The annual budget was organized by category. Landscaping, common area insurance, legal reserve fund, management company fees, road maintenance. And then, about 2/3 of the way down the second page, a line item I'd scanned past the first time without thinking, "Lake amenity assessment, $150 per household. " I stopped, read it again, read the line above it and the line below it. I picked up the calculator. 82 homes in the subdivision * $150 per household per year * 4 years, the full length of Gail Prescott's presidency, $49,200. $49,200.
Gail had been charging every homeowner in the subdivision $150 a year for lake amenity access maintenance upkeep, the privilege of looking at the water and calling it theirs. She'd been collecting that assessment every single year since the day she took office. And the lake wasn't the HOA's property. It had never been the HOA's property. No transfer on file, no conveyance at the county recorder, no legal basis for charging anyone a dime for access to water that belonged to my family since 1972.
That was the answer. That was why she wouldn't read my deed. Why she wouldn't produce the transfer document. Why she was willing to hire attorneys, stack the board, and turn 40 neighbors into a wall between me and the truth. Because if my ownership became public, if the board actually opened my documents and understood what they were looking at, every single homeowner in that subdivision would want to know the same thing.
Where did our $150 a year go? I closed the budget document and sat there for a long time. The kitchen was quiet. The lake was dark outside the window. I'd been fighting the wrong war.
For weeks I'd been trying to prove I owned the lake. And I did own the lake. I'd proved it to the management company, to the county, and to five board members who'd signed for the evidence and pretended they hadn't. Ownership was settled. I'd won that argument three times over and it hadn't moved the needle an inch because ownership was never the real fight.
The real fight was money. New strategy, stop proving I own the lake, start asking where $49,200 went. I spent the next 3 days building a file, not a legal brief, not a complaint letter. A file organized, tabbed, complete. The kind of file that would let any reasonable person see the full picture in under 10 minutes without needing a law degree.
Tab one the 1972 deed with the lake language highlighted in yellow. Spring-fed lake and all riparian rights thereto. Tab two, the original survey plat showing the lake entirely inside my property lines. Boundary markers circled. Tab three, the certified county recorder documents, chain of title, no transfers recorded, my parcel explicitly excluded from the subdivision's common area designation.
Tab four, the HOA's own annual budgets for the past four years. Each one showing the same line item, lake amenity assessment, $150 per household, four years of fees totaling $49,200 collected on a lake the HOA did not own and had never owned. Tab five, my notes from the management company call, including Terry's statement that no transfer deed existed in their files and that she had never seen one. I made three complete copies, bound each one with a binder clip, one for me, two for the board members I was about to contact. Going through Gail to reach the board was useless.
She'd intercepted my certified letters, controlled every meeting agenda, and hand-fed the narrative to anyone who'd listen. She'd told the board not to open my documents. She told the neighborhood I was trying to steal their lake. Every channel that ran through her was compromised, so I went around her. I called Tom Reeves first, board vice president, retired mechanical engineer, the kind of man who read specifications before he signed purchase orders, or at least that was his reputation.
I was betting on it. Tom, I know Gail has been controlling what the board sees. I sent certified documents to every board member three weeks ago proving the lake is on my property. The county recorder confirms no transfer was ever filed. I need 15 minutes of your time to show you what was in those envelopes, assuming you ever got to open yours.
Silence on the line. A long one. Then, I got the envelope, Cody. Gail told us it was a legal threat from your attorney. She said the HOA's lawyer would handle it and that we shouldn't read it or respond.
So, I didn't. " Tom, she told five board members not to read certified property documents about a dispute the board then voted on without reviewing the evidence. Another pause. "What exactly do you want to show me? " Everything. The deed, the county records, and something in the annual budget I think the board needs to see before it writes another check. He agreed to meet.
I called Sandra Marsh, next board secretary, 3 years on the board, quiet in meetings, but attentive in ways Gail probably hadn't noticed. Sandra picked up on the second ring. I gave her the short version. When I finished, she said one thing that told me everything I needed to know about what Gail had been telling the board behind closed doors. "Gail told us you were planning to sue every homeowner individually. " "That's not true, is it? " No, Sandra.
I'm a man trying to fish on his own property. She agreed to come. The meeting was set for Saturday afternoon, 2:00. My kitchen table. Two board members, my evidence file, and whatever came after.
Saturday morning arrived quiet and clean. Clear sky, still air, flat water. I was on the dock by 6:30. I fished because that was what I did on Saturday mornings, and because I refused to let a stack of violation letters and an attorney's trespass threat take the one routine that still connected me to my grandfather. The rod felt solid in my hands.
The lake was like glass. A great blue heron stood in the shallows on the far bank completely motionless, watching the water with the patience of something that has never been in a hurry in its life. I should mention something, something I hadn't thought of as important to this story until right around then. For 6 years, long before Gail Prescott had ever heard of bylaw 14.3, I'd been part of the state's volunteer conservation program through the wildlife division. Twice a year, spring and fall, I picked up fingerlings from the regional hatchery, drove them to the lake in aerated coolers, and released them along the southern bank.
Bass, bluegill, channel catfish. Once when the division was running a pilot study, I kept detailed stocking logs. I submitted water quality samples every quarter, temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, clarity. I filed semi-annual reports with the division, had been doing it for 6 years straight without missing a cycle. The wildlife division had my name, my address, my phone number, my lake registered in their system as an active conservation site.
I had a contact officer who reviewed my reports and occasionally stopped by to check conditions. I didn't think of any of that as leverage. I thought of it as what my grandfather would have done. You take care of the water and the water takes care of the fish, but it meant something I hadn't fully weighed until that morning the state wildlife division didn't just know about this lake. They knew me, personally, by name.
I was still on the dock maybe an hour into the morning line in the water, and the sun just clearing the tree line, when I heard a vehicle on the gravel road. Saturday traffic, neighbors running errands, kids heading to games. I didn't look up. Then I heard a second engine, heavier, diesel, moving slow. I turned around.
Gail Prescott's silver SUV was parked at the top of the boat ramp, engine off, driver's door open, and behind it, rolling to a stop on the gravel with its roof lights glinting in the morning sun, was a green and white state truck with the Wisconsin wildlife division seal on the door. My stomach tightened. Not fear, recognition. I understood immediately what had happened. Gail had called them.