Late last week we sent a letter out to our membership with an update on the Clary Lake dam purchase effort explaining where we are, what’s up ahead, and what to expect. We also sent the letter out by email to those members for whom we have email addresses, just to get the message out a little faster. If you’re a member and have given us your email address but did NOT receive the email, please check your spam folder! I’m not sure why, but typically only about 2/3 to 3/4 of the emails we send actually get opened, though in the unsolicited email world, that’s actually a pretty high response rate. Now that most people have received the letter, we wanted to post it here for general consumption since there are a lot more people than just CLA members who are anxiously awaiting news:
Dear Clary Lake Association Member:
At a hearing in Federal Bankruptcy Court in Portland on June 7, the judge approved bid procedures for the sale of the Clary Lake dam and scheduled a deadline for objections and bids of Noon on June 28. The court also scheduled a July 5 hearing date to act on the Sale Motion. Sale of property by a Bankruptcy Court is done by public auction, and we started the bidding process with our $80,000 offer for the dam when the Sale Motion was filed back on May 22. Anyone wishing to bid on the dam has until Noon on Thursday, June 28 to submit their bid along with a $20,000 cash deposit and further evidence of their ability to pay should they win the auction. The minimum bid required to beat our $80,000 offer has to be at least $93,400, an amount set in advance by the court (subsequent bids have to be at least $1000 higher than the previous bid). Should someone submit a valid bid before the deadline, an auction will be held at 2 PM on June 28 at the offices of Drummond Woodsum in Portland. If there is going to be an auction, we intend to take part in it.
We have never thought there would be any competing bids for the Clary Lake dam given the costly repairs, the underground tank (see below), and the Water Level Order which as been recently upheld by the Lincoln County Superior Court. Nonetheless, the Board feels and our attorney agrees that we would be remiss not to be prepared to respond should a bidder surface on June 28. At a meeting on June 14 the Board reaffirmed its commitment to owning the dam and agreed to compete in such a bidding process should the need arise.
We do want you to know that in the event that we are forced to bid higher in order to buy the dam, it will be necessary for us to raise additional funds so the repairs can go forward in a timely manner. You have already been incredibly generous, and we currently have no plans for a new fund raising campaign. However, if any of you have suggestions for additional funds that the Board might pursue, or might be willing yourself to contribute again, please let me or Secretary Fergusson know confidentially.
We fully expect the sale of the dam to the Clary Lake Association to be approved by the Court on July 5, and we plan to go ahead this summer with permanent repairs to the dam. To this end we have been working with an experienced contractor. On or about July 1st we’ll file the required Permit By Rule application with DEP to cover the work on the dam, which should commence around July 15 and take 2-3 weeks. As soon as we actually own the dam we’ll also be filing the necessary paperwork with DEP to transfer the Water Level Order to the Association. All Clary Lake shore owners and people who own land directly across the road from the lake will receive a notice in the mail of this proposed transfer this week. A legal notice will also appear in the Lincoln County News on June 21.
You may also have heard of the discovery of an abandoned fuel storage tank on the dam property. This tank was abandoned in the early 1960’s, we think, and by law must be removed at the land owner’s expense. In theory it would be Pleasant Pond Mill LLC’s responsibility to deal with the tank but given that Mr. Kelley is in bankruptcy, that’s just not going to happen. We didn’t learn about the tank until after fundraising was already well underway, and after some investigation we concluded that it was not going to be an insurmountable obstacle to our purchase of the dam.
The Board is confident that we will be successful in our attempt to purchase the Clary Lake dam! We will send out an update immediately following the Court ruling on July 5th or when more information becomes available. Also keep an eye on the CLA website as we’ll likely post updates there as well. If you have questions, please get in touch.
Respectfully,
Malcolm Burson, President
Clary Lake Association
We’ve already received some favorable feedback from members affirming that yes, they want the dam, they want it fixed, and they want it soon and they’re willing to donate more money if necessary to accomplish our goal.
No really! The Clary Lake Association’s 
I got a call this afternoon from my old friend, Robert Giampetruzzi. He called to tell me that his mother, Roberta Giampetruzzi died last night after losing a battle with Alzheimer’s disease. She was 93.
Today (May 15, 2018) marks the official end of our Spring 2018 “Buy the Dam” fundraiser and we would like to publicly acknowledge and thank our (anonymous) matching donors and by name, those other individuals, members and non-members alike, who have helped make our campaign such an outstanding success. We have reached our fundraising goal of $125,000 and we are extremely gratified by the outpouring of support for our efforts to buy the dam and protect and preserve Clary Lake. Donations arrived not just from people in our local communities of Whitefield and Jefferson, but also from people from elsewhere around Maine, and around the Country. Donations are expected to continue to arrive over the coming weeks, and the funds will be put to good use. There will be more work to do, and ongoing recurring expenses that need to be covered so if you haven’t yet 
I’ve sent emails to our Membership 3-4 times in the past few months including one yesterday afternoon. Generally only about 3/4 of them get opened. Now, by unsolicited commercial email standards (a.k.a. Spam) that’s a fantastic open rate, but I’m not sending spam, I’m providing important news and updates of special interest to our Members and if possible I’d like to see ALL of the emails opened. If you are a Clary Lake Association member and you haven’t seen any emails from us in recent weeks, chances are the emails are getting dumped into your spam folder. So first, check your spam folder! You may have to train your email program that emails received from webmaster@clarylake.org are not spam (generally you just open the message and click the “not spam” button). The other possibilities are that we either don’t have your email address (19 of our current 138 members have not provided us with an email address) or we have the wrong address. None of our emails have bounced, but not all mail hosts still bounce bad addresses; some do, some don’t. Therefore, if you are a CLA Member, have an email address but haven’t received any emails from us, please 
We’ve been busy! Our original matching donor cut off at $45,000. We have actually managed to secure another matching donor (who also wishes to remain anonymous) who will match up to an additional $10,000 worth of donations! Seeing as how we’re currently at almost $107,000, an additional $10,000 in donations along with these new matching funds will push us over the top of our phase 2 fundraising goal of $125,000. This means we should be able to make permanent repairs to the Clary Lake dam this summer, rather than having to wait a year. Our fundraising success has been incredibly gratifying and shows just how much people want this water level crisis to end. If you haven’t donated to our fundraising campaign yet, please consider doing so at your earliest opportunity. Checks may be sent to:
We reached our initial Phase 1 fundraising goal of $90,000 much sooner than expected and while the Board hadn’t discussed trying to raise additional funds for permanent repairs so soon, it only makes sense that we maintain our forward fundraising momentum and move right into Phase 2 fundraising without delay! We needed the initial funds to purchase the dam in a relative hurry, however Phase 2 fundraising can proceed at a somewhat more leisurely pace. The money is to pay for engineering services and for permanent dam repairs which we won’t need to spend for a while. We have only begun working on getting prices and we won’t have a firm budget for the work yet. However, some preliminary estimates we’ve received indicate we’ll need at least $30,000 for this second and final phase of effort, possibly more, hence a new fundraising goal of $125,000. We may need to revise that figure upward but for now it seems like both a realistic goal and an achievable one. I haven’t felt the need to reset our donation thermometer and have instead just added $35,000 to the original $90,000 goal giving a new goal of $125,000. The money all goes into the same pot, so to speak. Any money left over after permanent repairs are completed will be use to fund ongoing dam maintenance and repairs. Owning the Clary Lake dam is a big commitment and we’re taking it seriously. 
In only two short weeks of fundraising we have met our phase 1 goal of $90,000!!!! Many, many thanks to everyone who contributed, and special thanks to our patron who has matched donations dollar for dollar. I’m truly grateful for the outpouring of support, financial and otherwise, shown by our members, other lake shore owners, and friends of Clary Lake in the surrounding community.
A quick reminder for our Clary Lake Association Members: we’re holding a Special Membership Meeting this coming Wednesday April 4th at 5:00 PM at 
A quick reminder that a hearing for oral arguments in the Clary Lake Water Level Order Appeal is scheduled for tomorrow, Tuesday February 6th at 1:30 PM at the Lincoln County Courthouse in Wiscasset. The hearing is expected to last about 1 hour. I wrote about this in a 
Last Tuesday September 5th CLA Board member Jane Chase and I and my wife Margaret attended the Lincoln County Commissioners meeting in Wiscasset to update them on the current status of the Clary Lake water level crisis. The meeting which lasted about 30 minutes came about as the result of a chance meeting between CLA President Malcolm Burson and County Administrator Carrie Kipfer at a