Rik Kowall stated that he didn't want Pontiac Lake to pay for there shortfall (but he has no problem having Phase 1 paying for it ($680,000) or the rest of the taxpayers of the township paying for it). O and a small foote note, their was no one from Phase 1 or not many other taxpayers to speakup about his plan. Just thought the rest of the Patch readers might like to know, some of the board members don't care it won't be their money anyway. This tells a whole lot about your new board, now maybe more people will show up to the board meetings.

Rik Kowall stated that they didn't have to pay more, because they had already paid in full for it before. It would be like paying off a car & 10 years later the company saying you need to repay for it! Maybe Terry Lilley has more "Play Money" to use!!

I am disappointed that I wasn't able to attend the meeting (the snow made my commute take an hour longer than normal). In any event, I don't believe this was "noticed" at all by way of the agenda that was published prior to the meeting. Unless, of course, the citizens were supposed to magically fathom that item 8(a) "budget amendment" was to be a discussion about having the general fund bear the cost of the prior twp board(s) having completely failed to properly fund and forecast the costs of the sewer system in the first place. Oh, but wait: this was supposedly already in the budget, so the "budget amendment" must have been put on the agenda to discuss something else other than the 3/4 Million dollar sewer debacle?

Regardless of what the "correct" answer is believed to be about covering the costs of the construction overruns and hook-up under-runs, the fact remains that no notice was given to the community that this very controversial topic was up for discussion last night.

I would like to see where this is budgeted in the 2013 budget. I have a copy of the budget and it is not there. The lack of notice for this item is a trick Lilley has taught Baroni in how to avoid the heat.

Brooke, the operative word is could the budget was never amended. Why would all the tax payers in White Lake pay for the sewer blunders of Lilley & company. I do not believe the entire township was forced to pay for the water system. Water users had some healthy bills while the towers were being paid for.

Let me see if I have this straight:

The general fund -- meaning everyone -- is bearing the costs of a sewer infrastructure that serves a very small portion of the township (it doesn't even come within five miles of my neighborhood). Can anyone tell me: does this sewer infrastructure cover the neighborhoods of most (if not all) of the township Board members who were incumbent when the fiscally-unsound sewer construction plan was set into action a decade ago? Perhaps our township planner could speak to that.

It seems also that the general population of township taxpayers had no say in whether the project construction costs were fair or accurate estimates (they weren't, the costs grossly overran) and had no say in whether the projections for hooks-up and the corresponding fees those hook-ups would generate was an accurate projection (again, they weren't, the "take" rate has been abysmal). It would seem that the project was originally fashioned as a special assessment district, which means that only the homes in that district were involved in any sort of approval process? Again, perhaps our twp planner could help clarify this.

And my final question is whether the Board simply neglected to give any advanced notice to the taxpayers about their plans to vote to divert general funds in this manner. Or whether the Board purposely failed to give advanced notice.

Rog L. I agree with you. The point I was trying to make is the water system users paid for the cost of their system and appears they might be paying for iron filtration, not the General Fund. Lilley is so worried about passing the blame onto others instead of solving the problem. He has been on the board long enough, he should have a handle on the problem. Where is Baroni, he is in charge of the fund. The board maybe made a loan to the Sewer from the General Fund. The reason i say loan is because not terms and conditions were attached.

In the first sentance in your reply is the answer Pontaic Lake needs to pay for their costs, however at this point in time they want everyone else to pay their bill.

Dear Laura: If not Iam sure you can set one up and you have a nice day,(don't take life to serious)

Dear Laura: What you don't realize Lilley wanted to fix the problem but the board at that time thought it was to political to discuss. He had no control over what went on the agenda at the time; Mike Kowall,Bev Spoor and Carol Burkhard never wanted it brought up.

2004 twp.board sup.- M.Kowall,trs.-B.Spoor,c-C.Burhard/ trustee-J.
Brendel,T.Lilley,M.Powell,A.Voorheis 2008 twp.board sup.-M.Kowall,trs.-B.Spoor,c-T.Lilley/trustee-T.Birkle,J.Brendel,C.Burhard,M,Powell and now Laura.

A couple of the trustees tried to get the full-time elected officials to deal with this last year and Lilley and Baroni did not want to hear it. Baroni was even quoted last fall in the patch as saying it was not true that there is no money in the fund. He went on to say "we need to look at the fund and make some changes so we do not run into problems in the future." This quote was on September 28th, he really changed his tune from then to now. I think the fund is broke if it has to borrow $700,000.

Laura : their was Transparency back in 2004 the twp. board knew about it but didn't to want to look bad to the taxpayer and put the burden on Pontiac Lake where it should been, Mike Kowall needed their vote and also didn't look bad for Brooks Paterson (for his endorsement for the run for state senate).

Rog,

I do not want to blame the new board, but I do blame Mr. Lilley. Also, I do not believe Mr. Baroni was first made aware of the problem in November when he finally decided it was an important issue. The auditors, for the first time, in March 2013, said there is a problem. Mr. Baroni did not want to deal with the issue before the primary in fear of losing the election. Therefore, he lied in September in the Patch, and a half-baked decision was made last week. Lets start holding these local people accountable. Too many people are not paying attention to these two. Lets not forget the auditors also told them there is a $4,000,000 problem with unfunded retiree health care.

Lakeside: I don't understand why your Blaming Lilley and Baroni. The board members that were there in 2004 are the ones who should be blamed for not takeing care of the problem (Kowall, Spoor, Burkhard, Brendle, Voorhies,Powell, Lilley). Why are you not blaming Burkhard,and Voorheis there were on the board back then, there is no mention of them in this debate?

Lilley claims this problem has been around for years. I can't help but feel Lilley is in it up to his neck since he was involved in the planning of the first phase. I am not Blaming Baroni, but he should have delt with the problem when he was made aware of it last year. Baroni lied to the public about the state of the fund. Baroni has no clue how to solve the problem. The supervisor is responsible for the administration of the system so he better start showing some leadership on this instead of worrying how the public found out the item was going be discussed at the last meeting.

Dear Lakeside: Mike Kowall was supervisor was their for 8 years, sounds like you want to give him a FREE PASS at being responsible for administration fo the system as you call it. Mike was their when the problem started in 2004 and the next 8 years and did nothing. ( But then mike bailed and went to State Senate, before he left he was able to starte an employee union, because of his inaction on employee problems, also he left the building department in a mess because of his looking the other way, and not taking any action . You now want to blame this new board?)

For starters Kowall was there six years. I am not giving him a pass, But he did hire an attorney in an attempt to obtain information from Commerce Twp. at how they arrived at the rates they charge White Lake users. Lilley was constantly a road block to this effort and he got Baroni to put a hault to this. Part of the White Lake cash problem is the lack of connects to the system. One reason for the lack of connects is the connect fee Commerce charges White Lake residents for basically doing nothing. You should research this a bit. My issue is Baroni knew there was a problem and a couple of board members even told him there was. He chose to ignore the problem until November. This is purely a cash issue, do you borrow the money from a bank, bond to make the debt payments from the General Fund. The problem is calculating the amount needed, term of the loan and which residents are going to pay and how much. Lilley is simply not capable of doing this. HIRE AN EXPERT AND GET IT DONE, no more history lessons

Laura: You don't need to file FOIL, just call up the twp. and they will give you what you want BUT YOU NEED TO CALL YOURSELF and not a friend I am sure you can find the time, if you want an answer. For your info Mike Kowall in the 6 years that he superviser he could have changed the contract with Commerce at anytime but didn't, Mike must have thought white lake had a good deal, and gave Pontiac Lake a free ride and let someone else take care of the issue in the future.

Sorry, Rog, but obviously you've never audited records. You don't "call", you need to get details not merely someone's verbal off the top of their head. I'm sorry you want to always make everything personal to me, rather than focusing on the fact that our elected officials fail to inform the taxpayers ahead of time about huge diversions of funds that they are planning to make, fail to provide coherent and verifiable information to the taxpayers, and so on. If you are content, that is your prerogative. Some of us taxpayers, however, are not content with the same ol' same ol' of things being done without making the information generally freely available.

The common definition of "generally freely available" does not ordinarily mean having to make an appointment for a special opportunity to view records that aren't made available to the general tax paying public unless they similarly make a special appointment to specially view records. It is unacceptable that our elected paid officials failed to provide any advanced notice (by way of putting on the agenda that there was going to be a diversion of general fund dollars to the sewer fund). It is unacceptable that, after nearly a year of discussions, our paid elected officials still have not made any coherent FACTS available in writing. And, no, having to listen to Terry Lilley give a lengthy oratory, complete with unreadably small overheads, is not a substitute for providing facts about the costs and shortfalls. It is very telling that you wish to keep trying to make this personal about people like me who dare to question this arrogance of power.

Laura,
I understand your concerns, a couple members of this board are really pulling the wool over the residents of White Lake. I would suggest you focus your efforts into getting these meeting televised on Comcast or on the Net. The media coverage is terrible

What is in the past is in the past, this needs to be corrected NOW or sometime in the very near future so the Township and its citizens can move on. Pointing fingers at something that happened 15-20 years ago wont do a damn thing. The township has a financial responsibility for the SAD, they "cosigned" the deal and financially backed the deal. If this was not done no bond would have been issued. So I feel as if the entire township is on the hook. Now, how do we fix this and be fair to everyone involved?

Here is my fix:

*Raise sewer rates
*Have the general fund EAT the cost of part of this, maybe like half and the rest to come from increased sewer rates for everybody utilizing sewer services over the next 7 or so years.

Is this legal? Is it fair to everybody involved? I have no sewer service, but as a township residence I do feel I am obligated to pay over poor decisions my elected officials made years ago!

Mark: you might want read the Oakland Press in Sunday's edition under White Lake Sewer.

How much are residents charged quarterly for sewer services? I saw the township ordinance from 2003 stating $70 for usage, $10 for disposal and a $6 charge. Is $86 for 3 months correct? Is there a sewer map posted on the internet on what is existing and what is proposed for the township?

I agree with those that argue finger pointing does us no good at this point in time. The question is how do we take care of the problem we are faced with today?
Seems pretty clear the people in the Pontiac Lake area will not be asked to pay twice for their sewers so that leaves it up to the rest of the township to cover the costs.
A 10 year tax was voted for in 2004 to purchase new fire equipment and hire new personnel. Trouble is, no new trucks have been purchased and they are just now getting around to hiring a new firefighter. That millage has generated almost 8 million dollars since 2004 and it is sitting in the bank.
Now in 2014 that millage will expire and I am pretty sure the citizens will not renew it unless new equipment is purchased between now and then.
So buy the new equipment already. At $500,000 - $1,000, 000 apiece that should get us between 8 and 16 new trucks that should last 20 years.
Then when it comes time to renew instead of a 10 year tax make it 20 years and you can cut it by more than half. At the same time ask for a tax to cover this debacle and maybe even fund legacy costs which also seems to be a big issue these days.
Bottom line, we solve both of these problems, end up with new fire equipment AND lower taxes by collecting taxes over the entire 20 year life of the new equipment. The $60,000 we save on the maintenance of our fire equipment should almost cover the cost of the new personnel...

Oh, and since we are going to have to rely on our own wells for the foreseeable future it might be wise to follow Waterford's lead and not allow any oil drilling or fracking:
http://www.theoaklandpress.com/articles/2013/02/26/news/local_news/doc512d39a975ca8467216080.txt?viewmode=fullstory

Michael, The residents of Pontiac Lake asked the twp. to create a SAD to put a sewer line for them, They wanted it, why should they not have to pay for it. If the twp. taxpayers have to pay for this, then all the other SAD projects need to be paid back for any additional expenses they might have incured now, in the past and for any in the future. (BOARD MEMBERS YOU BETTER THINK WHAT YOU ARE DOING BEFORE YOU VOTE---- IT MIGHT COST YOU YOUR SEAT ON THE BOARD -- not a threat, I'm just saying think about what the true COSTS might be to all of the township.

Laura, There is a sewer ordinance posted on WLT's site. No mapping on what has been done, but it goes over the ground rules over what "the rules" are.

http://www.whitelaketwp.com/downloads/ord108022113_1.pdf

I still have my septic field that is original to my house. As of this date it still seems to be working perfectly fine, IE Water goes down the drain and does not back up. The only real work I have done to it is to have it pumped out at a cost of $200 every 3-4 years.

As far as the fire department goes:

If they are hiring 1 its due to a dismissal they had last year.
There are a few of their engines/tankers and both ambulances that are long due for replacement . Take the money out of the bank and Buy them already!

I agree with Michael's statement about getting the issue resolved. However, according to Lilley, the General Fund already gave the Sewer Fund $400,000 in phase I. As to broadcasting the meetings, this needs to happen, make these people accountable. White Lake is the only local community I can think of that does not broadcast their meetings. I guess all the other communities like to grand stand.

Rog- When I checked the annual financial report last year, the water system had over $4,000,000. I do not think it needs a General Fund gift.