“BIG CANOE, GA” Private Luxury Community Demands Taxpayer Bailout – using FEMA Hurricane Helene Funds!

A message to taxpayers and to my neighbors behind the gate

Hurricane Helene wrecked lives. Homes gone. Jobs lost. Farms hit. A year later, families across Georgia are still patching roofs, fighting with insurers, and waiting on help. Churches and volunteers are still stepping in. Money is tight. Needs are real.

And here comes Big Canoe—a wealthy, gated resort community—looking to tap FEMA–GEMA hazard-mitigation funds to fix our dam spillway and drainage. After all these years of kicking the can on our responsibilities.

Let’s be plain: this isn’t about building resilience. It’s a bailout for entitled elites—and I say that as someone who lives here.

The truth we have to own (inside the gate)

Big Canoe has kicked the can on dam repairs for years. The warnings were there. The paperwork was there. The permit orders were there. Everyone knew the spillway and drains needed serious work.

What did our leadership do?

They chose clubhouses and golf.
They chose pickleball, bocce, golfcarts, marina toys, water features—everything but the dam.
They chose to spend on the shiny stuff while the legally required work sat.

That wasn’t an accident. It was a priority. And priorities tell the story.

Now, after years of ignoring the basics, the plan is to reach over the gate and grab public disaster dollars to pay the bill. That’s backwards. That’s on us.

“In the real world, suffering is not a line item. Robbing the poor to pay the rich is not policy—it’s an evil.”

For readers outside the gate

You can’t use our private clubhouse. You can’t launch at our private marina on Lake Petit. You can’t play our private golf courses. But you’re being asked to help pay for our long-deferred dam rehab.

Meanwhile, for many…. you are still rebuilding. Your church is still handing out supplies. Your farm is still recovering. That’s the picture.

Disaster money should go first to public needs and real victims—schools, water systems, roads, bridges, and neighborhoods where anyone can walk in without a gate code.

Scarce dollars. Hard choices.

FEMA’s pot for mitigation isn’t bottomless. Every award is a choice. Choosing a private resort over families, farms, and public infrastructure is the wrong choice—on the facts and on the morals.

Let’s talk responsibility

• Public money should serve the public. If the benefit sits behind a gate, taxpayers shouldn’t pay for it.
• Fix basics before luxuries. If you can fund clubhouses and golf, you can fund your dam that sustains an idyllic private boating lake.
• No more stalling. Years of delay led here. The answer isn’t “wait for FEMA.” The answer is do the work—with your own dollars.
• Survivors first. Georgia families still hurting from Helene belong at the front of the line.

To my neighbors: we let this happen

We voted for budgets. We cheered the ribbon cuttings. We read the reports—or ignored them. We own this. That means we fix it ourselves. Not the farmer in Appling County. Not the family in a half-gutted house in Gainesville. US!

If we want to be proud of where we live, we start by paying our own bills—especially the unglamorous ones that keep people safe.

What should happen now

1. FEMA/GEMA: Say no. No HMGP dollars for private, gated amenities. Put that money where the public can see and use the benefit.
2. POA: Pay the bill. Cut the luxuries. Fund the dam. Publish the timeline. Finish the work.
3. Neighbors: Demand it. Show up. Vote your conscience. Tell the board: no more kicking the can, no more chasing bailouts.
4. Everyone else: Speak up. Tell your state and federal reps that disaster dollars must go to public needs and real survivors—not private enclaves.

Final word

Helene took a lot from Georgia. Taxpayers and volunteers have carried the load. The right thing—the American thing—is simple: help the folks still hurting first, and make the people with means handle their own responsibilities.

Big Canoe made its choice for years. Now it’s time to make the right one.
Fix the dam. On our dime. And leave disaster money for the people who truly need it.

Please share this. This isn’t about a few entitled folks in Big Canoe—it’s about putting America’s priorities back in order: people before perks, duty before comfort.

God bless everyone who’s hurting—from disasters, from crime, or from plain hard luck. I’m grateful for how God has blessed me, and I intend to act like it: to give, not take; to fix what is ours, not pass the bill to others.

In Righteousness,
— david / publisher / property owner
Focus on Big Canoe, GA
a publication of The Mountains Voice

PS, as reference, here are some supporting documents to this article:

• A September 17, 2025 Eblast by the Big Canoe POA to Community members in which GM Scott Auer brags about “preparing for the costs of the Lake Petit Spillway replacement for several years. We have the funds to move ahead with this project, and no special assessment will be required for its completion. However, the Board and I feel it would be prudent to explore all outside funding sources that may be available to help offset the spillways replacement cost.”
• A copy of the September 2025 Legally Required Public Notice (including a text only excerpt) that Big Canoe POA published in the local County Newspaper.
• A copy of a 10 Page August 29, 2025 Public Comment that was submitted to FEMA opposing this funding application.  It includes not only technical and procedural violations that the Big Canoe POA is trying to avoid complying with – it also directly deals with the immorality of this elite Community trying to innapropriately suck disaster funding away from those who deserve it – solely to pick up the tab for their years of irresponsibile refusal to properly maintain their private dam.