Defenders of Lake Michigan shoreline state park win a round in court

People familiar with this blog know I have supported for years the grassroots effort in Sheboygan County to prevent a chunk of Kohler Andrae State Park on the Lake Michigan shoreline from being folded into the plan for a privately-owned high-end golf course right next door.

Transfer of the contested park acreage was approved in a proposed trade with Kohler family interests during the Walker years. 

So I am happy to report that the grassroots efforts by Friends of the Black River Forest led to a court victory which blocks for now the state's transfer of the contested park land with the developer. 

Court reinstates challenge to Kohler-DNR land swap for Lake Michigan golf course project

The state's Natural Resources Board in 2018 approved a land trade Kohler had negotiated with the Department of Natural Resources — nearly 10 acres west of the park for 4.6 acres of the park, and easement over another 1.8 acres of the park.

The park property that would go to Kohler includes thick woods, open sand dunes and wetlands. The state would get upland woodland, cropland, a home and outbuildings.  

More links to the struggle's history are here, here and here, among others available at the blog's search box, upper left.

The contested state land inside the park includes this spot which is obviously integral to the park's design and public purposes.

This photograph by former Kohler Andrae State Park superintendent Jim Buchholz shows an early morning jogger where Walker-run state agencies have said Kohler interests can build for their privately-owned golf course a road and maintenance/storage building. Citizens trying to prevent that loss have hired attorneys to fight the taxpayer-funded state agencies which are willing to part with public parkland.