To: Honorable Tony Evers and the Natural Resources Board
This is a request to Governor Tony Evers and the Natural Resources Board (NRB) to initiate a review of the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and NRB’s actions on and around Feb 28, 2018. Those actions allowed 4.59 acres of Kohler Andrae State Park land to be removed from state park boundaries and given to the Kohler Co. (Kohler) for golf course-related construction; the NRB also granted Kohler an easement over an additional 1.88 acres of state park land. In exchange, the DNR received company land mostly outside the State Park boundaries.
This situation has been brought to our attention by Friends of the Black River Forest and the Sierra Club-Wisconsin Chapter. It deserves review in light of DNR and NRB obligations to manage these lands for the benefit of the public and the broad public opposition to the swap of state park land to a private company.
There are serious questions about whether the swap followed law and DNR policy, including policies under Wisconsin Administrative Code chaps. NR 1 and 44, which strictly limit the conveyance of state park land and allow only those management activities included in the park’s master plan. The swap is not part of that master plan and the NRB never finished a planning process it started in June 2017 that would have considered the change.
There are serious concerns about a response to an FBRF request from a DNR attorney suggesting that Kohler would have to rescind the agreement. The land exchange agreement was tied to the need for additional acreage for Kohler’s planned championship golf course. The wetland fill permit for the proposed course was revoked, making the need for the swapped land unnecessary. Are we to understand that the DNR will now let this land swap agreement stand until the company comes up with some other project? Is the DNR saying that only Kohler can rescind this agreement and that the state is ceding its authority to manage state lands for the people to a corporate entity?
These questions must be examined, as well as the factual information provided to the NRB by the DNR that resulted in the NRB approving the land swap.
We request this review to ensure that further sell-offs of state park land follow the law, benefit the people of Wisconsin, and are not subject to political influence.
5 years have passed since the Kohler wetland permit was revoked and there has been no response to citizens’ requests. Please consider the importance of this review in light of the right of all Wisconsin residents to enjoy their state parks outside of poltical actions.
Thank you.