Two pieces of mail land in most lot owners' hands within a few weeks of each other most years. One shows up as a line item on the Brown County property tax bill: Special Assessment, Cordry-Sweetwater Conservancy District. The other arrives separately, usually with a photo of last summer's Ox Roast on the envelope, asking for a membership check made out to the Cordry-Sweetwater Lot Owners Association. Both carry the initials CS. Both talk about "the lake." Only one of them can put a citation on your boat.
That overlap in language isn't a mailing mixup. It's the actual structure of the place. Cordry Sweetwater Lakes is regulated by a real unit of local government, created by a Brown County court order in 1961, that owns both lakes and enforces the rules on them. Running alongside it, with separate funding and no legal authority to write a ticket, is a volunteer club that owns the clubhouse, keeps the library open, and throws the parties. Knowing which one handles what is the difference between reaching the right office on the first call and bouncing between two answering machines.
A Lake Built Twice, Then Split by a Judge
The community's original developer ran into money trouble in the 1950s, ending in a state court receivership in 1955 and two later bankruptcies. Out of that mess came the Cordry-Sweetwater Conservancy District, created in 1961 by court order under Indiana's Conservancy District Act. The court-approved plan gave the new district three specific jobs: supply and treat water, handle sewage disposal, and develop parks and recreation tied to managing that water. That's the legal reason this community answers to something closer to a small municipal utility than a typical homeowners association. The district today spans roughly 2,300 acres and administers about 1,700 lots, zoned Lake Residence District under Brown County's ordinance, which limits most parcels to single-family homes.
Same Lake, Two Very Different Bills
| Conservancy District (CSCD) | Lot Owners Association (CSLOA) | |
|---|---|---|
| Formed | 1961, by court order | 1954, by the lot owners themselves |
| Funded by | Property tax assessments | Voluntary membership dues |
| Owns | Both lakes, park land, the water utility | The clubhouse and library building |
| Can issue a ticket | Yes, boat patrol citations stay on record for 365 days | No |
| Board | Seven members, one per electoral area | Seven members elected by dues-paying members |
| Meets | Third Tuesday monthly, CSCD office | Fourth Thursday monthly, the Clubhouse |
The two bodies sit on opposite sides of that table, but they're wired together by one rule: a CSLOA representative sits on each of the district's five standing commissions, covering Building, Ecology, Roads, Security, and Water. Members get a seat where the rules actually get drafted. They don't get a vote on the board that adopts them.
The Board You Vote For
CSCD's seven-member board is elected by area, and a candidate has to own property in the area they're running to represent. The district also requires that a majority of the board be resident lot owners, not absentee freeholders. What makes the board hard to flip in a single election is that the seven seats don't turn over on the same schedule. Ted Adolay's Area 7 seat runs through January 2027. Randy Brumfield's Area 1 seat, which also carries the Water Commission assignment, runs through January 2028. Greg Harper's Area 6 seat and Roads Commission role extend to January 2029. Shena Johnson's Area 2 seat, tied to the Ecology Commission, runs through January 2030. That staggering is a built-in brake on a board that otherwise holds real regulatory power over roughly 1,700 properties. The annual meeting where results get read out happens on the second Saturday in January.
The Club You Join
CSLOA was formed in 1954 for a simple reason: to do collectively what individual lot owners couldn't manage alone. Its seven-member board is elected by the membership and meets the fourth Thursday of every month at 7 p.m. in the Clubhouse. The dues that fund it don't touch the lakes, the roads, or the water system. They cover the Clubhouse and library, and the calendar of events that gives the community its social texture:
- Fireworks and the Ox Roast, the club's signature Fourth of July tradition
- The Chili Cook-Off and Block Party
- The Memorial Day Kids Bike Parade
- Pumpkin Carving and Santa's Workshop in the fall and winter
- Recurring Bingo nights, priced at $30 for ten games
- Casino Night, run through the Clubhouse
Members can rent the Clubhouse for $150. Non-member lot owners pay $250. Either way, a $200 refundable deposit is required, and bookings go through clubhouse manager Cassie Harder. None of that money or authority crosses over into how the lakes themselves get regulated.
Where the Line Actually Gets Tested
The gap between the two organizations shows up clearly the moment a rule has teeth. Wake surfing is prohibited on both lakes under Resolution 2024-20, a CSCD action, not a CSLOA one. The district also runs a daily lake status system, color-coded green, yellow, or no-wake, that changes with conditions. On one alert this past May, Sweetwater Lake flipped to yellow, meaning no wake, while Cordry Lake stayed green the same day. Boat decals for the current 2026 through 2028 season are priced by class: $166 for speedboats, pontoons, and jet skis, $86 for fishing boats with 40 horsepower or less, and $10 for nonmotorized craft. Every freeholder has to pass a Boater Safety Course and a Zebra Mussel Prevention course before the district issues a decal, and a citation from the boat patrol stays on the record for a full year. CSLOA has no role in any of it. The club can host a chili cook-off. It cannot write a boating rule.
Public health runs through the same taxing side. Sweetwater Beach gets sampled for E. coli at two locations every week between Memorial Day and Labor Day, with results shared directly with the Brown County Health Department, a function that belongs to the district, not the social club next door.
The Unofficial Record Keeper
One longtime resident has kept an informal community blog running for well over a decade, logging ice thickness on both lakes each winter, lake-clarity rankings from the state's volunteer Clean Lakes Program, board election results, and the occasional beaver sighting. It functions as the closest thing this private lake community has to a local paper, and it exists entirely outside both CSCD and CSLOA. On the ecology side, the district's own Weed Wrangle mornings, led by Ecology Commission member Harold Crooks and required under an America the Beautiful grant, pull volunteers out to clear invasive plants near the fire department, another example of how much of daily life here runs on residents showing up for each other rather than waiting on either organization.
Who to Call, in Practice
If the issue is roads, water, security, wake status, boat decals, or a citation, that's the CSCD office at 317-933-2893. If the issue is Clubhouse rental, library hours, Bingo night, or the Ox Roast, that's CSLOA and the Clubhouse manager. Sixty-five years after a judge split this community's governance in two, the split still holds because it works: one side regulates two of the clearest lakes in Indiana, and the other side throws the party. Neither has to be good at both.
If you're weighing a move onto Cordry Lake or Sweetwater Lake and want a clearer read on what CSCD assessments and CSLOA membership actually mean for a specific lot, reach out to Grandview Lake Property to schedule a private tour or consultation.
