In an email, the board president of the Continental Country Club HOA in Arizona said that the organization is facing several financial challenges, including the issue over Lake Elaine, the Arizona Daily Sun reported. Jon Held, the president of the association’s board of directors, said the filing will not impact day-to-day operations of the country club, including the public golf course and the Oakmont Restaurant, and won't mean any layoffs. “This filing allows Continental and its homeowners the chance for a fresh start so we can best address several issues,” Held said. “In some cases, these problems predate the current board by years, if not decades. For the good of our residents and those who enjoy our facilities, it was time to take action.” In a media release, the HOA board seemed to attribute most of their problems to recent legal action over Lake Elaine, a man-made lake within the country club that has been the center of controversy for years. First used to store water for the golf course, Lake Elaine is now only aesthetic, but has been leaking water for decades. For every four gallons of water that is pumped into the lake each day, three gallons are lost to seepage into the ground. In 1988, a group of lakeside homeowners filed a class action lawsuit against the HOA that mandated that the HOA should keep the lake full, but so far, no significant repairs to stop seepage have moved forward. In 2017, residents came back and asked the court to hold the HOA in contempt for not following through on its mandate to keep the lake full.
