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 previously 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 over compared to lakefront property owners.

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

Lakefront property owners gain majority on board

A group of lakefront property owners gained a board majority in the spring election and have made a series of swift changes – like ending the DEI policy and replacing a community lake advisory group with an area homeowners association – that have prompted criticism from municipal officials, as well as from 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 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’s 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 enforcements, according to park district records.

Multiple lawsuits ensued over the years, including at least one involving current board Tiesenga and his family members listed as lakefront property owners, as well as Tiesenga’s brother, Ed Tiesenga, representing them as their attorney, according to the records.

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

Lake vandalism in ‘80s, and its ties to new board president

But that didn’t settle things. In 1988, new buoys and a park district patrol boat were vandalized, according to an archived Northwest Herald article. The boat and buoys were spray-painted with slogans such as, “No wake sucks,” “Bag the park district” and “Free Crystal Lake,” according to the published reports.

Fred Tiesenga, 24 at the time, was quoted in an article denying involvement and saying that he did not condone vandalism. About a year later, he pleaded guilty to a citation of defacement for covering some of the buoys with plastic bags, according to the published reports.

Tiesenga acknowledged the guilty plea in response to a Northwest Herald question but said he was very young at the time and only covered the buoys and was not involved in any spray-painting.

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 previous lawsuit against the district seven years earlier, the 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 of Ancel Glink 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 at the time from lakefront residents, including Tiesenga.

Puma at the time advised that, 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.”

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.

Also since the Spring 2025 election, the board hastily 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 5 meeting, at which multiple decisions resulted in public outcry.

After both 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 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 that he personally 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.”

Among board’s swift changes: hiring another lakefront resident as attorney

The new contract, called the Lake Usage Fees Agency Agreement for Collection and Grant of Ecology Funds, lays out identical boat decal fees based on horsepower. Under the agreement, the park district still will sell boat launch access keys and decals, and the revenue still will be used for lake safety and ecology uses.

Park board members recently agreed in a 6-1 vote to move forward with the contract and seek approval from Crystal Lake and Lakewood, with Commissioner Cathy Cagle being the sole no vote.

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, brought forward the option that the district bring in a law firm that would settle exactly what rights lakeshore property owners have.

In a letter to Tiesenga, Chicago-based Levin Ginsburg attorney Roenan Patt suggested a $3,500 advance retainer to start the firm’s services, with hourly rates ranging from $375 to $650. Anderson estimated that the law firm would settle the parameters of riparian rights in a $10,000 budget.

“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 riparian 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 has generally 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 all elected to the park board this spring in an uncontested race. Anderson was among the incumbents who chose not to run again and was immediately 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.

“I think we have evidence here of a long-held hatred over these issues that you’re bringing to the park district,” Cagle said to Tiesenga at Tuesday’s meeting.

Tiesenga said to Cagle multiple times throughout the meeting that she was “out of order.”

Public comments criticizing the new board were made again at the latest meeting. Crystal Lake resident Michelle Thimios called for Tiesenga to be removed as the board’s president, while Crystal Lake resident and attorney Tom Burney called for Anderson to step aside as the board’s attorney and to start an interview process for his replacement.

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

“It was nothing more than a raw, political hatchet job,” Burney said of replacing Puma with a former board member.

So far, Anderson’s monthly billings have been comparable with the previous attorney from Ancel Glink. According to monthly park district expense reports, legal fees totaled $4,420 in June and $3,811 in May for the Staub Anderson law firm. Ancel Glink’s last billings totaled $4,572 in March and $3,312 in February.