Crystal Lake park board revisits ‘lake wars’ — to which new board president has long ties

New leaders on the Crystal Lake park board are focusing attention on what legal rights the district has — and doesn’t have — over the city’s namesake lake, in hopes that they can put an “end to the lake wars” that have spurred lawsuits and strife between the district and lakefront property owners.

During a recent park board meeting, the “lake wars” and so-called riparian water rights were frequently brought up in heated debates among commissioners on where the district’s authority over the lake starts and ends.

Others on the deeply divided board questioned why the issue was being raised at all and why now.

The issue dates back years but heated up after the spring park board election.

A board majority

A group of lakefront property owners gained a board majority in the April election and have made a series of swift changes — including replacing a community lake advisory group with an area homeowners’ association — prompting criticism from municipal officials, as well as community members who staged a recent protest and have turned out at meetings to object.

Riparian rights refer to those granted to landowners over the use of water that their property abuts. These rights have gotten murky in the past as the park district, Crystal Lake, Lakewood and private residents all border the lake.

In fact, the “lake wars” go back decades, as do new board President Frederick Tiesenga’s family ties to the conflicts as lakefront property owners, records show.

As early as the 1970s, a group of lakefront homeowners sued the park district, challenging the district’s authority to regulate the use of the lake — specifically boat registration and licensing enforcement, according to park district records.

Multiple lawsuits ensued over the years, including one involving current board member Tiesenga and his family members listed as lakefront property owners, records show.

A 1983 appellate court ruling in the original lawsuit found the Crystal Lake Park District did not have the authority to regulate boats on the lake, records show.

Continued legal battles

But that didn’t settle things.

A 1995 lawsuit filed by the park district challenged lakefront owners — including an entity called the “Tiesenga Family Real Estate Partnership” — who had filed a lawsuit against the district seven years earlier, records show. The court declared the district owned all of the bed of Crystal Lake, except for certain portions that abut some private properties.

Former park district attorney Scott Puma had provided a summary of previous lawsuits in a 2019 letter to the park board. That was prompted by park district rules, new at the time, over piers built on the lake by adjacent homeowners. Those rules created more pushback from lakefront residents.

Puma at the time advised, based on his review of the legal history, the park district owns the lake bed but does not have legal authority to regulate all of the lake.

Although there was some talk of whether the board wanted to take the matter back to court, Puma wrote: “Recognizing that a lawsuit would be an expensive venture, which would also draw attention away from other projects, this may not be a fight worth fighting right now.”

New board actions

The newly elected board majority, including Tiesenga, voted at its first meeting in May to undo some of the pier rules that went into place in 2019.

Then the board removed the park district from the intergovernmental Lake Ecology Agreement with the village of Lakewood and the city of Crystal Lake. That occurred during a June meeting, at which multiple decisions resulted in public outcry.

After Lakewood and Crystal Lake officials released letters criticizing the park district’s withdrawal from the agreement, the park district created a new “contract” that seemingly mirrors the previous agreement. Tiesenga said the distinction is that the park district will act as an “agent, not as a governing peer of Crystal Lake and Lakewood.”

“The reality is the park district does not govern the lake,” he said. “Our role is running two excellent beaches and helping manage the weeds. This new arrangement reflects that truth clearly.”

Executive Director Jason Herbster countered Tiesenga’s statements, saying he views all intergovernmental agreements as contracts, and that the park district should be seen as an equal partner since it will be taking on all of the ecology responsibilities.

“That’s kind of how government works,” Herbster said. “We contract with each other through agreements.”

Park board members recently voted 6-1 to move forward with the contract and seek approval from Crystal Lake and Lakewood. Commissioner Cathy Cagle cast the sole no vote.

Lakefront resident hired as attorney

In a further attempt to put the debate over riparian rights to bed, Tiesenga and park district attorney Eric Anderson, a previous park board member, suggested the district bring in a law firm that would settle exactly what rights lakeshore property owners have.

“The idea is to end the lake wars,” Anderson said of hiring an outside attorney.

Cagle suggested that lakefront property owners can hire their own attorney if they want to figure out what their rights are.

“The only people talking about the lake wars are the people who live on the lake,” Cagle said. “Don’t ask the 35,000 people in the park district who pay taxes to pay for your definition of your property rights.”

Cagle motioned not to go forward with hiring the outside law firm, which passed on a 4-3 vote, with Commissioner Richard Hickey going against his usual voting bloc.

That bloc generally has been made up of Tiesenga, Hickey and fellow park board members Keith Nisenson and Jason Heisler, all of whom, along with Anderson, have properties on the lakeshore, according to previous candidate filings.

Tiesenga, Nisenson and Hickey were elected to the park board this spring in an uncontested race. Anderson was among the incumbents who chose not to run again and immediately was hired as district attorney by the newly elected board majority, replacing Puma.

Cagle and Commissioner Michael Jacobson asked Anderson and Tiesenga to recuse themselves from any lakefront concerns.

During public comments at a recent meeting, one resident called for removing Tiesenga as board president, while another called for Anderson to step aside as attorney.

Anderson became the district’s new attorney the same day his parks commissioner seat expired at an hourly rate almost 60% higher than his predecessor.

“It was nothing more than a raw, political hatchet job,” Crystal Lake resident and attorney Tom Burney said of replacing Puma with a former board member.