Editor’s note: This summer, you can swim in Oswego Lake. That’s thanks to Mark Kramer and Todd Prager, two local men who sued the city of Lake Oswego 13 years ago for blocking the public from accessing the water. But it’s also thanks to WW, which first reported that private security was kicking people off the lake, which is lined by mansions. Kramer says he was first compelled to take legal action by reading stories by then WW arts and culture editor Martin Cizmar. “In 2012, I read a Willamette Week article suggesting that the lake was open to the public,” he says now. “I took that as inspiration. For me, that was how this journey started.”
This story first appeared in the March 7, 2012 edition of WW.
Carrying a big green kayak down the sidewalk in Lake Oswego gets attention…