EDITOR:
Dale Brouk wants to be your next Platte County Presiding Commissioner. He wants you to see the smiling man on his campaign signs. He would prefer you not look at his backyard because behind his rock wall, on a piece of public land that has never belonged to him, is a small strip of grass my husband and I have been fighting to get back for five years.
We are a retired couple that has lived on N.W. 70th Street since 2016. Behind our house is, by public record, part of a public road owned by Platte County. For years, the family before us and then ourselves mowed it and cared for it. We never claimed it, for it belongs to the public. In 2021, our neighbor, Dale Brouk, told us to stop. He said the land and road belonged to him. It was not his road and never was.
We have spoken with the City of Parkville, Parkville’s city clerk, our own licensed land surveyor, Platte County Planning and Zoning, and Platte County ‘s Engineer. The road belongs to Platte County and was not legally vacated or annexed. The National’s Eleventh Plat, which arbitrarily included the end of N.W. 70th Terrace, was erroneous. That land was claimed by Dale Brouk as part of his backyard. No legal steps that allow public land to become private property, just an incorrectly drawn line on the plat.
Dale Brouk is the COO and CFO of Five Star Lifestyles, the company that developed The National and was the homeowner’s association president. He sat at the top of the entire community’s chain of trust. While he sat in that position, Dale had the public road behind our house torn out and kept for himself. A textbook definition of self-dealing.
In 2021, he verbally stated to me he would “deed it back to me when he sells his house.” I did not get satisfaction from that remark. Our attorney sent Dale Brouk a written demand to return the land. He did not negotiate. He did not even bother to deny it. Instead he went to the Platte County Recorder’s Office and filed a new deed putting his property into a family trust. When he completed that task, he went to the courthouse to bury his title behind another layer of papers based upon incorrect information that I believe he knew to be untrue.
I wrote a letter to him in August 2023 stating why he did not own the property and his reply was “I consider this matter closed.”
I am not the only story about how Dale Brouk treats the people he serves when he was the homeowner’s association president for The National. If you are one, do not keep it to yourself. Tell it now before he takes office. The voters of Platte County deserve to hear these stories.
If he is willing to take a small patch of grass that is not his to take, what is he going to do at the head of the Platte County Commission? What is he going to do when the developers come knocking? What is he going to do when organizations sit down with him with millions of dollars in tax breaks and zoning favors? What is he going to do when friends ask for special deals? Is Dale Brouk going to choose the taxpayers of Platte County?
I urge every voter in this county to research for yourself Dale Brouk’s actions.
Thank you for your time reading this letter.
--Julie A. Parnell
Parkville
