Post October GRDA Board Meeting & SMP Report

I would like to thank each of you who took the time to respond to my request for input to the new marina application by Shangri-la Resort. Yesterday, at the monthly board meeting, the application was approved by the asset committee on a 3-0 vote and by the full board on a 6-0 vote with Director Frost abstaining due to a personal friendship with the resort’s principal Peter Boylan.

As I mentioned in my last e-mail, I personally had supported the rebirth of the resort for over 20 years due to its potential economic impact, not only to Grand Lake but for the entire state of Oklahoma. I had only one member express any strong opposition to the project, that is, if cancelling a membership can be translated as strong opposition. On the other hand, several of our members expressed their support for this endeavor. I supported this application in the form of written comment as requested by the authority and by orally expressing our support for this project at both the public meeting held last Wednesday and yesterday’s asset committee meeting. I’ll attach my written comments to the authority for your review. If you have comments, please don’t hesitate to share them with yours truly or other members. If you require additional information on this project, let me know.

Due to the lengthy presentation by the marina applicant, the habitable structure portion of the agenda, in both the assets committee meeting and before the full board, was tabled until the November meeting. That scheduling change will have a definite impact on our plans to present the water level petition we have been working on to the GRDA board. It would certainly be to our advantage, especially on an issue as important as this, to be the primary issue on the agenda as opposed to being in an “also ran” position of importance.

Our original plan was to appear before the board at the November meeting to request an alternative plan to the millet seeding program for migratory waterfowl which required the lake to be at 741’ for at least a sixty day period. Since the habitable structure issue will take center stage at the November meeting, it appears the December meeting might be the next best opportunity to tell our story. Our objective is to encourage GRDA to request a meeting with FERC to review the history of this plan and find an alternative. GRDA is not opposed to what we’re trying to accomplish with respect to this issue. Our aim is to take part in the meeting with FERC when and if it occurs.

To date we have about 2000 signatures with hard copies still circulating around the lake. The petition can still be signed online at www.grandglue.com. This next week a mailing is planed to each dock owner. It’s my hope we’ll collect over 5,000 signatures before the board presentation.

On another front, it was a busy week with the smp committee meetings being held on Tuesday. Only two of the three committees met this time around, the allowable use committee and the land use committee. The agenda’s for the two groups, one of which met in the morning and the other in the afternoon, were almost  identical; Update on agency review of maps/fieldwork(zoning), proposed fully developed classification and implementation, and questions/comments from the audience. The allowable use group also addressed the vegetation management plan.

But it’s what wasn’t on the agenda and the single item occupying most of the time which provides some true insight into the mentality of these committees. A few weeks ago, the long awaited carrying capacity study was provided to the working groups. This study is designed to measure boat traffic on the lake and determine if there are areas which are absolutely maxed out. The working groups were mostly disappointed to find Grand Lake was nowhere near capacity with exception of the three major holiday weekends and a few others.

The allowable use group spent a lot of time challenging the study and demanding an audience with the Kleinschmidt & Associates statistician responsible for putting it together. The meeting facilitator for Kleinschmidt, Allison Murray agreed to arrange such a meeting. This effort was mainly championed by Duck Creek Homeowners Association president Mike Brady and four other members of his group who serve on this committee. I’ll let you do the math….five of the eight committee members there were DCHA members, one is a bass fisherman, one is an employee of the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife and one, John Ballard, is just a plain ‘ol Grand Laker.

Just before lunch the audience was invited to comment. There was a couple there from Fayetteville who are property owners on Big Hollow. They told the committee how they had selected Grand Lake because it was user friendly to retire to with a vision of building a bed & breakfast and associated cabins complete with courtesy docks. They expressed their concerns about whether their area would be zoned for such a project. They were highly concerned about the money they had invested.

As is my custom, I addressed the group, but I was a little more direct this time. Instead of encouraging them to plan for future growth in their zoning efforts, I challenged the credibility and makeup of these committees. How on earth could Mike Brady be selected to serve on all three committees, and Jack Lenhart on two, when there are qualified Grand Lakers who signed up to serve but were denied.

Dick Lane was in attendance and spoke as well telling the group how he had signed up at one of the original meetings in Grove only to be denied. I added that I knew of several others who were denied participation including Wilson Jones at Grand Point and Carl Metcalfe in Grove and the owner of Elk River Marina.

From the start of this ill-conceived process, we’ve been told people like Brady and Lenhart were allowed to serve on multiple committees because of a lack of participation. I haven’t heard that claim lately since people have started to come forward. I concluded my comments with a “Fearless Fleming Forecast.” On behalf of GLUE and countless other Grand Lakers, I can promise you a very bloody public hearing phase of this process.

Following the meeting, I was approached by allowable use committee member, Joe McCormick. Joe attempted to explain some of the group’s actions and his paranoia that GRDA was going to do whatever they wanted to anyway. I informed Joe, whom I’ve known for several years, the makeup of the committee was not lost on me. They may have introduced themselves as home owners, but when five members of a committee are members of the same lake activist organization, it leaves little doubt about the outcome. And when they’re joined by a bass fisherman and fish biologist it becomes a lead pipe cinch.

I only stayed for a short while in the afternoon session of the land use classification group. A quick inventory of the committee found five members from the morning session serving on this committee as well. What possible reason would there be to expect anything to turn out differently.

See Ya’ Around the Pond!