Letter dated 11/02/2008:

As you may already know from the article in today’s Capital, the Court of Special Appeals ruled against us in the beach strip lawsuit. They basically sided with Judge Loney on every count. You can read the entire 71 page opinion on our web site at www.hillsmereshores.net. The article in the Capital was mostly accurate with one glaring exception. The article says that the plaintiffs now own the entire beach strip from the beach to the marina. That is not true. The only property that the community has lost is the land between the three plaintiff’s lots and the water. The land between the other 14 lots and the water still belongs to HSIA and the community.

So, is it now over? The best answer I can give is, perhaps. The Court of Appeals, that is higher than the Court of Special Appeals, can decide to review and rule on the case, or any part of it, on it’s own. It is possible, although unlikely, that we could ask the Court of Appeals to review the decision. There would need to be some specific legal issues that probably don’t exist in our case.

There is another interesting fact that may still allow us to control the beach strip and eventually restore it to a sand beach as it was when the community was created. As I reported in the May Sea Breeze, because Hillsmere was part of a land grant made in 1736, we may own past the high tide mark out to where the land was then. In this case, even though the lawsuit gave the plaintiffs ownership to the current high water mark, we would own the remaining land. We will have more information on this in the near future.

I was quoted correctly in the Capital when I said that I was not sorry that we fought this fight. Even if the letter of the law supports the plaintiffs, adverse possession is still taking something that belongs to someone else. In this case it was taking your property. The HSIA board has believed from the beginning that we had a moral and ethical obligation to defend community property from this kind of seizure. The total cost to our community was about $57,000. That’s a lot of money that could have been used for other purposes. However, the cost to each Hillsmere property was just $46.50. That’s the entire cost, including the land surveys. We felt that was a reasonable price to pay to try to protect our community and it’s property.

I received a voice mail yesterday from Judy Steinberg. She recently moved from her home at 103 East Bay View to Baltimore. Although not one of the plaintiffs, she was constantly attacking me and the board on many issues, including the beach strip. She was the one who forced us to hire the riparian rights expert last year that led to the discovery of the 1736 land grant. In her message she taunted me, singing over and over again “you’re a loser, you’re a loser”. She also said how much happier she was to be living in Baltimore instead of Hillsmere. I’m glad she found happiness, it works for me.

-Bill Shuman
President, Hillsmere Shores Improvement Association