Just at press time Flagpole, along with a lot of other people, including the mayor and some of the commissioners, received an open letter from Patterson and Rebecca Hood to Wes Rogers and James Whitley, partners in Landmark Properties. In the letter, reprinted here, the Hoods plead with Rogers and Whitley to grant an inclement-weather extension to the agreement that their home be moved to the Orange Twin conservation community, a music collective in the woods on the north side of Athens-Clarke County.

Wes & James:

Happy New Year to you both and everyone cc'd here. We hope that each of you have enjoyed the holiday season with the ones you love most!

It is with great hope that we are respectfully asking you both, who we understand have the ultimate power over all decisions within your company, to get behind the moving of our former, but very special, and very old home to the Orange Twin property. Maybe with so many other much more important and pressing matters for Landmark needing your time and attention you haven't fully realized what is even happening in regards to your newly acquired property and what is surely a relatively minor case for your company?

We are asking that you show your support of the moving of the house by granting Orange Twin an inclement weather extension in order to get the house moved, safely and with NO liability to Landmark.

When we were first approached about selling the house, we said, and have always said at every point since, that the top priority for us is the preservation of this house that my wife and I have renovated and lovingly restored and protected for the last 16 years. The house is of historical significance as well as a deeply personal one. It has been our family home for the raising of our children and the lives we have built together. Getting the house moved was the intention and basis for agreeing to sell our property in the first place. We have stated this as our utmost concern at every point in the process ever since you first came to us nearly a year ago.

Rebecca and I couldn't be more thrilled at the possibility of seeing our house end up on the Orange Twin Conservation Community's land, and we hope that you will see that this is what is in the best interest for the house to preserve and continue its history.

Laura Carter and the other shareholders of Orange Twin were ready to meet and turn in all of your requirements weeks ago, and then the rains came. The rains made the ground way too soft for the house to be safely moved by the Jan. 5 deadline. It became too risky for them to go forward with turning in the rest of the requirements, as they would have incurred further costs, without the strong possibility of the house getting safely moved over to their land. Without your company granting an extension it just could not happen. The rain appears to be drying up, and Laura feels like if she was given more time with a stretch of sunny days that she could get the house safely moved and leave the property as promised in our Post Closing Agreement.

So it is with these factors in mind that we find ourselves in the position of begging you to honor what Landmark knew to be our priority from the very beginning. We hope that you both will find it in your hearts to grant Orange Twin this inclement weather extension. This has the potential to be a win-win situation where you become the hero for enabling a wonderful non-profit [501(c)3] to use and save our 100-plus year old house, starting off the new year with an act benefitting the long-term betterment of our wonderful artistic community that has done so much to make Athens a world-renowned destination.

Respectfully and graciously,
Patterson & Rebecca Hood
January 4, 2016

Read The Grumpy Retiree: He’s got some new advice on his Facebook page for setting up your health reimbursement account and other matters as UGA retirees begin life in the brave new Aon-ized world to which the Board of Regents has consigned them. The comments of other retirees on the site add personal experiences to what the grumpy guy is writing. Tune in.