" ... so important for us to go back, look at the decisions that were made, and see where things went wrong"
I am presuming there is some sort of way, short of onesey-twosey going through paper records, to systemically search the meeting minutes for (keyword=sewer) to see what the prior history is? Regardless of whether such a tool is publicly available to the citizens via the www.WhiteLakeTwp.com website, it would seem critical for our elected and appointed officials to have such a tool at their disposal so that our elected Trustees and our elected full-time officials can all have the same information at their disposal.

Lakeside: Who was the Supervisor at the time that gave Pontiac Lake the freebee that got us $1,000,000 in the hole, there were no mistakes made this was planned and now that Supervisor is retired and far away and living in the UP and never has to answer to anyone in White Lake. (how great for her)

Good point. I DO NOT want to see increased user fees or forcing more people to hook up because of the board's incompetence. Any board member of either party will not have my vote next election.

I am not sure how much more "informed" one could be, Rog. I went last night. There was a plethora of "talking" but very little "information" available to tax payers. There weren't enough handouts, and what was being displayed on the two monitors was so tiny as to render it illegible.

I have a very hard time synthesizing spoken summaries of fifteen years worth of board meetings and cost overruns, without having something to read both during and after the fact. I find it very frustrating that the standard answer, reiterated again last night, is for whoever is interested to actually see the "data" to come to the township office during the twp office's limited hours and to simply read through the binder (binder full of data?) if you're curious. If the information spoken at the meeting last night is based upon e.g. prior board meeting minutes, then that is public information that should be readily available to the public. Maybe the technology wasn't available to WLT back in 1995, but the technology surely exists today to simply scan that binder and put it on the internet to make it easily and readily available to all citizens and not just to those who happen to be within the vicinity of M-59/Porter from 8am-5pm M-F.

As a related point, and as brought up in the discussion about the first meeting (See http://whitelake.patch.com/articles/township-mulls-sewer-debt-payment-options), please note that there were not any microphones present at the meeting last night, nor was there a transcriptionist. So there is no record whatsoever of what was said or not said at last night's meeting.

I am hopeful Mr. Roman will be able to bring the kinds of budget practices and fiscal discipline used in successful businesses, as opposed to the kinds of budget practices that resulted in us taxpayers needing to bail out GM and Chrysler. It seemed that a good summary of the issue is that a lot of assumptions were made about revenue streams (e.g. people voluntarily deciding to hook up) that never came to fruition, but which never resulted in a readjustment of the monetary plan. Hence the reference in past discussions on this topic of "kicking the can down the road" to subsequent administrations.

Dear Laura: Tuesday nights meeting was not a meeting it was a PRESENTATION their is a difference. Handouts were provided if you wanted one, you just needed to ask.

I'm glad you were able to get a handout, Jim.C. There weren't enough. I know I didn't have one, nor did several others. I agree also that a summary at the beginning would have been very helpful.
Does anyone know if this "binder full of data" -- were copies provided to the other members of the Board, namely the Supervisor, Treasurer and four Trustees?

I am told 47% got the handout...

There is something very wrong if an elected official has to file a FOIA request to get information that he/she has been elected to have access to.

Dear Lakeside: If you must know Todd Burkle has had known about the problem with the lack of sewer funds that should been paid by the Pontiac Lake homeowners. After all Todd had been their for eight years and new about it all a long and did nothing and now he wants to bring it up to make someone else look bad, could it be the taxpayers were fed up with sum of the township board, and thrown out of office?

What you seem to be suggesting is that the township should have let both trailer parks and suburban knowls sub, because their sewer treatment systems failed we should let them fail and displace all those people from their homes, that seems to be your answer, that way taxpayers would not be out any money, and when Sup. Elliot took out $800,000 and the $200,000 because of cost overruns from the then sewer fund account we would not have to worry about the money and interest that was lost., The easy way to pay for the short fall is to have Pontiac Lake homeowners pay for what they should have paid from the start.

"What you seem to be suggesting is that the township should have let both trailer parks and suburban knowls sub, because their sewer treatment systems failed we should let them fail and displace all those people from their homes, that seems to be your answer.."

huh?

I said nothing about anyone's fields being left to fail with no alternative.

I have no earthly idea whether "both trailer parks" and "suburban knowls sub" are in Phase One or not. There weren't enough handouts for me to get one of the handouts, and the handout is not available on the website. Either way, I said nothing about anyone's fields being left to fail with no alternative.

My analysis shows there is no way, given the current forecasts, for the fee income to perform to the original 1996 assumptions. In addition, the new forecasts provided by Mr. Lilley, have no relationship to current connection rates. Unless there is supporting evidence provided for these new forecasts I have no reason to believe they will be any more accurate than the 1996 forecasts. Bottom line: the connection fee income will continue to suffer a shortfall.
http://showmethedata.wordpress.com/2012/11/15/white-lake-township-sewer-project/

awesome! thank you JimC.

Looks like option 1 is our best bet. What do the township's accountant and lawyer have to say about these options?

Those "options" are just Mr. Lilley's opinions at this point. Mr. Baroni stated the board will have to consider all the options and, perhaps, develop more.

Dear JimC: When you looked in the projections, you didn't added back in the $800,000 and the $200,000 cost overruns when they occured and then went forward with your calulations and where the dollar amount in the fund is today, as you so put it they kicked the can down the road but it was empty,(this short fall did start with past administrations- and no accounablity - only to help Pontiac Lake and put the burden on the rest of the taxpayers in the furture .)

Rog L - To set the record straight the "...kicked the can down the road..." words are not mine. That statement was made by Mr. Lilley at his 11/13 presentation. It was part of his initial recitation - displayed on the screen but not included in the handout material.

Dear Mr. Lakeside: I wonder if we have an auditor that looks at the books at the end of the year? If so was the board ever given an audit report ? How could the board members be kept in dark so long or did some of the trustee's put there heads in the sand and hope everthing would work out for the best and let someone else take the blame and leave office letting others believe they knew nothing at all (they could claim they were the good guys)?