E-M:/ Fisherman's Landing Inc. Board of Directors warning to the public

[HAMILTREEF@aol.com]

My name is Tom Hamilton (retired USFW fishery biologist) and I am now on the Fisherman's Landing Inc. Board of Directors.  I replaced Larry Allison who had to resign for serious health reasons.  This FL Inc. issue is going to explode.  There are way too many complications to cover in only one email.  Therefore, I'll just cover some dollar topics here and more descriptions in later email.

The true future dollar value of the public FL Muskegon Lake front property is far more than an example Dave Johnson's Fisherman Island by almost ten fold.  The city is helping developer John Bultema by claiming the property for stone storage and having their appraiser lowball the value to a measly $1,260,000.  The stone storage is a temporary red herring.  After Bultema gets rid of the stone pile the real John Bultema (a condo/marina developer) will have bigger ideas with the property located near the city future enviro-tech smart park development.  In short, the true future potential of the property is over $20M.  In return Bultema is trading a landlocked piece of potentially contaminated land worth only $630,000 for the new unfeasible FL site.

Just past the future smart park property location is GVSU Lake Michigan Center which found out in court that Muskegon Lake frontage is worth $10,053 per lakefront foot.  FL has 2000+ lake frontage and deep-water dockage.  This article appeared 5/20/02.

Jury sets price for lake rights at $1 million   
http://www.mlive.com/news/muchronicle/index.ssf?/xml/story.ssf/html_standard.xsl?/base/news/1021909511202880.xml

On May 22, 2002 the Muskegon Chronicle Editorial wrote (not online):

Mart Dock, it turns out, is a gold mine
For generations, Muskegonites have marveled at the West Michigan Dock & Market Corp. property that is arguable one of the city's most valuable.  Exactly how valuable wasn't entirely clear until this week, when a jury award in a water-rights case estimated it at $10,053 per foot of shoreline frontage, or $904,800 for 90 of those golden feet.

The Mart Dock and Grand Valley State University had squared off over a strip of land owned by the Mart that is adjacent to the university's Lake Michigan research station.  GVSU needed more room to turn its vessels around: the Mart Dock wanted just compensation -- certainly more than the $73,000 GVSU originally offered.  The issue at hand was what the rights in question were truly valued at.

To those detractors who say Muskegon Lake waterfront property isn't the modern-day gold mine, think again.  By the jury's standards, the Mart Dock property in total may now be considered as expensive as property in Chicago or in Paris.  We have two reactions to this news:

First, think how much more valuable this property would be if were developed, or was the site of a new cross-lake car-ferry service.  Second, we hope the Muskegon assessor hasn't been reading the paper lately. -end-

Are you now understanding why the FL Inc. board is so upset?  The circuit court jury valuation award decision and the Muskegon Chronicle editorial highlights the real reason the city Muskegon is trying so hard to violate the Public Trust Doctrine to help their buddy developer John Bultema.  The Fisherman's Landing property the city wants to take from the public is really worth something more than $20-million dollars based on the actual length of 2000+ feet of prime Muskegon Lake shoreline.  $10,053/ft X 2000+ ft = $20,106,000+.  Remember, FL also has 20+ acres of land for future development. It will be interesting to see how the city Muskegon uses Enron/Anderson accounting methods to fudge valuations in their proposal to take away and destroy Fisherman's Landing.  John Bultema and wife were also the top 1&2 campaign contributors to Muskegon Mayor Warmington. Hmmm?

Never forget, there is no way an 'honest' MDNR will allow the city Muskegon to steal Fisherman's Landing from the public.  The DNR must approve of the final plans of the transfer because of past state and Federal grant monies used to develop FL over the years.