By Sherry Lynn Gros for The HIghland Park Review
Back in the day, 75 years ago, most adults had been taught at home or in school how to behave in groups in a civil manner so that everyone felt part of the group and welcome. Part of their everyday education was civics and manners. They grew up learning how to interact with each other in town halls, in clubs, in church council, city council, even garden clubs were highly structured and organized for a purpose. There was rule of law, Constitutions, and by-laws. People, for the most part were taught to respect the law and follow the rules to keep the thing going smoothly. There were daily pleasantries so embraced and accepted that it made it worth looking forward to getting up in the morning.
Before there was an HPca, Inc there was a Highland Park Garden Club (est 1940 – 1967) with Constitution and bylaws. Highland Park Subdivision in Mobile, AL was a pleasant place by all descriptions where things were orderly and the whole of the Highland Park resident neighborhood was of one mind about how to work together to make life pleasant for themselves. Back then It was culturally accepted that it was the ladies’ civic duty to tend the neighborhood gardens for fun and social but more so for duty to keep intact the fabric of society as well as keep up the morale of their neighborhoods. Well manicured baskets with pretty flowers hanging along the streets gave travelers a sense of “all is right with the world” and “love and care dwells here.” A sense of pride and kinsmanship grew within the area because of it. Over the years and still today, people no longer are schooled in the laws of management or civic duty at the neighborhood level so things have been left to wreck and ruin, to crumble and decay, to confusion and chaos. The common knowledge of good manners, civic duty and responsibility is lost. The ignorance plunges society into a dark age and as The Good Book says, “”My people die for lack of knowledge” Hosea 4:6.
From the late 1970s until her death in 2012, Highland Park resident Faith Lods steered at the helm of HPca right after Lake View West Subdivision was built by HO Weaver until she died in 2012. She owned homes in Highland Park Subdivision and the newly built Lake View West. She served on the board of Highland Park Community Association and at the same time was a charter member of the Lake View West homeowner’s association. Faith never served on the Highland Park Garden Club as it was dissolved before she moved into the area. She was a professional administrator who kept company with lawyers, and businessmen in the area (her husband was in the fishing industry in Mobile and last I heard his son still had his hand in the business here in Mobile). According to the writings of Faith Lods she was knowledgeable in the old ways of managing community and also understood the new laws and ways and adapted comfortably to them. She administered to at least three different communities at the same time one being this association and the other two being actual HOAs where she levied liens on homes on Dauphin Island for nonpayment of dues. She did that work until the day she died in 2012.
When she died in 2012 the Bodiford’s paid the property taxes on the lake. I moved into the neighborhood in April 2014 when I married my husband who had been here since 1994. he was friends with the original HPca charter member Johnny Grovenstein and when Mr. Grovenstein got up in years my husband would bring him hot meals to help him with his supper. It was peaceful. Then in 2015 Saijee Ryals, a realtor, moved into the Highland Park neighborhood and raised an HOA newsletter. Ed McCusker began paying the taxes and hand delivering the HOA newsletter that included two subdivisions with shadowy participation of the third one with mentions of gatherings and everybody “voting”. Signs were printed and placed throughout the neighborhood to collect for “HOA DUES” starting in 2015 which raised quite a few eyebrows.
The lake was taking care of itself but there was an uprising of concern that the lake was “low”. At the same time these same “HOA” neighbors began to “repair” the dam themselves without license or ownership and applied work to the dam that actually damaged it further. I was watching the wildlife habitat being destroyed as the lake was drained and refilled over and over without ownership, or license. I saw animals dying, it was traumatic to me. I tried to reason with these people but they went hard against me. They formed a sub committee paying for legal advice to take down HPca and raise an HOA instead. I protested because I knew we could get an emergency FEMA grant to repair the dam to save the wetlands. They didn’t want that. So the war began. The more they “fixed” the dam the weaker it became. The “HOA” consortium of three different subdivisions began to have regular meetings to take public action against me and my message. They wanted to make sure I was publicly and permanently smeared as far across Mobile as possible. Their mission was and still is to cancel me. They hatched a calculated and deliberate mission to destroy me and drive me out so they could take that land for the lakesiders and for the HOA scheme that the real estate agent wanted to build and profit from. They were destroying the dam with their unlicensed “fixes.” They had a plan and if they couldn’t have the lake their way then no one was going to have the lake.
