Not a Happy Camper Here!

The first of five public meetings being hosted by the Grand River Dam Authority to collect public input on the Shoreline Management Plan draft is history. If that first meeting, conducted at Cleora Middle School this past Thursday evening, is any indication of how the remaining meetings will be managed,  then it’s time for the silent majority of Grand Lakers to rethink their strategy and pull off the gloves.

I was very discouraged by what transpired both from a management and logistical standpoint. I had notified GRDA in advance of the plans Grand Lakers United Enterprise had to utilize a PowerPoint presentation. I had prepared my comments regarding our organizations concerns and recommendations for change working from the slides within the PowerPoint presentation. When I arrived at the meeting, the screen to be used to accommodate our presentation was so remotely located from the audience it was useless. It was too far away for the audience to read and certainly too far away for yours truly to work from. I was forced to employ my usual "M.O." and simply winged it.

But perhaps more importantly was how the meeting was managed. GRDA had hired a high powered moderator and a court reporter to keep the meeting focused and to record everyone’s comments for the record. I had inquired in advance if this gathering would be allowed to deteriorate into a debate format and was assured part of the moderator’s assignment would be to restrict the comments to the likes or dislikes of the Shoreline Management Plan draft.  Can you detect from my tone this was not accomplished?

From a positive standpoint, the comments were about twenty-to-one against the draft. As expected, there were numerous horror stories from lakers who own land adjacent to areas of the lake which have been arbitrarily assigned to the sensitive resource zone. South Grand Lake Area Chamber President Brent Howard, who also serves on the Grand Lake Economic Council and the South Grand Lake Airport Authority, chronicled the anticipated negative economic impact of this draft. And even the self appointed Czar of Grand Lake and the only sitting member of all three SMP Stakeholder Working Group Committees, Mike Brady, had nothing positive to say about the vegetation management plan. But he had plenty of other half truths and old news to share with those in attendance.

That’s where the rest of my beef starts. Brady was allowed to editorialize on his views on the state of lake. None of his comments addressed anything remotely connected to content of the draft, but of his total disdain and distrust for the authority and his anti development stance in general against any commercial endeavor. His message in a nutshell was you have to have a shoreline management plan because you can’t trust the GRDA and marina operators are thieves. His targeting of Joe Harwood and John Mullen is truly wearing thin and his all consuming war against the Duck Creek Cartel can at best be described as a vendetta spawned from the original implementation of “No Wake” in Duck Creek.

He looked the audience square in the eye and told them of the dangers of waking up one day to find a marina being built next door to your Grand Lake dream home.  In reality, he more than anyone else was the driving force behind the implementation of a new commercial permitting package which guards against this and much, much more. I would publicly challenge this King of documentation and master of deception to show us even one case where the all knowing Mike Brady and his Duck Creek Homeowners Association have supported a commercial endeavor.

In short, we’re through leading with our chin. The time has come to share what we know about a process that allowed the Grand Lake naysayer’s to dominate the Stakeholder Working Groups. It’s time to address what it will take to protect property values, an economy valued at a minimum of a half billion dollars and preserve Grand Lake for future generations. And please don’t try to use the Vintage as an example since it was already complete before the “Brady Bunch” surfaced to save the lake.

Without your strong voice in these meetings, rather than reading in a national publication about being a top five retirement destination, it will most likely be about the late, great Grand Lake. Let’s not allow a handful of people, most of whom have no children in our schools, derive no economic reward from this great economic engine known as Grand Lake, have no interest in the positive impact of good paying jobs ad have been successful in calculating how to dominate this process decide the future of this great lake.

I don’t care how you do it but spread the word. Use e-mail, snail mail, pony express or word of mouth, but let’s get the word out. It’s time to capsize this small ship of discontent with a tidal wave generated by the silent majority.