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September 26, 2008
Park Protectors Succeed
(San Francisco, CA) - September 25, 2008 After putting their freedom on the line in a valiant effort to protect Jean Klock Park, citizen activists were victorious in stopping the bulldozers sent by Whirlpool Corporation-backed Harbor Shores Community Redevelopment Inc. that this
week decimated the natural beach and destroyed legacy trees that have graced the Park since it was dedicated in 1917.
Posted by dop_editor at 09:30 PM | Comments (0)
Jean Klock Park work stopped
By CAROL DRAEGER
Tribune Staff Writer
BENTON HARBOR — Protesters dub it a victory while Harbor Shores officials are calling it a prudent measure.
No matter how either side spins it, construction on Jean Klock Park for three holes of a Jack Nicklaus Signature Golf Course has been stalled.
Read the full story (South Bend Tribune)
Posted by dop_editor at 09:28 PM | Comments (0)
Three arrested in park, protesting Harbor Shores project
Some controversy over the Harbor Shores project in Benton Harbor continues. Monday morning, three people were arrested in Jean Klock Park, as they protested development along the beachfront there.
Posted by dop_editor at 09:28 PM | Comments (0)
Park protesters arrested in Benton Harbor
Bulldozers on the beach raise ire
Posted by dop_editor at 09:26 PM | Comments (0)
Golf Course Developer Begins Destruction of Benton Harbor's Jean Klock Park
(Novi, Michigan) - September 22, 2008 Under the pretense of "improvements" to the Jean Klock Park bath house, the Whirlpool Corporation-backed Harbor Shores Community Redevelopment Inc. today started destroying the natural resources of Jean Klock Park in Benton
Harbor, removing 90-year-old trees from the Lake Michigan shore and destroying some of the park's dunes to create an asphalt parking lot.
Posted by dop_editor at 09:22 PM | Comments (0)
September 10, 2008
Klock Park Federal Lawsuit Has National Implications
For Immediate Release
August 8, 2008
Contacts:
LuAnne Kozma, 248-473-5761
Michigan Director, Defense of Place
defenseofplacemichigan@gmail.com
Cindy Arch, 707-430-0438
Executive Director, Defense of Place
arch@rri.org
KLOCK PARK FEDERAL LAWSUIT HAS NATIONAL IMPLICATIONS
Community park advocates sue National Park Service for NEPA violations
Land and Water Conservation Fund Act put to the test
(Novi, Michigan) - August 8, 2008 Residents of Benton Harbor, Michigan filed a lawsuit in federal court in Washington, D.C. Tuesday to stop the construction of an exclusive golf course in their town's only beachfront park, Jean Klock Park. Defense of Place commended the action, saying the suit could help parks across the nation.
"The federal law that protects Jean Klock Park also safeguards thousands of parks across the country, at all levels of government," said Michigan Director for Defense of Place, LuAnne Kozma. "This lawsuit has national implications and will be precedent-setting for the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act. There are development schemes, some as obscene as this one for Jean Klock Park, queued up in other Great Lakes states and elsewhere. The public's prime shoreline is what developers are coveting. America's public parks cannot be surrendered just because a private developer demands it."
The lawsuit, filed by Toledo, Ohio, attorney Terry J. Lodge on behalf of seven Benton Harbor and Benton Township residents, alleges extensive violations of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) by the National Park Service and failure to properly apply regulations mandated under the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act. The State of Michigan and the city of Benton Harbor are named as co-defendants in the 52-page complaint.
The suit also contends that the $900,000 appraisal price for 22 acres of Jean Klock Park and their dramatic views of Lake Michigan is too low because it ignores explicit federal requirements. The developer, Harbor Shores, paid for the appraisal. A second appraisal, mandated by the state, was not submitted.
In compensation for the Park's land, the developer offered seven non-contiguous, mostly contaminated wetlands parcels along the Paw Paw River. Eighty-percent of the mitigation value was attributed to a single 1.47 acre brownfield parcel that is post-industrial Whirlpool property, appraised at $714,000. The view from "Parcel H" is of the back of a commercial building.
"What would be left of Jean Klock Park would be non-viable parkland, which also violates the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act," said Kozma, who testified before Congress about the Act and Jean Klock Park earlier this year. "The golfers would have the commanding views of Lake Michigan from the re-built dunes; not children, not the public."
The $500-million, 530-acre Harbor Shores luxury home and resort development, backed by the Benton Harbor-based $18-billion Whirlpool Corporation, features a Jack Nicklaus championship 18-hole golf course where a round of golf will cost as much as $225. Jean Klock Park's pristine sand dunes were targeted for conversion to three fairways, a land grab justified by the developer's need for a "dramatic element" to secure "maximum profit." Benton Harbor's per capita income is less $9,000 per year.
Term-limited Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm has been a tireless advocate for the Harbor Shores development and the conversion of Benton Harbor's only beachfront public park, defending the state's role as catalyst and saying the state will market the project as "southwest Michigan's gem along the Lake." The area's Republican congressman, Whirlpool heir Fred Upton whose lakefront residence is a short walk from the golf course, was instrumental in securing National Park Service approval for the conversion.
"When prime public parkland is seized by the government for private development without regard for the law, all public parks and open spaces become vulnerable," said Defense of Place Executive Director Cindy Arch. "Add to that the total disregard for the intentions of the Klock family who donated the land in perpetuity for the children of Benton Harbor to honor their deceased daughter, Jean, and the stage is set for undoing the entire land trust system that safeguards so many special places throughout the United States. Promises of permanent protection won't be worth the paper they're written on if places like Jean Klock Park fall to developers."
Defense of Place has learned that of the 447 people who commented in the public process period, required by the National Park Service when it rejected the project last year for lack of public input and other problems, only 109 listed a Benton Harbor address. There is also evidence of a developer-driven form-letter campaign that provided the pro-development comment.
"The supporters of Jean Klock Park are far more numerous than Harbor Shores would like everyone to believe," Kozma said. "The NEPA process in not a beauty contest or opinion poll. Luckily for thecitizens of Benton Harbor, the truth will come out through the court process and not the Harbor Shores propaganda machine."
Donations in support of the citizen lawsuits can be made through the local advocacy groups, as well as through Defense of Place. Protect Jean Klock Park is accepting contributions for the federal lawsuit and Friends of Jean Klock Park for the local lawsuit, filed last month against the state, to uphold the 2004 consent judgment prohibiting any further park development or non-public use.
Defense of Place has assisted the advocates in the fight to save Jean Klock Park, providing technical assistance and obtaining documents in the public interest from federal, state and local agencies through the Freedom of Information Act that otherwise would not have been made public. Defense of Place works nationally for permanent protection of parks, open space and wildlife refuges. To contribute or for more information:
Defense of Place www.defenseofplace.org
Protect Jean Klock Park www.protectjkp.com
Friends of Jean Klock Park www.savejeanklockpark.org
Posted by dop_editor at 06:37 PM | Comments (0)
Jean Klock Park Advocates Sue National Park Service
For Immediate Release: August 5, 2008
Contact: Protect Jean Klock Park
Julie Weiss
(269) 519 - 8192
www.protectjkp.com
email: info@protectjkp.com
Jean Klock Park Advocates Sue National Park Service
Cite extensive violation of National Environmental Policy Act
State of Michigan Named Co-Defendant
(Benton Harbor, Michigan) - August 5, 2008
Seven Benton Harbor and Benton Township residents today filed suit against the National Park Service in the U. S. District Court for the District of Columbia alleging multiple violations of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) and failure to properly apply regulations mandated under the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act in its July 25 decision to approve the conversion of Jean Klock Park on Lake Michigan to an elite Jack Nicklaus golf course.
Residents assert that the plan to convert significant portions of the Park for private development fails to disclose the true scope of impacts to the environment and fails to present and analyze serious development alternatives as required under the law.
The 91year-old public park offers commanding views of Lake Michigan from the dunes - - which would be off limits to all but golfers paying greens fees reported to be as high as $225. per round.
The State of Michigan Department of Natural Resources and the City of Benton Harbor also are named as defendants in the 52-page Complaint filed by Toledo attorney Terry J. Lodge.
The lawsuit claims that the City and the developer, Harbor Shores, a consortium made up of the Whirlpool Foundation, the Cornerstone Alliance and the Alliance for World Class Communities, have continuously concealed significant information about the environmental impacts which would result from golf course construction and maintenance in the park. The conversion plan does not reveal the quantity of sand which would be removed from the dunes and replaced with topsoil for a stable, unchanging base, nor the amount of chemical herbicides and pesticides which would be released into the environment, nor does it take into account the widely fluctuating lake level over time and the effects of historical high levels in reducing the beach and park land available to the public.
"We think if the public had been told the truth about how much permanent damage there will be to the dunes, trees, plants and animals, the outrage would have killed this idea. Why else did Harbor Shores hide this from us?" said Emma Kinnard, a plaintiff.
"Extensive excavation and stabilization of the dunes would be necessary to plant golf course features," said plaintiff Julie Weiss. "In a plan which describes wetland fill to the last cubic yard, there is no dissection whatsoever of the impacts to the dunes, the signature landscape of Lake Michigan’s eastern shore. Once they’re gone, they’re gone forever."
Plaintiffs also contend that the appraisal price of $900,000 for the 22 acres featuring dramatic views of Lake Michigan is low by perhaps $15,000,000 because it ignores explicit federal requirements. Finally, opponents of golf holes in the park assert that seven parcels of land along the Paw Paw River, some of it so polluted it may be too expensive to clean up, cannot come close to compensating the public for taking away the aesthetic beauty and joy which access to the dunes affords.
"Rarely has the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act been so violated," said LuAnne Kozma, Michigan Director of the San Francisco-based park preservation organization, Defense of Place. "The law is very clear. This lawsuit has national implications for places residents and people around the state for over two years to preserve the park for the public for all time.
On July 8 Carol Drake and Clellen Bury representing the Friends of Jean Klock Park filed a separate lawsuit in Berrien County Circuit Court alleging multiple violations of a four-year-old settlement agreement promising no future development in the park.
"This park was left to all of us, and our children, and their children, forever," said James Duncan, another plaintiff. "No one living today will be alive when this lease runs out in 105 years. They’re taking our park away to give to outsiders for what in real life terms is ‘forever.’"
"We have a better idea: build Harbor Shores golf course outside the park, and follow our lead to restore Jean Klock Park to the grandeur envisioned in the 1920’s by the foremost Prairie School landscape architect, Jens Jensen. That way, we’ll have something special for everyone," said Nicole Moon, a plaintiff.
For more information contact Protect Jean Klock Park at info@protectjkp.com or telephone 269 519 8192. Visit our website at www.protectjkp.com.
Posted by dop_editor at 06:37 PM | Comments (0)
Defense of Place Testifies Before Congress
Statement by LuAnne Kozma
Michigan Director, Defense of Place
Before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations,
Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies
At a Hearing conducted March 13, 2008.
Good morning Mr. Chairman, Members of the Subcommittee,
My name is LuAnne Kozma. I am the Michigan Director of an organization called Defense of Place, which works to assure that parks remain protected in perpetuity. I’ve been advocating for the protection of Michigan's public parks for nearly a decade and have been working with grassroots community groups and individuals.
I appreciate the opportunity to testify today about the Land and Water Conservation Fund administered by the National Park Service. I am here to urge you to expand funding for this program, and in particular that you absolutely require the administrative oversight of the "Stateside" part of the program. We must vigorously enforce the protection this Act provides for the approximately 40,000 local and state parks around the nation, of which about 2,000 are in Michigan.
A funding level of $125 million is recommended by several park organizations, and I believe this is a modest amount for what is really needed, and is only a fraction of what is authorized. I am greatly troubled by the request in the President’s budget that calls for stripping away the oversight function of this program.
What the oversight function provides is the main purpose, the accountability, and the legacy of the Act-to ensure that these parks, in their entirety, are still here for our future generations.
The reason the oversight function is more critical than ever before, is that our parks have become the targets of increasing attacks by private interests, and governmental attempts, to take public parkland out of public use and essentially rob the Fund. The funding is needed for the department to ascertain if a proposed conversion is a legitimate one and fend off those that are not.
This is a very disturbing trend. I have two Michigan examples to share with you.
Jean Klock Park, in Benton Harbor, Michigan.
Jean Klock Park in Benton Harbor, Michigan, was purposefully purchased and gifted as a public park over 90 years ago and was given to the community and the children of Benton Harbor "forever." Later, the Land and Water Conservation Fund contributed to the park’s amenities, the State spent about $1.7 million, and there were 90 years of local support. The park is priceless-it has a half-mile of Lake Michigan lakefront and dunes that provide a beautiful view of the lake. A few years ago residents sued to save part of the dunes from a luxury home development, and in exchange for allowing the homes to go in, settled on a consent agreement, thinking they once again had permanent protection for the rest of the park. Little did residents and city leaders know, that this was the beginning of a longtime plan to take the park almost entirely from public use. It’s the target of a private development plan to take over most of the park for three holes of a high-end, privately-owned golf course, 700 homes, a hotel and water park. This plan is being driven by private entities created by Whirlpool Corporation and its chief executives. Jean Klock Park belongs to the people of Benton Harbor.
NPS has already rejected this profoundly flawed proposal. But when it does deny a conversion such as this, it is up against powerful developers with millions of dollars to spend. In fact, the developers are continuing the attack, putting this park once again in grave danger of forever being stolen from the community, and the children for whom it was dedicated. We have found that the staff of the Park Service is professional and committed to protecting public parks. But they have few resources with which to double check and verify the claims made in these elaborate plans which are assembled by those with an interest in the theft of public assets at bargain-basement prices.
We think there is a pattern to these conversions. Local and state governments, desperate to improve the economy and tax base, see a short-term gain from selling off legacy assets. The so-called "lease" arrangement for Jean Klock Park is slated to last 105 years. In human terms, 105 years of removing most of the park from public use is forever. Along with that, these beautiful sand dunes, Michigan’s priceless natural assets, will be destroyed, converted to golf course bunkers, and seeded with turfgrass. A major change would befall a natural, lakefront legacy.
While no one can predict what the property use patterns around that park will be in 2113, it is certain that a century's worth of children and adults, running and walking and picnicking and marrying among those precious natural dunes will have been sacrificed for a dubiously financed retirement community.
A total of $126 million has been spent on about 2,000 Michigan parks over the past 40 years with the Land and Water Conservation Fund. If one private entity is allowed to liquidate a park like Jean Klock, even at conservative estimates valued at $15 million- and that is probably off by an order of magnitude-then it essentially is robbing the federal government of a huge portion of the investment in Michigan’s parks.
Proud Lake State Recreation Area
For the past four years, a citizens group in Michigan has waged a grassroots campaignagainst the State of Michigan’s decision to sell about 560 acres of Proud Lake State Recreation Area. By the time the State made an offer in 2006 to sell this parkland to the local township for $13 million plus a $1.4 million "transaction fee," the DNR had already, behind the public’s back, gone to the National Park Service in 2005 to administratively change the 6(f)(3) boundary map to exclude the 560 acres so that it could be sold. It was purchased over 60 years ago, had at least six grants over the years, and each time the State pledged to encumber the entire park for all time for the people of Michigan. The State has now violated that agreement by claiming this acreage was never inside the boundaries and it was mistakenly included with each grant request. Here again, a lack of oversight and protection of the Fund’s investment.
Summary
To fund the LWCF program at meager amounts, $30 million, is a disservice to the mission of this program and to the nation. What’s most at stake is not the few dollars being put into developing and acquiring new parks.
What’s really at stake is that it fails to protect the entire 40 years’ of federalinvestment, endangering the vast system of parks we’ve already set aside. It’s like putting water into a bucket with a hole in the bottom, and the hole is getting bigger.
The legacy of the LWCF Act will be what we do to vigorously protect all those places that were created and developed with the funds. The program needs adequate staffing levels, funds for Environmental Impact Statements to follow the National Environmental Policy Act, and funds to conduct independent appraisals and site visits, so the agency can properly conduct its own independent assessments.
Our parks should be inviolate. Yet they are increasingly at risk from bolder and better- funded developer-driven proposals that seek our protected parkland-prime parkland set aside many years ago-for their privatization schemes. These schemes are getting tiresomely familiar-water parks, elite golf courses, hotels, ski lifts, there’s no end to these. They are for profiteering by the private sector, at the expense of parks we hold in the public trust.
Our public parks were not set aside, and invested in by LWCF federal funds-only to succumb years later to these private schemes. They’re there for future generations in the same way that they have been there for us.
I will be happy to answer any questions and would appreciate the chance to talk with staff.
Posted by dop_editor at 06:33 PM | Comments (0)