Monday, July 17, 2017

Sheboygan may OK land grab, grassroots repression on Monday

[7/17/17 update: Rally at Sheboygan City Hall begins at 5 p.m., City Council meeting begins at 6 p.m. Location, here.]

Come Monday we may learn whether the 'chamber of commerce mentality' which right-wing Gov. and big business bellhop Scott Walker installed atop his pollution-enabling Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is also the decision-making, controlling philosophy at the more typically low-visibility, less-controversial bureaucracy-managing Department of Administration.

That's because the DOA is supporting 'in the public interest' [sic] the fast-tracked, logic-bending, power-serving Rube Goldberg-styled annexation to the City of Sheboygan of hundreds of acres in the smaller Town of Wilson on Lake Michigan shoreline. 


As The Sheboygan Press has reported: 
SHEBOYGAN - A state department charged with reviewing annexations has said the Kohler Company’s contentious bid to connect new land to the City of Sheboygan is “in the public interest...”
The Kohler Company is pushing for the annexation in a bid to establish a new 18-hole golf course on land it owns in the Town of Wilson along Lake Michigan. The project could also involve using land in the nearby Kohler-Andrae State Park. The move has sparked concerted pushback from environmentalists concerned over deforestation and water pollution and has drawn threats of a lawsuit from the Town of Wilson...
The type of annexation in question, though, has drawn scrutiny. The company has said it wants to develop its envisioned golf course on a large parcel of lakefront property by connecting to the city along a narrowly annexed strip of land. Opponents have cried foul, likening the move to “Balloon-on-a-String” annexations that have been successfully challenged in the past.
The Sheboygan City Council takes up the annexation at 5 p.m. Monday, according to the grassroots organization Friends of the Black River Forest, according to its Facebook page and rally invitation:

JUL17
Save Our Dunes Rally!Tomorrow, July 19, at 5 PMSheboygan City Hall · Sheboygan, WI
The high-end Kohler golf course would be constructed on a 247-acre wooded, rare dune-and-wetland-and-artifact-rich nature preserve in the Town of Wilson, and also onto several acres of the adjoining, popular Kohler Andrae State Park.

Some details about the proposal, among dozens of posts on this blog since 2014, are available here.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Just as an FYI - the rally starts at 5 p.m. The Common Council meeting starts at 6 p.m. Of course, as an organizer of the rally, I have no problem with people showing up at 5 ;)