[2006] Another Encroachment Problem

[Kal]

Always wondered what it would be like living' in PARADISE !

 

[JLB]

Glad to see you're still around.

 

[Kal]

Hey, I'm heading for Key West in 2 weeks. Will be looking for the trail of empty beer mugs you left around town! Did you catch Mike McCloud at Schooner Wharf Bar??? Or better yet, see the "ladies" at 801 Bourbon Street???

 

[grest]

How can you and Jenny stand this stressful situation day in and day out? You must really love your home! Hoping this can get resolved so you can have some peace...
Connie

 

[JLB]

The geriatric delinquency continues.

In response to the vandalism, the electric company replaced the street light with one that is not shaded toward the end of the road. They had shaded the light to appease the Head Geriatric Delinquent. They said that as long as we are trying to apprehend the person(s) responsible for the damage, then they will continue to service the light. The sheriff's deputy said the same thing. Both groups know they have been lied to and used.

I sense that, one-by-one, the geriatric delinquents will burn their bridges. Time is the best friend of the truth.

We have 24 hour surveillance now, and the overt stuff has stopped. They always seem to know when they are pushing things a bit too far. They know everything they have done is now a matter of public record. It is not just two neighbors who cannot get along~~~it involves many others, including the electric company, the County Commission, the Sheriff and the US Army Corps of Engineers.

We replaced the exterior security light at the rear of our house with a dusk-to-dawn light, 15 feet higher in the air. Of course, it lights the entire area back there where inappropriate activity has been taking place.

The geriatric delinquents continue to run around and meet, plan and scheme against us. Rather than come and talk to us, they continue to talk to shut us out. How will that ever resolve anything?

Feb. 1 was the deadline for everyone to pay 1/3 of the cost of rebuilding the dock. Of course we did not pay. But we paid the annual maintenance fee, with a qualified endorsement that it is payment in full of all of our dock obligation. They cashed it.

We also sent a letter with it stating that we were paying the maintenance fee because it is the right thing to do, something we approve of, and something we have done for nine years. Our letter also said that nothing else has changed. We still have not given pur permission to anyone to conduct business on our behalf or to do anything with our private property against our wishes.

For those who have asked why we endured this, why we don't just turn tail and run, we have a nearby school superintendent who was fired for refusing to remove his Bible, cross and ten commandments from his office. I was listening to him on TV this morning.

At that final meeting with the school board, the attorney for the district asked him why he refused, that everyone wanted him to stay and continue doing the good he was doing. Why would he disobey a court order? He said he could not obey an order that violated God's laws. He said that in the future the kids who looked up to him would be faced with decisions of right v. wrong. If he capitulated now then everything he taught them is just words.

He said that you have to stand for what is right, even if it means dire personal consequences and even if you have to stand alone.

If someone has to resort to threats (of murder even), harassment, intimidation, extortion, assault, profanity, deceit, bearing false witness against a neighbor, gunplay and vandalism to get what they want, then what they want surely must not be right.

 

[boyblue]

JLB,
I've just now read this entire thread and a couple things amaze me.

One is how this thread could have gone 32 posts before someone asked what ROF's stood for.

The other thing is that in 130 posts no one has admonished you for being equally culpable. As long as we're labeling JLB (I mean this in the nicest way possible - as a matter of fact I don’t even want to post this but feel I must) By your own account and at the very least you are a tattletale. Please allow me to explain.

Granted your neighbors could have handled your rejection to their plan much much better. There is no excuse for criminal behavior. They were dead wrong. Where I have to give you wrong is that in reacting to their reactions. You have become voiceless. It may have been one too many emails or one too many calls to the police. For all of the authorities to react to your reports the same way has nothing to do with the bully and everything to do with you.

I don’t know if I’m gonna post this comment yet but that is what is in my hart regarding your ordeal.

If you aren’t too PO’d there is more:

I sense that you do not respect the bully. It is difficult if not impossible to make peace with someone you don’t respect. I figure he senses that and that might be your underlying problem. I suggest you open the line of communication through a mutual friend, direct would be even better.

I mean no ill will J

 

[Mosca]

For those who have asked why we endured this, why we don't just turn tail and run, we have a nearby school superintendent who was fired for refusing to remove his Bible, cross and ten commandments from his office. I was listening to him on TV this morning.

At that final meeting with the school board, the attorney for the district asked him why he refused, that everyone wanted him to stay and continue doing the good he was doing. Why would he disobey a court order? He said he could not obey an order that violated God's laws. He said that in the future the kids who looked up to him would be faced with decisions of right v. wrong. If he capitulated now then everything he taught them is just words.

He said that you have to stand for what is right, even if it means dire personal consequences and even if you have to stand alone.

OK; what if he was wrong? Putting religious law above secular law is the very thing that we chastise Muslims for doing. Being 100% certain that you are right isn't the same as being right.

Is it possible that you have put yourself in a position where you CAN'T compromise? I'm not saying that you've done that, I'm saying look within and answer the question to yourself, and see what answer you get.

Tom

 

[JLB]

The bullying has gone on for 17 years. No one knows about it when they buy from a victim who is running away. Everyone buys with the idea that they have found their paradise at the lake. Of the ten houses on our point, seven have changed ownership in the eight years we have been here. Including us there are two who are planning on selling.

Of the ten slips in the community dock, nine have changed ownership since we have been here.

The eight years we have been here have been a very uneasy coexistence and a balance of power has kept the neighborhood tolerable. In the last two years things have happened to upset that balance. I have stepped in and gotten the road done, which the head bully previously used to control all of his neighbors, while at the same time some of those who replaced those who have left are of the same ideology as the head bully. They also believe they are entitled to whatever they want regardless of what they have to do to get it. They are simply used to getting their way and not having anyone question the things they do.

The head bully ran the road for 15 years, and never got it turned over to the County. I did that and it just burns hims up every time the County snowplow or brushhogs comes down it. I wish I could play for you the profane, late-night phone calls I got from him right at the beginning of my involvement in the road, until he realized that the 20-plus other owners all wanted it turned over to the County.

As it turns out I made our presentation to the Commission in the last meeting we could have. In the morning session they had passed a new road adoption policy which disqualifies us. It was lacking one signature when I made our presentation in the afternoon.

Yes, Jenny and I are the cause of the problem in the neighborhood. That is because we did not acqiesce, or move, as the others have. The bully has never had to deal with that situation. The sheriff has never known about his conduct because all the others chose to leave.

Our attorney, and many others whose advice I sought, say just to ignore them. They have no legal right to rule over our private property. They cannot without our permission. We cannot give that unless they talk to us. They haven't done that since August, 2004. Our attorn(ies) have said not to try to engage them in an endless email debate. They are not ready to resolve the matter. Except for the one I sent recently, I have not bothered them with any of my rhetoric since early last summer.

I am fully aware that they do not want to hear from me about anything, and I am obliging them.

Jenny and I have wanted to sit down and hammer out a compromise for more than a year, the Corps told them to get together with us and work things out last April, but they have decided they do not want to do that. The head bully has told the others, "Let me take care of this," because he always has in the past.

The leader of a project can be a uniter or a divider. The leader of this project has decided not the deal at all with the one party he needs to deal with. Why should he spend all his time with the others? They already agree with his position.

When I did the road, I dealt with 26 property owners, each with their own agenda. Not everyone saw things my way, so I worked things out with each of them, including those who are now giving us a hard time. I never demanded that anyone see things my way and compromised and spent whatever time was needed with each of the owners to gain their support.

All we can do is just let them faunch at the bit. Get our own dock, move out of theirs, build a new house down the road, and wind up better off than we would have had this not happened. That is what we are doing.

So, I am torn between just ignoring them, until they are ready, or force myself upon them by suggesting we work things out. Our attorney suggested that we attempt to start the healing process. We were going to do that when we got back from Florida Jan. 21. But when we got home the streetlight had been shot out and our house had been vandalized.

So, what would you do? Ask the criminals if they want to sit down and talk?

The reporting I did to the sheriff was at the request of the sheriff, chief deputy and county prosecutor. I had approached them looking for a neighborhood mediation program, not a tattletale program. In a meeting last May 31, the Prosecutor told me to document everything that happens and communicate it to the Chief Deputy. He said he wanted to build a case based on a pattern of behavior rather than a specific occurrence. Yes, that became a lot of emails, three or four a week because that's how many incidences there were.

The sheriff requested an arrest warrant at one point last summer, at which time the geriatric delinquent who is an ex-cop came up with the idea of all of them telling the sheriff that I am the one doing to them what they have been doing to us.

So the Prosecutor wrote it off as neighbors who can't get along. We fully comprehend what happened, and know of no better way we could have proceeded. We have made sure that neither us nor our guests resorted to the same tactics. We have just taken the abuse and reported it.

Who could have figured that they would rely on such a warped plan? It is devilish, at best, especially for such fine upstanding Christian people, full of faulty logic and the longer this goes on the more others will see that.

What would they gain if they succeeded with that plan? Surely not our approval of their dock plan.

Every time I see our Commissioner he just shrugs his shoulders and says, "Things any better?"

Actually, the only way in which the authorities have acted in the same way is that they all have reacted in a way in which they think they don't to have to deal with it. They have taken what appeared to them to be the easy way out, but that has not resolved the problem. As things continue, one by one they will see the truth of what is going on, as has the Electric Company. One by one the deputies who have to come out, and catch the bullies in their lies, begin to see the truth of the situation.

Like I said, time is the best friend of the truth.

I should remember not to share our problems with others. Some don't care and the rest are glad you have them.

What was the question again?

 

[shagnut]

You want me to come up there and straighten those old farts out? They want know what hit them!! shaggy

 

[Htoo0]

^^ I've thought the same thing. Shouldn't take that much to make them change their thinking. Especially when they have no idea who they're dealing with.

 

[JLB]

A couple of TUG parties on Bluebird Point might make them appreciate only having to deal with us!!!

I'm all for it. Bring your pickup trucks and camping trailers and you can park at the end of the road!

They do think about the consequences of their actions. We and our guests are well behaved. Whoever replaces us in our house and the community dock could be a lot worse.

 

[JLB]

This morning we received an email from the retired cop, who is in charge of the rebuilding project. It was to everyone in the dock. It said the first installments were received from all except for one slipowner, the second installment is now due, and things are progressing on the dock.

I called our attorney to see how to respond. He said to send an email/letter to the head guy at the Corps office here, with copies going to everyone else, to document what we have been told, and not told, and ask the Corps again to put it writing what is going on. I've already asked three times.

This effort is for use later on.

Last week I was on another neighbor's dock, talking to him, when the ex-cop showed up. He didn't speak to me.

 

[JLB]

JLB,

It may have been one too many emails or one too many calls to the police. For all of the authorities to react to your reports the same way has nothing to do with the bully and everything to do with you.

I mean no ill will J

Sometimes things have to lay there awhile, in the brain I mean.

My reaction to this is that either I really am a blithering idiot, really am sick in the head, as one of the geriatric delinquent's wife announced 20 times in 30 minutes in a well-rehearsed and well-coached speech last Aug. 17, and I have just made all this up for some deranged reason, or it really has happened.
One or the other.

The same goes for all of those who have left to get away from it.

I believe that is the fault in their logic that will eventually do them in.

On the other hand, if they are going to go ahead and build the dock without our approval, and they are going to pay our share, and they are not going to harass and intimidate us any more, and they are not going to prevent us from using the dock, then why not just say that?

Then it would be all over.
- - - - - -
BTW, in case you missed this fine point, we offered to pay $6000 before the ---- hit the fan. Ex cop said no, no way, blankety-blank, blankety-blankenty-blankety blank blank blank. He wanted all of it, the other $818.70, too. If the case really is that they are going to pay our share, he has cost himself and the others in the dock $16,200, the total they are now paying extra.

The longer they go without drawing this to a conclusion, the more expensive it will get for them.

That's why I say every action has a consequence and the person taking the action has to take responsibility for it.

The week before last I was over talking to our preferred dockbuilder, the oldest and most respected one on the lake. He said he would still build a new dock like they want for almost $20,000 less than they are paying another builder. He had a 20-slip dock under construction for $110,000 ($5500 per slip) and our neighbors have agreed to pay $77000 for a 10-slip dock, obviously $7700 per slip.

Whenever I tell anyone that knows docks they are paying $7700 per slip, their mouth just falls open, and they want to know if it is being made out of gold.

If we have no right to stop their foolishness, they should have no right to force us to be involved in it.

 

[JLB]

If anyone would like to pass judgement, I can email you the transcript of the first confrontation that the Head Bully had with us, back when this all started, in front of our guests, when he announced what he and the other two geriatric delinquents were going to do to us.

 

[JLB]

I woke up very early this morning. While I was sleeping my brain told me what they are up to, why no one will tell what is going on.

Strange how that works, when you go to sleep with a problem and your brain keeps working on it involuntarily.

 

[JLB]

Yesterday's revelation and the email our attorney suggested I send struck a responsive cord. Those in our dock read it 9 minutes after I sent it and the head of the Corps likewise responded.

That led to a lengthy phone conversation with the head of the Corps. During it he realized they have given us a lot of misleading information. Corps/dock/lake/boat details that wouldn't have much meaning unless you were familiar with them. We reached a verbal understanding as what we and they are doing to resolve the problems on our shoreline.

He said he is going to put it all in writing and send it to me. For now that's all we were asking. Once they commit themselves in writing we can go from there.

So, it appears the dialogue has begun. It does not appear that we will have to have one with those who do not want one, the others in the community dock.

I was at the County Recorder's office this morning and the Corps, recording slip Bills of Sale, dock documents, etc., came up. I mentioned our problems and they said, "You ought to sit here!"
- - - - - -
An email from the retired cop, the dock rebuilding project leader, just arrived. The dialogue has begun.