White River County Park among parks benefiting from partnership’s first year
By Kellen Olshefski
Editor
Representatives of the Geneva Lake Conservancy and the Kettle Moraine Land Trust provided Walworth County’s Park Committee with an update of progress made at county parks over the past year on May 18, as well as some plans for the future.
The annual report given on May 18 is a stipulation of a memorandum of understanding created between the two groups and the county last year to better serve county parks through a more cooperative approach.
Lynn Ketterhagen, manager of land protection and operations for the Geneva Lake Conservancy, said the partnership with the county has been successful so far.
Ketterhagen said over the past year the conservancy has assisted in forming of the White River County Park Friends Group, something she said is doing quite well.
She said currently the conservancy is working with the group on the facilitation of a donation to fund the construction of the first bridge on the property and has additionally been involved with the formation of the master plan, as well as the land management plan for existing natural areas on the property, working with the county on two prescribed burns this spring.
Citizen member Michael Hurlburt said in talking with people around the area, they still don’t seem to know about White River County Park.
“I go over to get a haircut and I say have you been over to the park yet and they say ‘what park,’” he said.
Hurlburt asked whether or not a sign would be placed near the intersection of Highway 50 and South Road.
Director of Central Services Kevin Brunner said while the county was able to get a sign up on Highway 36, the state is not allowing the county to put signage up along Highway 50.
“Sometimes it takes the act of the legislature to get a sign,” he said.
Geneva Lake Conservancy Board Chairman said people not knowing about something in the lake area is fairly common, especially with people leaving and coming back.
“Half the world can change and they miss it because they’re not here,” he said. “It’s just the nature of how it is, so you have to keep at it.”
Geneva Lake Conservancy Board Vice Secretary Merilee Host said as for the sign on Highway 50 a possibility would be to place it on private property outside of the state’s right-of-way, something Brunner said was a good idea.
“50 is a very heavily traveled state highway and I think it makes sense if we can get people off of 50,” Brunner said.
Moraine Land Trust Board President Jerry Petersen said the first year of the cooperation between the county and two organizations has been productive and enjoyable.
“One of the things that’s really jumped out to me personally is that this is a wonderful opportunity for us together to involve more of the community and to interest them in nature and conservancy activities in the future,” he said.
“You can reach an audience that we can’t and we can reach and audience that you can’t normally and I think by reaching out in both directions to those people we can get more enthusiasm countywide in those activities. So, I’m looking forward to the coming year.”
In looking to engage the community and increase interest, Kettle Moraine Land Trust Program Manager Maggie Zoellner said the organization has held numerous events at parks around the county.
“We know that people tend to take care of and value what they love,” she said. “We wanted to find out how people are using the parks and also increase their ecological awareness of them and grow that stewardship ethic, that love and passion for county parks.”
Zoellner said the organization completed conceptual land management and restoration plans for both Natureland County Park and Price Park this year, something which serve as starting points for defining short and long term land management goals. Looking at those, Zoellner said they pulled out a handful of areas needing immediate intervention to avoid loss of species and increased land management costs down the road.
Zoellner said their plan was able to align funding sources at Price Park and as a result, they were able to begin some restoration over the past winter. Additionally, Zoellner said the organization wrote a conservation plan that covers the next three years of work at the park, approved by the county’s land use and resource management department.
