A Board that Continues to Divide

With permission, we are sharing this personal story with owners in Lake Naomi. The author has agreed to be identified. If you have a story you'd like us to share too, please simply reply to this email for consideration.

To: All members of the PPCA and TTCA, Response to Nancy Dressel

From: Bruce Freedman, Homeowner in lake Naomi for 16+ years

Good Morning,

My name is Bruce Freedman. I grew up in Lancaster PA, the oldest of 4 children. My wife and I purchased a home in Lake Naomi after renting for one weekend and have enjoyed the past 16 years vacationing there with our two sons and extended family. By way of background, I am NOT part of any investor group. Rather, I am a university professor. I obtained a B.S. from Dickinson College. Then I obtained an MS. from Penn State University on full scholarship. I subsequently matriculated at the University of Pennsylvania where I obtained a combined V.M.D., and Ph.D., again with a full academic scholarship. I am a professor at Penn (I’ve been here for 40 years) where I teach, run a research lab, and direct a campus wide imaging facility. I serve as chair of the world’s preeminent graduate group where young scientists train to develop vaccines and gene and cell therapies for devastating diseases. I have spent my entire adult life teaching and mentoring graduate and professional students and working to better the academic community here. At the same time, I run a research lab where highly critical thought, real data, and statistics are used to test and often disprove hypotheses and develop an accurate mechanistic understanding of immunity. The goal of this work is to develop therapies for infectious diseases and cancer.

Coming from this analytical and quantitative background, with a lifelong focus on data based decision making, it is incredibly disappointing to observe the approach used for governance by the PPCA, TTCA and LNC boards. I am perplexed and appalled by their apparent aversion to data based decision making. These boards have repeatedly failed to perform legitimate and honest analyses when formulating long range plans. Instead the boards and managers rely on unsubstantiated anecdotes, stories, and upon their own instincts and bias. An unfortunate consequence of this approach is that narrow perspectives amplified and validated within the board echo chambers, devoid of critical external scrutiny, drive and misdirect monumental decisions that impact our future. Though likely well-intentioned, board members like Nancy Dressel are UNQUALIFIED, and UNELECTED, yet they are allowed, virtually unchallenged, to make key decisions that define and degrade our community. The boards are selected largely from an inbred “sewing circle.” operated in secret out of disdain for challenges to their authority and direction. This inevitably produces stale ideas that are contrary to the health and vitality of this community. The board's intellectual sloppiness is further tempered by a desire, seemingly born out of a sense of self-righteous entitlement, to impose their individual morality on the community. The boards recognize that many of their views would be rejected out of hand if the real impact of these decisions was explored carefully. For more than 3 years now, the boards have worked to justify their single minded dream to radically restrict property rights established 50+ years ago as a foundation of this community. They deride the long tradition of welcoming others into our homes, They caution us against a threat that they cannot or will not define, but have magically determined that more than 4 rentals per summer would undermine the “character” of the community.

This is not the first time this board has tried to restrict rentals. Three years ago, the PPCA board crafted a narrative that sex predators renting homes might infiltrate our community. As you might imagine, this was a baseless threat because there were ZERO reports to substantiate the narrative. Nonetheless, the PPCA board sought to assume control of home rentals by granting themselves the authority to screen each guest against a national background database. They claimed they had the power to determine WHO could rent in Lake Naomi. Interestingly, the board was only concerned with the small percentage of renting visitors, but not the more substantial risks posed by tens of thousands of gratuitous guests invited into our community by owners and the Mountaintop Lodge annually. This effort was rejected by a superior court judge who ordered the PPCA board to work with our group. However, the board rejected the judges' admonition and dismissed our offer to participate in the process of developing rental rules and best practices. The PPCA then and now has shunned our involvement and continues to demonize us and the legitimacy and validity of our concerns and motives.

Regardless, more than 150 of us who own homes in the community continue to work in private to address problems with rentals if they arise. There are virtually none but we nonetheless work to mitigate the possibility. Maintaining a vibrant rental community here is critical as rentals are responsible for virtually all new home purchases and new club memberships and for sustaining the value of this community. By contrast, the board’s actions to restrict rentals have already derailed home sales and values, have driven up club fees you pay, and have undermined this community’s peace and prosperity. Although the PPCA was unable to take control of rentals 3 years ago, the boards doubled down, next arguing that nuisances are the real problem. However, in 2022 the township enacted a strict rental/nuisance ordinance. Undercut again by this inconvenient legal development, the boards now cite “investors who want to turn LN into a resort” as the real real problem. This latest notion is among the most insincere. Let’s be clear, Lake Naomi has been a resort for decades, ever since the community built a golf club, 3 pools, a 19 million-dollar community center, a tennis center, a clubhouse (with a new one planned), introduced pickleball, created 6 beaches, and a host of other amenities! This community is a resort, and the deed restriction, on the heels of club temporary membership restrictions, is geared toward denying “others” access to these resort amenities. Again, no data is used to justify any restrictions on temporary memberships or on rentals. Rather, it seems like Nancy simply has decided that Lake Naomi should be a personal playground resort.

Like 92% of homeowners here, including many who do NOT rent, we use our home flexibly. As we have hectic and complicated lives, and because we are not interested in residing in the community full time, some of us also rent our homes. We do this for diverse reasons that include offsetting the high costs of ownership here, but also to generate additional income that allows us to maintain and improve these homes and our lives more generally. However, the boards believe we should ONLY be allowed to generate a small amount of income sufficient to offset some basic expenses. While there are many reasons to reject this ignorant and baseless metric, my opposition is also rooted in a personal experience. About 6 years ago, our financial circumstances changed, and renting was the only way to keep the home in our family and remain in this community. Like many others, if we had been subjected to ten rentals a year, with only 4 during the summer, we would have lost our home. Regardless, the idea that the boards should dictate how we conduct our lives misses the point. Of real concern is how an unelected board decided how we should engage this community or manage our homes and our lives? Clearly the boards prefer that anyone who opposes their view leave the community. LNC board member Steve Thum makes no pretense about his toxic bias and crystallizes this mindset. He encourages those of us who oppose the deed restriction to “sell your home and get it over with”. Unfortunately, many are doing just that. I choose to fight this misguided effort.

It is important to recognize that unlike Nancy Dressel, many of us were NOT born with the level of good fortune and entitlement she clearly enjoys and believes she deserves. My family did not have the time or finances to rent a home for a month each summer when our kids were young, as my wife and I both worked year-round to secure our future and support our children. Commensurate with limited life experiences, Nancy articulates surprise at the reality of a changing modern world. She believes coaching a sailing team qualifies her for running an HOA. In fact, Nancy Dressel’s tale of service, privilege, and legacy is irrelevant to the debate about deed restrictions. Nancy represents a small constituency with a parochial view of our community that likely never existed even 50 years ago. Among the many missteps she highlights is the premise that restricting access to the community, and home ownership, ONLY to those of extreme privilege and/or wealth, will protect the culture, foster harmony, or promote equity, diversity, and a cohesive membership. Why do they believe that if someone chooses not to engage the community at all, that is not a valid personal choice.

Let’s also consider the deed restriction language. Nancy is ill-informed about the document you are voting on. As in many instances in the past, the PPCA legal team is sloppy, incompetent, and/or misleading the board. They may have intended to limit rentals to 10 per year (and no fewer), but the language their attorney crafted does NOT establish a lower limit, ONLY an upper limit. Nancy’s reassurances to the contrary are fraudulent representations of the document language and no court would agree with her interpretation. This is just another example of the many missteps by an unelected and unaccountable board.

Like most every action of these boards, this has not been a well informed or unbiased process. Indeed, even with their finger on the scale, results of the ineptly crafted survey provide no mandate to restrict our property rental rights. Rather, the actual data did not support their narrative, so the boards simply lied about the results. With no mandate, and without data to support restrictions, folks like Nancy and LNC board member Steve Thum, and community trolls like Ann Hersh, and Nancy’s sister Jill Siegel have gone on the attack. They are desperate to demonize us and our motives. Again, their latest zing is that we are an “investor group”, and thereby are not a part of the community and culture. The rationale goes that as “outsiders” our only motive for fighting this deed restriction must be inauthentic. Clearly, the boards know from public county property records, that commercial investment is virtually non-existent in the Lake Naomi Community. To further sow doubts about our legitimacy they obsess over the choice many of us have made to remain anonymous, suggesting this proves we are outside investors. It should be no surprise, given the abuse to which we are subjected by the boards and these misfits, that we often choose to fight behind the scenes, Many prefer to sidestep direct personal attacks, false nuisance reports, physical trolling of our homes, harassment in official club and HOA communications, and slander on social media platforms. Indeed, I understand by writing this letter, I expose myself to an increase in attacks and harassment. While I do not welcome this, I will not be silenced by these malevolent elements in the community. Ultimately, the profound bias and bigotry enabled, allowed, and ultimately propagated by these boards against their own members speaks to their lack of legitimate or legal governing authority over this community.

In the end, I believe Nancy Dressel when she tells us she is “perplexed” by people voting NO, and I am convinced she believes she knows what is best for all of us. I share Nancy’s quest for answers, but to different questions.

1. I wonder what the real motive is for this misguided and costly deed restriction.

2. I wonder what the boards mean when they seek to preserve the “character” of the community? This sounds creepy. Again, the loose lips of LNC board member Steve Thum may provide insight into thinking by these governing bodies. He publicly stated “Owners of a rental property are typically glad to profit on rentals without regard to race, religion, gender, immigration status, or any other protected class.” Steve’s assumption that bias concerns we articulate reflect owner bias, This conflation highlights his abject ignorance and the board's blind spot toward the discriminatory consequences of its objectives.

3. I wonder why the boards are NOT openly elected. How many of you actually voted for Nancy Dressel. If board members represent the community, why do the openly criticize and dismiss those who oppose this effort (aren’t they OUR boards)

4. I wonder why the boards propagate demonstrably false narratives about their motives and demean those who rent (occasionally or otherwise) by characterizing us as an “investor group” without commitment to this community?

5. I wonder how dictating how we manage our homes and finances will foster long term friendships that last generations? We rent our home AND have developed meaningful and lasting relationships with hundreds in the community, including the dozen or more former renters who bought homes of their own in the community after renting our home.

6. Finally, I wonder how the board’s efforts, which have demonstrably accelerated the rate of property sales in Lake Naomi, would stabilize the “character” and “peacefulness” of the community?

The board's views and actions, more than anything in its history, have divided the community and damaged its character. My goal and those of friends who fight this deed restriction with me, has always been to live and let live, respect and balance the needs of ALL here, seek representative and open governance, in order to preserve the real legacy of an open and welcoming vacation community.