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Oswego Lake is free. Liberating it from the homeowners whose mansions line the water took Todd Prager only 13 years.
Oswego Lake, the defining feature of the similarly named suburb Lake Oswego, is a public body of water. Prager, a consulting arborist with a fondness for lake swimming, and Mark Kramer, a local lawyer who enjoys kayaking, have been making that case since 2012, when they filed a federal lawsuit against the city. That year, the Lake Oswego City Council voted to bar the public from accessing the water from three lakeshore city parks. (The vote was a reaction to reporting by WW’s then-Arts & Culture editor, Martin Cizmar, who showed that private guards were chasing away swimmers from a public waterway.)
You don’t have to take our word that the lake is public—or Prager’s or Kramer’s. It’s now a matter of law, thanks to Clackamas County Circuit Judge Kathie Steele, who ordered March 3 that the city of Lake Oswego must immediately allow the public into the lake, and remove “no trespassing” signs within seven months. It was a bitter blow to the Lake Oswego Corporation, a kind of homeowners association that owns much of the lake bed—but, crucially, not the water above it—and fought Prager and Kramer in five different court proceedings.
WW spoke to Prager this week about his victory, the hard feelings that persist in a posh nook of Oregon, and why the case is about more than taking a dip in a rich guy’s backyard.
WW: Have you gone for a swim in the lake since the ruling?
Todd Prager: Not yet. Some kayakers launched on Saturday, including my co-plaintiff. So I helped them get to the water, but it’s a little chilly for me to get out there.
How many courts did you go through to free the lake?
Five different courts. The Oregon Supreme Court ruled in our favor, but sent it back to the trial court to answer the questions of whether the lake was navigable at statehood and also whether the public should be allowed reasonable access from the city parks.
A key point in the case was whether the lake was “navigable at statehood.” What does that mean?
In 1859, the point when Oregon became a state, every waterway in Oregon that you could boat on became state property. So the question was: Was the lake a navigable waterway at that time? Historians and hydrologists came and testified as expert witnesses, and a lot of it turned on archaeological evidence of Native American use of the lake—fishing nets that had been in that area prior to Europeans coming in and using the lake.
How hard did the Lake Corporation fight this?
Extremely hard. They really have a lot of money and power and have been pushing this, even to the point that they have the city of Lake Oswego government fighting on their side even though they’re a minority of city residents. The city has spent nearly a million dollars in public money on it. I would imagine the Lake Corporation has spent much more than that because they provided their own expert witnesses.
Do hard feelings persist?
Absolutely. They’re really frustrated. My co-plaintiff, Mark Kramer, when he went kayaking on Saturday, his car was all beat up pretty badly by somebody who was upset about him accessing the lake. It was a really bad key job; you can see photos of it in The Oregonian. And the same day, I received an angry email telling me I don’t belong in this town and to move away.
What should readers take away from 13 years of this battle to free the lake?
This is a microcosm of what we’re seeing across the country: that you have a special interest that has captured what’s supposed to be a public body, using the public agency for their own good and to monopolize a public resource. That’s one.
Two is, Lake Oswego has a history of exclusionary practices against low-income people and minority people. Many of the deed restrictions on the properties with access to the lake also prevented ownership of these properties by Black people or people of Asian descent. And that same sentiment and fear of others is really what’s carried through today. I have people come and tell me they’re worried about people from Gresham and Hillsboro coming and using the lake, and that’s clearly coded language for low-income minority people they feel will increase crime and lower property values. It is all completely ridiculous stuff, but that’s the mindset that we’re still dealing with.
And it’s a real shame that the Lake Oswego City Council won’t stand up and say no, we’re not going to allow this type of thing to continue. They say they want to be an inclusive community, but they really have done nothing in this case to walk the talk. There’s really a lot to be learned from this story. It’s not just about people who want to kayak in a lake.