By Sherry Gros
Freeland Writer for Highland Park Mobile AL
08/30/2021
Good Monday morning. The dam is overtopping at 7:15 am. The lake is at its high water mark, as high as it can get, and the water is rushing at a good clip from every intake. It’s supposed to rain until tomorrow afternoon. If this rainmaker doesn’t take the dam down nothing will. The Milkhouse Creek at Pine Run Road is about a foot from the top of it’s banks. The dam is metering the water surprisingly well for its condition.
There is too much noise about me reporting on the dam. This still is America.
We still command, own and hold dear our First Amendment. Allen Helms is not my boss, my governor, or my jailer. I will report on the dam if I want to and I will be actively seeking grants through the nonprofit corporation that owns the land as I have set it up to do proper. As a censured member of HPca Allen Helms signed as President of HPca on State Documents. That is illegal. That is dishonest. Again to be decided in court if the Secretary of State doesn’t weigh in on the matter. In the meantime Allen Helms and his followers need to quiet down their clamoring outcries against me before they bring certain and irreparable ruin to this neighborhood.
Everyone must understand that all Highland park residents have free deeded access to the lake. Allen Helms holds no special rights, liberties, authority, or claims to the area. He is not the designated overlord of the work that needs to be done at the lake. The reason I write this is because those men Allen Helms, Ed Williams and their followers have menaced me every day for two years due to my objection to their handling of their lake work. They stalk my posts, post hateful language and rhetoric about me on their own social media groups, and my social media pages, they threaten me, and hold meetings to inflame others and blame me for the destruction of the dam when in fact they are the ones that have been “working” on it for the past six years. I have never touched the dam but to hire an engineer to tell the rest of us as to what the dam is actually suffering from. How nice it was to get a real professional’s honest information on the matter. Ed and Allen have literally made me a lightening rod blaming me for their failures and to this point their deflection seems to be working for them. In the words of Mark Twain, “It is easier to deceive a person than to convince them that they have been deceived.” The language these men use regarding me to their audience is inciteful and riotous and has prompted other neighbors to rant and rale against me in the most vile of ways. These men privately and publicly message me demanding I hand over to them my website as if they are reaching out throttling me about the neck to turn over everything I’ve ever written on this subject matter. They threaten me saying they will get it and it feels like they are about to decend upon my home to turn it inside out and upside down and shake it loose of every page and paper. And they tell me I will “need a public defender” as if my personal work is something they are entitled to. These men are reprehensible and have disgusted me to the bone. I hope to God you or your families never have to go through what I have endured by this neighboring HOA. Which brings me to my next point, “The HOA”. I don’t want people from the neighboring HOAs imposing upon my subdivision HOA dues when our subdivision has never had an HOA, such a pretense is a lie that can never be twisted into the truth no matter how hard they try.
I can’t imagine how this story will end. It is a black cloud that hangs over these neighborhoods. Everyone from Mayor Stimpson, the County Officers, and Mobile residents in general have heard this story. Somehow not one unbiased person with any authority can come up with an honest assessment of this problem to fairly and honestly address the issue. Hurricane IDA will pass but the cumulative average rainfall for Mobile will not. The storm will continue to rage.
I am committed to upholding the by laws and articles of incorporation of HPca and trying to work some grant money to pay for the rebuilding of the dam. If that’s a crime then God Bless America.