To the editor:
Anyone who is interested in a first hand look into dysfunction and deception at the local level, needs to take a ride down Lake Leelanau Drive and Sunset Shores. Here, amongst the acres of trees that have been plowed down and the once quiet gravel road that is now torn up, you will meet residents who are being forced to pay a $60,000 Special Assessment Tax or lose their home to a tax sale. All for an overpriced $1,900,000 waste water project for about 30 properties that many along the road don’t want or need since they have perfectly functioning systems in place already. A project that has been mismanaged from an original estimate of $365,000 over a decade ago to now almost $2,000,000. The solution? Push the accountability off by floating a Municipal Bond to pay for the mismanagement and overruns and jam it on the residents with a Special Assessment Tax whether they want it or not. Recently, the township unilaterally gave themselves additional authorization to charge these residents a wide range of future fees, which have not been specified all without corresponding taxpayer oversight or approval. If you think this isn’t going to affect you as a taxpayer in this county since you don’t live on Sunset Shores and it’s someone else’s problem, you could not be more incorrect. When taxpayers are ordered to pay millions for a system they don’t need, while assuming ongoing costs without meaningful oversight, everyone should pay close attention. Jeff Dietel Lake Leelanau
