A Message From Chair Emeritus Jim Folk

To All,

I’ve been giving careful consideration on whether or not we should appeal the ALJ decision.

The first thing everyone looks at is the costs, which were way above what was presented to us by the respective legal firms for the CCH.

Was it worth it?

Arguments pro & con but one has to remember that since day one of forming this Lake District there has always been only two points of interests, which were mandated by our constituents, one was saving the dam, which we did at costs considerably higher than what was projected to taxpayers and two was to raise the lake water levels.

After carefully considering the above I firmly believe that if we don’t appeal the ALJ decision we will not be full filing the mandate given to us/you as elected board members.

Win or lose I doubt if our constituents would want us not to continue, we fought to hard not to finish what the constituents have mandated.

My final points are:

Going into this I’ve always had the belief and discussed this with some of you, and that is we would lose at the CCH.

Why?

Everyone except the wetland owners were all State Employees, meaning an ALJ will always side with another State Agency on close issues and case history has proved that over and over.

Individuals, farmers, businesses and even municipalities, who have ever taken the DNR to tasks; most always end up in Circuit Court before prevailing.

We have only 30 days to file a Notice of Appeal; a meeting of all parties and legal counsel should take place to discuss this ASAP.

Jim Folk