This June Newsletter came across my desk this morning from a puzzled Highland Park Resident. “We were supposed to vote on these by-laws at the August meeting but the meeting got canceled and we haven’t heard anything but now the lake is empty.” The meetings are being run by Lake View West Inc. with a few Highland Park members in attendance mainly because they don’t know they have an Association of their own. They don’t seem to understand that in order to blend associations you would have to dissolve the two existing ones by a vote of 2/3 of both of EACH neighborhood, not 2/3 combined whoever is in attendance at any given garden variety meeting. That might be easy for Lake View West Inc. but not for Highland Park/ Lakeview West Estates Community Association. Because Highland Park/Lakeview West Estates Community Association (aka Highland Park Community Association name was changed in 1988) is a non-profit corporation. The HPca charter members had to form a corporation in order to manage the fishing, hunting, and level of the lake, along with any other duties that comes along with lakeside management including fees, building etc. The State of Alabama issued a Certificate of Incorporation to Highland Park Community Association “having been in all respects organized in accordance with Title 10, Chapter 10, Sec. 203 et seq. of the Code of Alabama, 1940.” Some people in Highland Park and Lake View West realize the value of the Lake Optimist. It has aesthetic value, calm and peaceful when it is managed and maintained optimally. It provides increased property values for the surrounding stakeholders. It has intrinsic value to the animals who need it to survive, and it has monetary value to the visionaries who know how to safely capitalize on its bounty. So who wouldn’t want it? Lake View West Inc. a neighboring garden variety HOA pretended to be the lake authority, mislead residents into believing they were the lake authority and then drained the lake without legal authority. In the process doing more damage than ever before thereby killing the Lake Optimist eco-system, putting more stress on the dam, with no rain in sight to fill the lake any time soon. This is a blunder worse than a crime. Pay close atention to the HOA’s group focus on “HOA” they even make it known that their intention going forward is to take hold of all bylaws, and covenants of both subdivisions and “update” them. If there were any original HPca members in this group they are usurpers by law for being disloyal to the HPca in seeking to dissolve or merge it with the HOA. If this behavior is allowed to stand then no corporation bylaws or HOA bylaws in Mobile are of any affect to anything,
