While I am not sure who has called the meeting in Delavan (maybe the city) this is the latest on Jim's attempt to save Lake Lawn Lodge. It sounds like some of the banks in the deal are using their leverage to minimize their losses. Nothing against that but some transparency in this issue might make people change their minds. And remember if you want to go to the meeting do it with the intent of, as Jim said, "
helping make Thursdays meeting a positive success", leave your torches and pitchforks at home.
In case you are not aware they are holding a special meeting at 7:30pm Thursday at Delavan City Hall. This meeting was called to discuss the fate of Lake Lawn Lodge. I had put together a group of investors to purchase the resort. While I believe we had put together an offer based on a price that the lead bank said they would accept. We were turned down because all 13 banks involved could not come to agreement. The purpose of the meeting, in my mind, is to discuss the flaw in the system that will prevent any offer from being accepted in the future.
These 13 banks are represented by Anchor Bank. To date we have identified only three other banks out of the other 12 involved. We believe that all of these banks signed an agreement where they let Anchor Bank represent their interests in exchange for keeping their names out of news and the right for each of them to have an equal vote on the sale. In other words any one bank, on its own, can hold up the sale. We have been told that our offer was approved by 9 banks and rejected by 4. They never countered our offer but simply said they could not agree.
The problem as I see it is these banks would rather hide in the cover that Anchor Banks provides rather than deal in the light of day. To them it’s all about the money and little about doing the right thing for this community since most of the banks don't even do business in this area. We have asked Anchor many times for the list of their partners in this foreclosure action but still have not received anything.
The BIG question is - Are we going to let 4 banks alter the future of Walworth County without giving anyone a reason. We need to create a platform where future offers can be discussed in an open forum where the banks, in the light of day, can go on record if they agree or disagree and the reasons why. We have heard that the banks that are owed the most are in favor of the deal while the banks that are owed the least are against it. Sounds to me as if the little guys are trying to get more from the big guys. Meanwhile Lake Lawn goes down the toilet.
Time is not on our side. The banks said that they will not hire anyone to maintain the golf course. That means that within the next 3 months, without proper maintenance, the golf course will turn into another Hillmoor. If that happens you will have to start over and spend millions rebuilding the golf course and the earliest you would have a course to play on would be midsummer in 2013. Without a golf course you lose a major reason people would want to come to the resort. The golf course is the tip of the iceberg we see above water .If it goes, the total collapse of the entire resort is not far behind. Then like some developers want, it will be sold off in pieces.
This is not about my group buying it. In fact we were told in a very around about way that if we brought any public pressure to this sale. That they would make sure we were not the buyers. I guess (like my Mother used to always tell me) I don't listen very well.
Let’s not have the beauty of Lake Lawn taken away from people that don't have our best interests at heart.
Some things are worth fighting for and I believe this is one of them.
I appreciate your support. Please feel free to forward this email to anyone you believe would be interested in helping make Thursdays meeting a positive success.
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