So who’s planning on attending the hearing in Bangor this Friday? Who’s thinking of it? I think it would be great for a contingent of Clary Lake people put in an appearance. This is the hearing when the Judge will rule on the Sale Motion and if past hearings are any indication, this one promises to be very interesting! If you’re planning on attending, drop me an email and let me know.
The hearing is at the U.S. Federal Bankruptcy Court at 202 Harlow Street, Bangor Me. See the previous post “Bankruptcy Judge to Issue Ruling in Open Court” for more information.
We’ve all been anxiously awaiting a decision from the Bankruptcy Court on the Clary Lake Association’s efforts to purchase the Clary Lake dam from Paul Kelley’s bankruptcy estate. This morning Judge Fagone announced his intention of issuing an Oral Ruling on the Trustee’s Sale Motion in open court at a hearing at 10 AM on Friday September 28th at the United States Bankruptcy Court at 202 Harlow Street, Bangor, Maine. The hearing will be open to the public. A date for a ruling is not the same as a ruling, but I’ll take it. At least now we have an end date for the Sale Motion!
The 2018 Clary Lake Association Annual Membership Meeting was held Saturday afternoon at the old MacDonald farm in Jefferson over looking Clary Lake, now the home of Jessie Spector and Logan Higger and the site of 
A quick reminder that our 
Breaking News From
Oral arguments of the Final Sale Motion hearing took place today before U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Michael Fagone. Trustee Jeffrey Piampiano was represented by attorney Kaitlyn Husar, the Clary Lake Association [CLA] was ably represented by attorney Randy Creswell, and Richard Smith and Aquafortis Associates LLC [AQF] were represented by attorney Louis Carrillo. The Trustee and CLA were to receive 40 minutes combined to present their arguments in support of the Sale Motion, which time was to be split roughly equally between them. Attorney Carrillo was to be given 40 minutes to present his arguments supporting Smith’s and AQF’s objections to the Sale Motion. Finally, the Counsel for the Trustee was to be given 10 minutes for rebuttal. In fact, each party went over their time limits a little bit. Also present at the hearing representing the Maine DEP was Assistant Attorney General Scott Boak and co-counsel Kevin J. Crosman. The hearing started promptly at 10 AM and lasted about 2 hours. No ruling was issued today: after hearing the oral arguments, Judge Fagone took the matter under advisement and said he will issue his Decision and Order just as soon as he can. While I had hoped for a ruling from the bench today, the Judge was presented numerous cases to review and that was far more than he could be expected to do today.
Renewals and new memberships for the 
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:
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.