Water, Water Everywhere

During the board meeting held on April 18th there was discussion on the Suissevale water system. The discussion centered around leak detection, who fixes them, household water turn off and turn on and who pays, who owns the water shut off at the curb, etc. Being a relative newbie to Suissevale (2 years) most of the information that I hear is informative. At one point during conversations one board member made a statement to the effect that there were no water system issues/concerns of an immediate nature because the current contract to purchase water from LRW (Lakes Region Water) still has another 15 or 20 years. I decided I would do a little research on the water topic to become more informed. I take for granted clean water will come out of my faucet when I turn it on, so I wanted to know a bit more background.

My research uncovered quite a bit of information, some of it genuinely concerning. The BOD pursued drilling wells on Suissevale owned property in the Blacks Landing area a few years ago. A test well was drilled, and an attempt made to secure a $1.2 million dollar bank loan to fund a pumping station and private water system. As it turns out, the wells were going to be in an area that some waterfront homeowners have septic easements on. These homeowners were approached after the fact and asked to release these easements. They said NO, scuttling the project. Also, during the bank financing application process it came up that the bank felt that the BOD does not have the right to sign for loans on behalf of the membership and rejected the loan (costing $4K+ in lost application fees). It turns out that a two-thirds majority membership vote is required before the BOD can take out mortgages using Suissevale assets as collateral. After this decision the BOD tried to change the bylaws to allow them to do this, and they were pressured into rescinding their positive vote since again, they did not have the membership vote on the bylaw changes.

Quite a bit of money was spent and lost on this project (estimates of $130K +/-), as well as serious questions raised when it appears, we have a favorable supply agreement in place for the foreseeable future. At this point I would really like to know how much money was spent and lost on this project? Should the BOD have the authority to take out loans using the Suissevale assets as collateral without a formal vote of the members? We really need to put controls in place to prevent stuff like this from happening again in the future. Full transparency is needed.

(Editor's Note: Some of these issues were previously written about on the LoveSuissevale blog here.)

Kind regards,

Jim Graham 40 Brenner Street