Reported for Lake Lure Insider. This outlet covered Second Mountain's written settlement counter-proposal — presented to the Town Council on the evening of September 8 — in a separate piece, "By the Numbers." Hours after that meeting, Paul and Cara Brock — who write and post as Lured Market & Grill — published a statement on the business's Facebook page in their own words: twelve numbered questions for the Town, along with an account of the settlement history from their side. It's reproduced below, organized under our own subheadings for readability, with a handful of brief editorial notes tying specific questions to facts this outlet has already independently confirmed. The Brocks' characterizations and account of private conversations are theirs, not this outlet's, and have not been independently verified beyond what's noted. The Town of Lake Lure and Town Attorney Marty Benson were not reached for comment before publication; this piece will be updated with any response.

Second Mountain didn't stop at handing out proposal copies Monday night. Not long after, Paul and Cara Brock posted a statement in their own words on the Lured Market & Grill Facebook page — one that reads less like a press release and more like an open letter — twelve direct, numbered questions addressed to the Town, wrapped around their own account of two years of negotiation, an eviction lawsuit, and a hurricane recovery they say never got the grace they were asking for.

We're publishing it close to in full, because it's the most detailed public accounting either side has given of how this dispute actually looks from Second Mountain's side of the table — and because the Brocks explicitly wrote it for public consumption. Where we can check a specific claim against the record this outlet has already built from court filings and Town documents, we've added a short note. Everything else below is the Brocks' own account, not this outlet's reporting.

What is the Town actually trying to accomplish?

"We have been hopeful, but after tonight's Town Council meeting, we still have so much confusion and so many valid questions we hope can be answered. We attended hoping for more clarity about where things stand. The Town again declined to answer any questions pertaining to the pending litigation, and we understand there are limits to what Council may discuss while litigation is ongoing. But after several attempts on our part to resolve this dispute, there are some very basic questions we still don't understand — and we believe the public deserves to understand them, too."

1. What is the Town ultimately trying to accomplish? "After all the sentiment expressed about resolving this, if the goal is still to evict Lured Market, what is the plan for the building afterward — and why is that outcome better for Lake Lure and its taxpayers?"

2. Why hasn't there been meaningful negotiation over the lease and rent terms? "We have repeatedly tried to find a workable path forward. If certain terms of the existing lease no longer make sense, particularly now that the disputed boathouse would no longer be part of Lured's concession operations, why not sit down, determine reasonable terms for what Lured would actually be leasing going forward, amend the lease and move on?"

3. Why hasn't our offer to give up the boathouse claim moved this toward a resolution? "We have offered more than once to relinquish our claim to the boathouse so we can move forward. The boathouse has been at the center of the original dispute. If we are willing to give up that claim in order to resolve this, what specifically is preventing the parties from reaching an agreement?"

4. What happened to the opportunity for compromise after the August 26 meeting? "We left that meeting believing there was a genuine opportunity to resolve this. We followed it with multiple settlement proposals aimed at ending the litigation, giving up the disputed boathouse claim and beginning real negotiations over workable terms going forward. So what happened?"

Editor's note: This outlet's own reporting on the August 26 meeting backs up that there was a visible moment of apparent agreement to build on. Commissioner Jim Proctor said from the dais, "If Second Mountain stops pursuing the boathouse and they adhere to their lease, that's the solution. So, let's do it," and Paul Brock responded, on the record, "I'm happy to let the boathouse go... But we need to stop this litigation," adding "we're not getting something that we think we bargained for" — directly tying the boathouse to the rent figure. Both sides' own accounts agree that exchange happened; what's disputed is what it was actually supposed to settle.

5. Why does the only path forward appear to be either accepting the existing terms as-is or continuing this litigation? "We've been trying to find a middle ground. Giving up the boathouse while continuing under financial terms tied to a different and broader arrangement isn't a compromise. Why aren't the remaining lease and rent terms being negotiated along with it?"

The eviction lawsuit and the rent nobody explained

6. How much has this dispute cost taxpayers so far — and why? How much more is the Town prepared to spend rather than negotiating a resolution?

Editor's note: This outlet has been tracking this directly. Court and public records confirm the Town brought two attorneys to the August 14 mediation (on top of the mediator's own $1,800 fee) and two attorneys again to the September 3 small-claims hearing. On the budget question specifically: the Town's legal-services spending isn't broken out by case, and last fiscal year's total — for the year that ended June 30, 2026, before the mediation, the eviction filing, and the September 3 hearing had even happened — isn't a meaningful stand-in for what's actually being billed now, in the current fiscal year, while this case is active. A separate records request for the actual legal invoices remains unanswered. Full breakdown in "By the Numbers."

7. Why did the Town refuse Lured's August rent and then file its own lawsuit over that rent seeking eviction?

"Lured attempted to pay the August rent. The Town declined to accept it. The Town then filed its own, separate lawsuit seeking to evict Lured based on that rent. After that, we felt we had no choice but to inform our friends and community so people could understand why Lured Market was suddenly facing eviction. If your business, employees, vendors and everything you had spent some of the hardest years of your life building were suddenly at risk — after your community had already faced the worst natural disaster it had ever experienced — what else could you do?

The Town's eviction lawsuit was not filed over the boathouse. It was filed over August rent that Lured had attempted to pay and the Town had refused to accept.

Like so many others in this community, we were navigating extraordinary challenges after Helene — particularly during the early months of 2025, when major roads remained closed or restricted, the lake was closed, and many of the facilities and services that Lured and our local economy depends on were still unavailable or severely limited. We were not asking to avoid our responsibilities. We were asking for a little grace while our entire community struggled to recover. When our rent was paid late, we paid the applicable late fees and interest.

We believe this was a time when grace should have been offered. To now have those late payments raised in litigation without the full context of what Lake Lure and its businesses were facing creates an impression that does not fairly reflect our business or those extraordinary circumstances. We hope people will view that period with humanity. Our community had just endured a devastating natural disaster, and many local businesses needed patience and understanding while Lake Lure found its footing again. We were no different.

What we do not understand is how rent that was offered and refused then became the basis of a lawsuit seeking eviction."

Editor's note: This outlet's review of the Town's own April 2, 2026 termination letter and its actual August 18 termination notice found the same narrowing the Brocks describe here — the April letter leaned heavily on a boathouse "trespass" theory alongside the rent issue, but the notice that actually triggered the eviction case dropped the boathouse theory and rests on nonpayment of August rent alone. The Town's own sworn Answer separately admits it deferred Second Mountain's rent for October, November and December 2024 after Helene, and that Second Mountain asked for four additional months of deferment beyond that.

8. Why file a separate eviction lawsuit over rent when the dispute over this lease was already before Superior Court?

"Lured filed the original Superior Court lawsuit seeking a determination of the parties' rights under the lease, including the disputed boathouse provisions. The Town later filed its own, separate lawsuit seeking to evict Lured based on rent. These are two separate court actions involving different claims. If Superior Court was already being asked to determine the parties' rights under this lease, and Lured had attempted to pay the rent before the Town filed its eviction action, why pursue a second lawsuit seeking to remove Lured before the underlying lease dispute was resolved? And now that we have offered to relinquish the boathouse claim and resolve the original dispute, why can't both lawsuits be resolved together through a workable agreement?"

Questions for the Council itself

9. Has every Council member personally reviewed the actual settlement proposals and responses? "If Council is deciding whether to settle or continue spending taxpayer money litigating, we believe every member should know exactly what each side has offered — not simply a summary of it. We have offered multiple arrangements in an effort to move this forward. Has every Council member personally reviewed them?"

10. Who is ultimately making the decision to continue this fight? "Has every Town Council representative specifically directed the Town's attorneys to continue pursuing the removal of Lured? Has Council considered directing its legal counsel to negotiate reasonable lease and rent terms instead?"

What do the Town's own records show?

11. What do the Town's own records show about the boathouse after Hurricane Helene? "The lake was closed after Helene and did not immediately return to normal operations. It began a limited soft opening in April 2026. What do the Town's records show about the condition of the boathouse during that period, discussions about its future, where the Town's boats were being kept and how the boathouse was actually being used? Those facts matter because the meaning of 'discontinued' became central to the original dispute."

Editor's note: This is the same factual dispute at the center of the Superior Court case. The Town's own Answer admits the boathouse was "inaccessible and temporarily not used" for roughly two months after Helene and "as of January 2025," while framing that as storm-driven, not a discontinuance. Second Mountain's attorney has separately asserted, in a March 9, 2026 letter to the Town, that the police department "had not occupied [the boathouse] since April of 2025" — seven months before Second Mountain took possession. Neither claim has been resolved by a court.

12. What did both sides understand they were agreeing to when this lease was negotiated and approved?

"The boathouse and concession provisions didn't appear in the lease by accident. We worked with the Town through a public bidding and negotiation process for this property. The agreement that was ultimately approved involved more than the market space alone. It included both suites, nonmotorized concession operations, lake access and a provision stating that the boathouse would become part of the concession arrangement if the Town discontinued using it. The previous ABC tenant's lease began at $1,500 per month for a different use without those lake-related concession obligations. Lured's higher financial commitment came from a much broader business arrangement."

Editor's note: Both figures check out against this outlet's own research into the Town's 2023 records. The previous ABC Store tenant did pay $1,500 a month. And the winning December 2023 proposal for this property — a joint bid from Wade Oppliger, Paul and Cara Brock, and Leslie Rowland — explicitly included "the use of the building, [scull] area, and boat docks" at $4,000 a month, beating out a competing bid that wanted only the building with no water access. The lake and dock component wasn't something Second Mountain added to the deal later; it's what the Town's own Council picked from the start.

"Why are we still fighting two lawsuits instead of negotiating a lease that works for everyone going forward?"

The Brocks closed with what they called the simplest question of all, and their own account of where settlement talks actually stand right now:

"And maybe the simplest question of all: If we have offered to give up the boathouse claim at the center of the original dispute, attempted more than once to pay the rent that became the basis of the Town's eviction action and remained consistently open to negotiation, why are we still fighting two lawsuits instead of negotiating a lease that works for everyone going forward?

The Town did send a written settlement offer. But its offer required us to give up the boathouse claim, pay the rent it claimed was due and continue under the remaining lease terms exactly as they were. We responded with additional proposals and asked the Town to respond with its own changes so we could continue negotiating the rent and lease terms. We are struggling to understand why there has been no meaningful movement on those issues.

We are asking because there have now been multiple attempts to find a resolution. We have offered to give up the boathouse claim. We have proposed ending the litigation. We have asked to negotiate reasonable lease and rent terms going forward. We have made clear that we would rather reach an agreement than continue spending everyone's time and money in court. We have sent multiple written proposals and asked the Town to respond with its own edits and workable terms. So far, we have not received a response that addresses the lease and rent changes we have been asking to negotiate.

And yet, we are still here. Unfortunately, the lack of meaningful movement since the August 26 meeting has confirmed that we are not out of the woods yet. Lured remains open. Our employees are working. Our vendors are on our shelves. And our willingness to find a reasonable resolution has not changed.

There may be answers to these questions that we simply haven't heard yet. We would genuinely like to hear them. We are all tired, too, y'all. Thank you to everyone who continues to ask questions, think for themselves and try to see the bigger picture."

Reaction is already rolling in

The post drew public comment within the hour. Hilary Yoxall — the same resident who pressed the Town on transparency at Monday's meeting — commented under her own name: "At some point, this lawsuit stopped being about the boat house. This is becoming personal... My question is who wants this real estate?" She also asked whether the Town could face "a referendum to vote on the town not holding real estate, landlord, or concession payments." That's Yoxall's own speculation and characterization, not something this outlet has verified — the Town has not been asked about a real-estate motive and nothing in the public record confirms one — but it reflects how at least some residents are reading the Town's posture.

Other commenters were more straightforwardly supportive. Lori V. wrote: "You guys are LITERALLY the most consistent and the VERY best Lake Lure has to offer. Hands down! ... I am confident Lured WILL prevail!"

Have a response from the Town, or documents that speak to any of these twelve questions? Lake Lure Insider will publish the Town's answer, in full, whenever it comes. Reach out.

Last updated: 2026-09-09