To the Editor:

An important issue surfaced at WMU late in the summer session. This is the proposed expansion of the WMU business park on Parkview onto the Colony Farm Orchard. This parcel, just across Drake Road from the Asylum Lake Preserve, is dedicated open space, protected by restrictions placed on it by the legislature at the time it was given to WMU.

A bill introduced by Representative Robert Jones of Kalamazoo is a real-estate laundering operation, washing out the requirement that the land be kept as open space and substituting a requirement that it be used to expand a business park. The bill will soon be taken up by the House.

So far the only spokespersons for WMU or its board have been two vice presidents. Opponents include a variety of conservationists, environmentalists, and plain citizens who object to land bought with tax payer money being sold for non-public, strictly private business purposes.

It is understandable that the Herald has not been able to cover this story up to now. But the Herald and the students of WMU were important players in an almost identical situation that played out in the 1990s, in which WMU tried to incorporate both the Colony Farm Orchard and what is now the Asylum Lake Preserve into their first design for a business park. At that time conservation and commerce reached an agreement that kept the business park south of Parkview Avenue. I hope the Herald will keep the WMU community informed about what happens in the new effort by WMU to breach that agreement.

Richard Brewer
Professor Emeritus
Department of Biological Sciences

http://richardbrewer.org

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