Newspaper articles - not very good for Aquila -
This was published in 2 newspapers this week: Not very good for Aquila:
Aquila Resources stock is trading at about 0.09-cents. If you invested $1.00 in Aquila on January 1, 2013 you would have $0.66-cents today. If you invested $1.00 with Aquila Resources 5-years ago you would have $0.13-cents. If you invested in Aquila in December, 2006 at $2.68 a share you will now only have $0.09-cents left having lost approximately 97% of your money; about $2.59 a share.
Despite the financial losses haven’t all those promised jobs Aquila provided made up for this? Jobs; what jobs? There are no jobs. How about taxes they’ve paid? Well, when losing money you don’t pay taxes and it’s been 10+ years of losing stockholders money – you do that math. Despite going from $2.68 a share to less than $.10, according to financial documents the president of Aquila Resources was paid about $1-million dollars in just the past 3-years. That is not counting the monies paid to his wife and children involved in this “family business”? Making it much more than $1-million! Has any of this been good for Menominee County? No! In fact Aquila Resources, Minerals Processing, VMS Development, Menominee River Exploration and other third parties have caused Menominee County to spend a great deal of taxpayer money due to mineral rights claims they made that they were later forced to remove. In just Menominee County over 900 parcels of land covering about 53,000 acres of mineral rights were claimed by persons associated with Aquila Resources. In Marinette County a similar situation occurred! Certain claims were investigated by the Michigan Attorney General at the request of the DNR. The parties mentioned were instructed to remove those claims. In a letter from the Director of the DNR to me she wrote that if those claims were not removed the DNR would face resolution through the courts.
Menominee County taxpayers and landowners affected by the costs of these claims; recording, re-recording again and again (many thousands of transactions) have caused the County to spend a lot of tax dollars. I estimate $100,000.00 and perhaps more? They’re are landowners that sold properties for less money because someone filed a mineral rights claim against their title stating someone other than the surface owner, the true owner, owned their minerals. Is that fair? Is that legal? What about taxpayer money that could have been used better than to record and re-record again and again claims that had no merit? Is it fair for that the landowners and County taxpayers are the only parties damaged? Should these parties be allowed to keep monies they received when they sold / leased mineral rights someone else owned? Concerned? Contact the County Board: Tell them these companies and persons should pay restitution for what they’ve done wrong!