That's called accountability.

The association is insured.  Most policies have a deductible and the trick is to try and balance the size of the deductible with the amount of risk.  Otherwise, the cost of the policy can get very high.  In the forty plus years that the association has been around, there have been two fires that took out buildings.  The tennis pro shop burned to the ground and now this maintenance building.  During hurricane Katrina, our Yacht Club took a terrible beating, that was paid for out of cash flow without an assessment.  This maintenance building was much more expensive, due not to the cost of the building necessarily, but to the cost of the equipment which may fluctuate from year to year.  The insurance contracts are usually multi-year.  I don't think we can blame anyone because the loss was greater than they may have expected. 

3/25/2009

The $25.00 charge is a one-time charge similar to the tax escrow charge. The board sets charges, which are clearly different from an assessment. The board has the power to charge members. But really, the underlying issue will still be that the current monthly fees are insufficient to sustain the properties and operations, even as limited and sorry as they are. The board should have never given up a power set dues without a vote of the members. That one action has led to the state we are in.

Nevertheless, they did.  The tax escrow was a unique situation where the government determined that the amenities were property owned by the membership and subject to property taxes. A case was made to pass that through to the members.  Even then, I believe they were treading along the borderline of legality. Also, the tax escrow doesn't appear to be a one-time charge, since it has been added to our bill each month for years.  There would be no need to raise the dues if the board could just add charges at will.  "Oops, our tractor broke.  Let's charge the membership." That makes no sense.  The assessment gives the board the means of dealing with those unexpected events like a fire or hurricane.  That broken tractor is a stretch.

3/24/2009

That $25 per member charge must be what the previous contributor was hearing about.  I believe that emergencies like the fire are the reason we have an assessment provided for in the by-laws.  I'm not sure this charge is legal considering that we have already been assessed the limit of $50 this year.  However, unless someone sues, it is not likely that such a charge can really be stopped and, frankly, I doubt that anyone will think that $25 is worth going to court over.  The problem is the precedent that could be set and the negative reaction of many of the members.  Now would be a good time to announce that the pools will be free to members in good standing again.   At least it's nice that Clint decided to attend a board meeting in 2009.

3/24/2009

While we sleep...is something happening at the club? A new charge perhaps?

I haven't heard.  Perhaps one of our directors will be willing to let us in on recent actions.  I had a family event last week, so I was unable to attend the last meeting.

3/24/2009

It is obvious that few understand the bonuses that were paid and that AIG is multi-national company with several sectors of business, some that are even financially solid. It is in these areas, the financially solid sectors, whose profits were good, but not enough to cover the losses on the mortgage backed securities insurance, where the bonuses were paid. The bonuses were paid under contractual agreements with the recipients for their performance in their specific sector of business. Does anyone actually believe that bonuses were earned by those who lost billions on failed toxic asset insurance? That is a s silly and ill-informed conclusion. AIG has many well run programs that deserve bonus compensation. Let's just leave it at that. What congress is failing to tell the American people is that they insisted on insuring these sorry excuse for loans and failed miserably to regulate the derivatives market. It is Frank, Dodd and others that allowed this whole collapse to occur so they could continue to receive millions in contributions from AIG execs. Barak Obama was the second largest recipient of contributions from AIG employees at well over 100K. We all need to keep a clear head and read through the smoke and mirrors offered by the President and Congress. They blew it, and will blow it again to get money lining their pockets. THROW THE BUMS OUT!! START AT HOME WITH BONNER

You named off several Congressmen who many think were instrumental in initiating policies and actions that led to the collapse.  However, Bonner was not one of those names.  What has he done that would make you think that he needs to go?

3/24/2009

I agree with your point. It does set a firm foot in the door of government regulations on business practices. What AIG did by paying the top brass millions in bonuses only proves how brash they really are. It's almost funny, and in no way do I agree with what was forked out to people who obviously couldn't run a Dollar General store, much less a multi-trillion dollar company. But if this bail out was really a loan by the government, how can they impose any regulations on how that money is spent. If I were to get loan from a bank, and the bank specified what I must do with that money, I would borrow from someone else. The 90% tax on those bonuses is a great counter punch, but it will not stand. That money is long gone.

3/20/2009

Yesterday the House of Representatives voted to tax the bonuses received by AIG executives at a rate of 90%.  This is a reaction to the news that a company, AIG, that received bailout money is using some of it to pay bonuses to men and women whose decisions and actions contributed to their financial collapse.  I have mixed feelings about this one.  First, it seems ridiculous that any company would give bonuses, when it is on the verge of bankruptcy.  AIG should be slapped around pretty hard by its stockholders.  It is my understanding that the federal government now owns 80% of AIG, so why could they not have cancelled those bonuses in that capacity? I find it very disturbing that when the federal government, run by elected representatives, who over the last two hundred plus years have assumed the status of a privileged class, (You do know that our congressmen are better than the rest of us, right?  They have their own private medical and retirement programs and are not affected by their poor decisions on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.  The perks of the job are also just super!), can take it upon themselves to punish an isolated group simply because the representatives, themselves, did a poor job in setting the rules for their own program.  Perhaps you are aware that some of our representatives did, in fact, recommend restrictions on how this money could be spent that would have prevented this.  Of course, that made too much sense, so those restrictions were taken out.  The point is this.  If they can do things like this to those AIG people, the can do it to you and me.  Furthermore, such an action sets a precedent that can come back to bite all of us one day.  As a matter of fact, we have seen examples of this right here in our own little Lake Forest association, albeit very trivial ones when compared to what our Congress has done.

3/20/2009

The State of Alabama has set up a website about the Stimulus Bill that provides information about how much Alabama is getting and how it is to be allocated. Check it out.

3/19/2009

The City of Daphne prepared and submitted projects for the American Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act. My councilman has told me that these funds were sent to the state for allocation and the state would control the projects. I would suggest that we contact our respective councilpersons and request information regarding any such stimulus monies. We would hate to see stimulus projects going toward areas in the city that have been benefitting from recent city investment rather than in the Lake Forest area.

3/18/2009

A couple of months ago I wrote about a website that I found listing all the cities and towns that had submitted requests for stimulus funds as part of the recent Obama bailout plans.  The piece noted that the information had been forwarded to all of the Daphne City Council and mayor asking what the city had requested.  You may recall that several councilmen and city personnel replied that they were working on it.  The other day I read a newspaper story from Gadsden, Alabama telling about the funds they would be receiving.  Not having seen anything like that about Daphne, I sent a note to those same people asking again what they were expecting ....... No response .......  Not a word ....... Nada ....... Now what can we conclude from that lack of response?  Well there could be several answers.  For example, we could assume that our city representatives had submitted requests that were rejected.  Or, we could assume that our city fathers and mothers had decided to take the principled position that federal bailouts are a bad thing and Daphne will not take part in them.  Or, we could conclude that Daphne leaders dropped the ball and didn't even submit a shopping list, even though there are streets and facilities in terrible condition here in Daphne and Lake Forest.  Which do you think is true?

Riding around Daphne recently I noticed how well most of the streets looked.  Not too many potholes, at least when compared to the obstacle course that are Lake Forest streets.  I noticed new sidewalks along many streets, although nothing in Lake Forest.  How long do you think it is going to take us to realize that Lake Forest is not getting good representation down at city hall?

3/11/2009

The only chance for channel upgrades is a state action. Perhaps there will be an earmark showing up for that. Wouldn't that be better than climate change data collection? Cheaper, too.

3/9/2009

Something need to be done about the channel going in and out of the yacht club! I had to replace engine and foot, due to shallow water.  We need to dredge the channel..........!

It isn't going to happen.