the DNR couldn’t wait

Hi everyone. I have been remiss in maintaining our blog. After the December Board of Appeals hearing, I was pretty upset and had a hard time getting going again on the project planning. In some respects, it seemed hopeless and hard to deal with being so far away. I’ve spent some time today in updating the blog to fill in the blanks on what has happened since December. Hopefully, the project can get some traction now and make forward progress.

Over the last month, I have been working with the attorney to respond to the DNR to address their concerns with the building project. We were just about to approach them to go over the issues.

While driving around today, I noticed a new e-mail that popped up on my iPhone. It was a message from my sister, Karen. She had sent a .pdf of a letter that the DNR sent to the Village and our family regarding the mill wall failure. We (our family and the Village) have been informed that the DNR has been notified of the mill wall failure, has inspected the situation, and wants to know what we are going to do to rectify the situation. So, we will be getting back to the DNR next week, with the information we have already prepared. Hopefully, we can work cooperatively with the Village to respond. We have a simple solution – allow the building project and all the problems are solved! Stay tuned;-)

The Building Couldn’t Wait

So, my Dad called today. He left a voice mail message. He never hardly calls, and if he does, he doesn't leave voice mail messages. Not only is this a rarity, the message was 1 minute, 46 seconds long! When I saw that, I knew something was strange…I listened to his message to find that a portion of the south wall of the mill building had fallen into the creek. Granted, it was old, but since the Village was working on the Oakwood Lake drawdown project (see post on date), the “plug” on the dam has been pulled. There is (was) a tree growing out of the side of the mill building for a number of years now. The three foot diameter pipe that serves as the “plug” has been directing water directly at the side of the mill building and the tree since it was opened in January 2007. I think the vibration of the water for over the last year has finally helped the portion of the building just above where the tree is fail. We have talked to the Village President and let him know we will put up a new block wall inside of the existing block wall as soon as possible.