Dispute With Lake Mohawk Trustees has ended?

I am writing to notify Lake Mohawk Country Club (LMCC) members that I have submitted an Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) to LMCC concerning the gates on West Shore Trail. I wish I could contact you directly by email, but that option is not available to individual LMCC members.

The ADR notes that the gate system has been under the full financial and operational control of the Board of Trustees (BOT). The members living Behind The Gates (BTG) were last surveyed on manned gate shifts around 2004 as I remember. Since that date, the BTG members have not been asked for their input or approval for any aspect of the gate system (including the new gate system recently installed) even though they have been required to pay all the gate costs. This, I guess, is what the BOT calls its gate policy; the BOT makes all decisions and the BTG members pay.

The ADR further notes that there are no provisions in the Plan Agreement or By-Laws governing subgroups like the BTG subgroup. Hence, it would seem that members may not be put into subgroups, without their consent, and be subject to additional rules and taxes not equally applicable to all LMCC members? The BTG subgroup members were not asked for their consent so it appears both the BTG subgroup and the gate charges are unauthorized

The ADR requests that the BOT develop rules governing subgroups acceptable to the BTG members or refund the unauthorized gate charges. It also asks the BOT to provide a method for me to contact other members for their input on this ADR. To date neither request has been fulfilled.

I submitted the ADR seven months ago. Three months later the BOT appointed a mediator (the then ADR policy specified an appointment in five days). There has been only one mediation meeting in early June at which time the BOT volunteered to develop a policy governing the BTG subgroup by early July. Four months have passed since that meeting and still no policy. The BOT has not responded to emails since the middle of August so it appears the mediation process has stalled which is why I am using this letter to contact LMCC members. until last Friday when they informed me that they have ended the mediation.

Their arguments for ending the mediation on the gate issue is that the current policy of many years is appropriate and it is too late to change it. So even if the policy is not authorized by our governing documents, we should not try to fix the past errors nor change the policy for the future. On contacting members by emails the BOT thought my proposal may not work and therefore should not be tested.

I hope the BOT will restart the mediation process so the ADR issues can be resolved. In the meantime if If you have thoughts on restarting the mediation or the ADR issues it might be helpful to share them with the BOT. The BOT email addresses are listed in the Members Access section of www.lakemohawkcc.com (click on “Board of Trustees” not the drop down menu) and my email address for this matter is jamesgroot@gmail.com.

Jim Root

Sparta