Maximize Michigan's Resources The Denison - 420 acres of dunes, coastal marsh, and wetlands that serve as the spectacular gateway to the Saugatuck Harbor - is one of the last great open spaces on the Great Lakes. Dave Dempsey, the environmental policy advisor to Governor Blanchard, recently said, "The Denison is the Porcupine Mountains of our generation." Our coastal communities are committed to seeing this landscape preserved. However, instead of selling the Denison land to the locals who worked hard to raise the funds, the Denison estate and trust sold the property for only a few million dollars above appraised value to Katie and Aubrey McClendon, an Oklahoma City couple. The McClendon's have charged their local representative, Stephen Neumer, with maximizing their investment in the Denison. We understand that they have worked with the Nature Conservancy in Oklahoma, and we hope that they will work with conservancy groups here. We too need to ask ourselves, "How do we, as members of these coastal communities, maximize our investment?" As a community we have long fought against the homogenized schemes of developers intent on making a buck at the expense of our art town in the dunes. Back in the mid-80's when Barry Johnson (current 3rd-term Saugatuck City Council member) was on the Saugatuck planning commission our municipality struggled for six months to ensure a proposed McDonald's did not alter our unique downtown. Barry and other planning commissioners worked diligently to protect the atmosphere of Saugatuck/Douglas. And Patty Birkholz (current 3rd -term State Senator) credits the several years she worked to preserve what is now Saugatuck Dunes State Park and Natural Area as the defining moment she entered politics. These were pivotal moments for our communities. But we have another long struggle before us as the incredible Lake Michigan coastline - dunes, wetlands, coastal marsh - that truly defines and influences us as an art community comes under intense pressure to become a gated community of roads, lawns, swimming pools, and street lights. If the Denison and other significant properties are developed it will create islands of our rare and fragile dune lands. It will also compromise the open space and vistas for which our coastal communities are so well known. And it will jeopardize the natural area status of Saugatuck Dunes State park. We are asking our region's leadership - Senator Birkholz, Jim Brooks and the West Michigan Strategic Alliance, those who run major corporations and foundations in the Grand Rapids metropolitan area, the council members and planning commissioners in our tri-communities - to work with conservancy groups and the Natural Resources Trust Fund, as well as the Department of Natural Resources and the Department of Environmental Quality to protect the significant undeveloped dunes between Saugatuck and Holland, especially the crown jewel Denison parcel (both the north and the south). David Swan, Saugatuck/Douglas Commercial Record, 11-23-06 Return to Concerned Citizens for Saugatuck Dunes State Park Resources & Reference page. www.SaugatuckDunes.org