Gordneck Lake Cottage UPDATE - We Need YOUR help TODAY!
The fight to keep OUR FAMILY'S COTTAGE continues...and we need YOUR help TODAY!
Kalamazoo County is still pursuing our family's cottage, a piece of private property that has been in our family since the 1940s, before the county park was even established. We have been fighting and paying litigation fees in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep our beloved cottage for six years now, and we continue to pay. TODAY we could really use YOUR help.
This evening (Tuesday, February 7, 2023), the Commissioners have their monthly meeting, and we'd like to flood the Commissioners' in-boxes with our family's plea to drop the lawsuit. Our family would be so very grateful if you would take a minute right now and copy and paste the below email (NOT as an attachment but please put in the body of an email) your Kalamazoo County Commissioner (or all of them, for that matter) TODAY and kindly urge that they:
"Please vote to rescind the April 2022 vote to condemn the Johnson/Talanda private property. I urge you to make the right decision by dropping the case against this family. The County's actions are wrong, and I, as a Kalamazoo County constituent, don't want any more harm done to the Johnson/Talanda family by continuing this useless Eminent Domain lawsuit. The family continues to request that the County negotiate a reasonable outcome in which the family and the County Park can continue to happily co-exist as they have for the past 60 years. It is wrong and wasteful to continue to spend HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS of tax payer money to acquire this family's private property when the County and the public have absolutely no need for their family cottage. If the County gets their wish and goes through with condemnation in court, the tax payers will be on the hook for continuing legal fees. On top of what the County has already spent, they would then have to pay the cost of the property which would be determined during condemnation. You, as a Commissioner, when sworn in, took an oath to "properly administer affairs of the County, promote decisions that only benefit the public interest, actively promote public confidence in the County government, maintain positive image to pass constant public scrutiny, and evaluate all decisions so that the best service or product is obtained at a MINIMAL COST without sacrificing quality and fiscal responsibility." With that sworn oath, the public must ask, "Is this really an affair of the County?'' "How does less than a third of an acre benefit the public when your County Parks Director has already stated in a Commissioners' meeting that the County has no intended use for it?" "How are you promoting public confidence in our government when the public is not interested in this land and the County has secured only $350,000 to acquire the property when it will realistically end up costing tax payers (and the family) over a MILLION DOLLARS?" "In order to regain a positive image that passes public scrutiny, your job is to right this wrong." "How is less than a third of an acre a 'best product' for the public when the public has no use for this land and the County has already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax payer money?" Finally, how can a reasonable Commission Board go after private property that has been owned by a respectable family in our community for over six generations? This act by the County and Commission Board is wrong and despicable, and you have the power and opportunity to right this wrong and to begin to regain the public's trust in the way that the County handles tax payers' money. I urge you to do the right thing and rescind the April 2022 vote."
Here is a list of the Commissioners' contact information (I've first listed just the email addresses to make it easy to copy and paste, and then I've listed each Commissioner's full contact information):
Tami.Rey@kalcounty.com, Jen.Strebs@kalcounty.com, Monteze.Morales@kalcounty.com, Abigail.Wheeler@kalcounty.com, John.Taylor2@kalcounty.com, John.Gisler@kalcounty.com, Jeff.Heppler@kalcounty.com, Wendy.Mazer@kalcounty.com, DaleDeleeuw@kalcounty.com
District 1: Tami Rey (Vice Chair) - 269.329.8512 - Tami.Rey@kalcounty.com
District 2: Jen Strebs - 269.903.6429 - Jen.Strebs@kalcounty.com
District 3: Monteze Morales - 269.808.3189 - Monteze.Morales@kalcounty.com
District 4: Abigail Wheeler - 269.303.6830 - Abigail.Wheeler@kalcounty.com
District 5: John Taylor (Chair) - 815.245.7160 - John.Taylor2@kalcounty.com
District 6: John Gisler - 269.217.2119 - John.Gisler@kalcounty.com
District 7: Jeff Heppler - 269.629.5124 - Jeff.Heppler@kalcounty.com
District 8: Wendy Mazer - 269.372.7198 - Wendy.Mazer@kalcounty.com
District 9: Dale Deleeuw - 269.720.6885 - Dale.Deleeuw@kalcounty.com
Thank you so much for the support that you've shown to our family and to many of you who continue to reach out to offer help and support. We are humbled and grateful. We welcome you to share our story and this petition with your friends and neighbors. The Commissioners' job is to serve their constituents; if they hear from enough of us, our hope is that they will do the right thing and stop going after our private property. Thank you!