Here is a story of a Surfside lakefront homeowner versus the Surfside political elite.

Mrs. C has a home on the Surfside lakefront for 17 years. She is a widow, on a narrow fixed income with failing health.

In all those years she was never contacted by Surfside tree enforcers.

When the Surfside board convened a committee — the famous Ad Hoc committee — to address tree heights versus the environment, Mrs. C volunteered. She was even elected chairperson of the committee.

She served for a year. After the Ad Hoc committee was closed, she received correspondence from a board member that, due to her political views about trees while on the Ad Hoc committee, the board member was going to everything to stop Mrs. C. A letter signed by nine political elite also attacked her volunteer work.

Then the tree complaints started against Mrs. C.

She got the first complaint, then topped her trees. (Since she lives on the lake, topping trees is against the county land use law, by the way.) She got a letter thanking her for obedience.

Then she got another letter saying, “Top your trees again.”

When she sought to appeal, which a right is guaranteed in the Surfside covenants, Mrs. C was told by the board president she could not appeal.

Then the fines started, which in Surfside become a lien against a home.

Then Surfside HOA publicly admitted its own lakefront trees were too tall. But they decided it is too expensive to top their own lakefront trees, but she must. One rule for elites, one for political outsiders.

Mrs. C now lives in fear, convinced — and the evidence supports this — that she is being forced out of her home by political insiders out target an unbeliever. They are using the strings of power to selectively rule.

Mrs. C lives on a fixed income. Her health is deteriorating and she just wants to live her days in peace in the small home she shared with her late husband, without daily fear of being made homeless.

STEVEN WALLACE

Oysterville Road