Guest Commentary
By
Michael T. Sawyier
I read
with some concern the celebratory article in the February 27 issue of your
newspaper about the Indiana Dunes State Park Pavilion “rehabilitation”
project that is now (finally) under way. My concerns are as follows.
First, as the
lawyer for a group of very prominent local residents who had sought to carry
out that same project, and submitted a bid to do so, some years ago by means
of a publicly supported 501(c)(3) charity and its wholly-owned “L3C”
operating subsidiary, I can state categorically that the DNR’s request for
proposals ruled out any such additional construction as the massive new
convention center next to the Pavilion that the private developer has now
planned. Thus, I have a concern about the process that led to the DNR’s
initial acceptance and two-year continuance of the private developer’s bid
that was evidently conditioned upon that additional construction.
Second, despite the
encomiums about that conference center offered up by the private developer’s
paid public relations spokesperson in the article, I question whether the
construction of such a purely commercial, private facility on the public
beach itself alongside the Pavilion is consistent with the emerging public
trust doctrine of beach property law. That is the doctrine which prohibits
the State from selling off the public’s beach as so much supposed “excess
property” to the highest bidder.
Several years ago,
because of that doctrine, the City of Chicago was enjoined from selling to
Loyola University a large tract of submerged Lake Michigan beachfront land
on which that university had planned to construct an expansion of its
Chicago campus. So, now, because of the purported “public/private
partnership” between this private developer and the DNR, the State is, in
effect, selling to this politically connected developer the exclusive use
rights to the convention center to be constructed on ( or fronting on ) the
public beach right next to the Pavilion? Why, if that is permissible, may
the State not sell off a large swath of the entire Lake Michigan beach to a
luxury condo/hotel developer? (Of course, that, too, may be in the cards.)
Apart from these
legal concerns, there are major public policy concerns about the
appropriateness of the proposed new private convention center on the
public’s property. As an ex-Chicagoan, I can attest that many people in that
city - - and, indeed, even the Chicago Tribune - - now rue the day that
McCormick Place (a publicly owned and operated facility) was constructed in
Burnham Park.
Who are the members
of this private LLC and what are the terms of the secret deal that it struck
with the State?
Your readers
deserve answers to these questions as well as the others suggested above.
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Posted 3/12/2015
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