Last week in the Nov 18 2021 Board Meeting, there was substantial discussion regarding Lake Petit Dam, primarily brought up as an explanation for why the Board is raising Assessments by $30 / month in 2022 (along with every other amenity fee). At one point GM Scott Auer said in response to the increases,
“why do we need to do this? and the answer is a couple of things changed. First of all since july we’ve had a million meetings with Geosyntec. We’ve had several meetings with Georgia Safe Dams.” (Video Timestamp at 1hr;28min;41secs)
The above statement was a complete surprise, since this Newspaper has been sitting on some recently received Open Records Responses (from Georgia Safe Dams), which paint a completely different picture. FOBC Newspaper submitted an extremely detailed GORA Request on October 8, 2021 for ALL Communications between GSD & Big Canoe since July 31, 2021. The request identified Geosyntec as well. The Request further requested ALL Georgia Safe Dams Internal Communications regarding Big Canoe in the same timeframe. Following is the Ga Safe Dams One-Sentence Response on Oct 13, 2021. It is pretty clear.
Good afternoon Mr. Hopkins, Our Safe Dams Unit has done a search of our files and determined we have not received anything new since July 31, 2021.
NOTHING. Not only were there no communications, emails, phone logs or evidence of ANY communication even scheduling any of these “Several meetings” as claimed by Scott Auer, between the POA & GSD….. neither was there a single communication betweeen any members of GSD internally to discuss the results of the meetings. Somebody is lying, and based on what happened next, my guess is that it is Scott Auer.
Extremely frustrated that it seemed nobody was doing anything about the issues with lake Petit Dam, FOBC submitted a followup GORA Request on Oct 15 2021, and included a rather strongly worded cover letter/email that was copied/forwarded to the Governor, EPD Chief, Dozens of Atlanta Media Organizations, EPD Legal, the Georgia Attorney General, and most of the Georgia Safe Dams Engineers. This was late Friday.
First thing the following Monday, Georgia Safe Dams again blindsided the POA, and issued an Oct 18, 2021 Letter to Big Canoe, giving them a 21 day deadline to follow through on their already overdue promises from June 12, 2021. It should not have blindsided the POA – but the POA’s continued treatment of this situation as something they could “manage” on THEIR own timetable, is why we got hit with the May 20, 2021 Non-Compliance letter in the first place, and why this recent letter has led to a mad scramble for funding, ultimately resulting in this massive new monthly dues increase.
I will let everyone read the letter for themselves, and decide whether it sounds like “several meetings” of ongoing nature had been occurring between Big Canoe and Georgia Safe Dams, as Scott Auer has publicly presented. Or whether it is just more of Scott Auer’s Cheerleader Spin.
Fast forward to the November 18, 2021 Board meeting, and now suddenly the POA is fast tracking the Lake Petit Dam Repair Project, and the Project Cost has grown enormously.
Did Property Owners learn nothing from their experience with pom-pom waving, “I can’t tell the truth; Everything is Awesome” Scott Auer during the entire Lake Disharoon Dam crisis? How a “fully budgeted” routine maintenance job turned into $1.8 Million Dollar ecological disaster?
Next up in the article series we delve into historical financial misrepresentations surrounding this project, and the surprising actual costs that most likely will be involved in rebuilding Lake Petit Dam, enormous costs that I don’t think even Board members are aware of yet. The $30/month increase in monthly dues the Board is voting to approve, most likely won’t cover it. As usual, I don’t think they have a “Dam” clue what is about to happen. They are just flying by the seat of their pants in the dark, wildly “printing money” by taxing property owners to cover their ever increasing expenditures.
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Peace,
– david / publisher
Focus on Big Canoe, GA
* a publication of The Mountains Voice
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