Sad Day For Me . . .

Today, I resigned as Vice President of Walter Morrison Farm, Inc.  I had to do that onerous task.  I am in the midst of family fight. It is a sad day for me.

My family which owns Angeles Plantation (Walter Morrison Farm, Inc.).  On the plantation is located the old family house, or as I refer to it as Angeles House.  It was built in 1910 or there abouts, cypress, sits on raised piers and located on the front of the farm across the road from the Mississippi River levee.  My cousin, Chris lived there with the provisio that he would take care of the place.  Unfortunately the house had fallen into disrepair and we had to oust Chris for failing to do what was necessary to maintain the house.

So most of the family wants to sell the house and bit of land with it to relative, a descendant but not as yet a stockholder in the farm.  That really has little bearing on the issue, it is the selling of the land.  Selling the land is but the first step in eventual break up of the place.  Some other stockholder will want some more money and request something else to be sold and in time, it will break up.  Many of the old plantations along the Coast of Pointe Coupee have been broken up,  and sold off.  Some do not even have remnants of the old family home.  Our family has had possession of this place since 1856, or at least part of it. 

It is prime land for farming.  It is also prime land for industrial development.  It fronts directly on to the Mississippi River; it has major gas pipe lines through it, it has a major railroad through it, and it has a major state highway through it.  So it has unlimited water, gas, and transportation access from water, rail and trucking.  It is a jewel in the rough.

Yet the sale of just a little bit of our land to satisfy the sale of the family house is troubling.  One can not make deed restrictions to ensure the house to sold back.  Thus a hole is developed in the plantation where the house is owned by someone else.  I want to sell the house and give an 50 year lease to the family member buyer.  That was apparently not acceptable.  The powers to be are going ahead with the sale.

The family has a Usufructs Agreement regarding the use of the land fronting the Mississippi River.  The sale will abrogate the Usufructs Agreement.  That agreement is set to expire noon, May 28, 2020.  There is no written provision to prematurely end the agreement.  Yet the corporation ownership, deems if a 70% majority of the stockholders want to sell the house and land, it can do so.

Well we shall see what the courts have to say about that. And that is why I am no longer on the board of directors and saddened.