By KEVIN NEVERS

One-hundred-and-fourteen people put their names on the sign-in list at Monday night’s public meeting, sponsored by the Save the Dunes Council, on the proposal of the Indiana Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to lease land at Indiana Dunes State Park (IDSP) to a hotel developer.

Of those 114, 18 spoke from the floor.

Of those 18, 17 were opposed to the idea, on a scale ranging from adamantly to utterly.

Only one, Paul Myers of East Chicago, spoke in favor of a hotel. He said that the DNR has demonstrated a fine “stewardship” at IDSP and has proved itself capable of preserving flora like “rare orchids” and fauna like the eastern massasauga rattlesnake, and that the proposed hotel would be “an asset to the region, to the state, and to the nation.” Myers added that seven of Indiana’s 24 state parks already have lodging and that IDSP had it until 1970 and he wondered where the Yosemite and Grand Canyon national parks would be without lodging. And a hotel would give others besides Dunelanders a better opportunity to enjoy IDSP, Myers concluded.

The other 17 based their opposition to a hotel on a variety of rationale:

•Mark McKibben, a former property manager at IDSP, noted that the reintroduction of alcohol there—banned under his watch, when it played a part in the near fatal beating of a man—would reintroduce the problems associated with it. He lamented the loss of easy public access to Lake Michigan currently provided by the west parking lot—where the hotel would be constructed—and anticipates the resort to put additional pressure on sensitive ecological areas to the east. And McKibben questioned the wisdom of building an 87,180-square foot facility on sand and foresees all sorts of infrastructure issues, including clogged sewers, pump infiltration, and high-water damage.

•Mary Fulghum of Duneland called the Dunes at IDSP a “sacred” and “globally rare land form” which, in the wake of residential, commercial, and industrial development, has all but disappeared from the state’s Lake Michigan shoreline. Rather than building a hotel at IDSP, she asked DNR Director Kyle Hupfer, why not pursue a brownfield development in partnership with a Northwest Indiana steel company? “You’ve presented a solution in search of a problem,” Fulghum said. “Maybe the solution is the problem itself.”

•Terrel Wendell, quoting somebody, said that “Man always kills the things he loves.”

•Kevin Cornett of Valparaiso said that much of Porter County’s federal and state park land was acquired over the years through the use of eminent domain, and to lease some of that land to a private developer now “violates the spirit” of that process. In a year, he observed, there may only be 100 good weather days. To what kind of special events and promotions, Cornett wanted to know, would a hotel operator have to resort in order to get full use of the facility? In any case, the state government has no business taking sides against hotel and motel operators only a few miles away in Chesterton, he said. Forget a hotel, Cornett concluded, and establish a shuttle line from Chesterton and Dunes Park Station to IDSP and build a better bike trail to it.

•Mark Snyder of Duneland called the DNR’s prospectus “an open-ended proposal targeted at revenue production rather than at sustainable development.” He was the first person of the evening to broach the ominous issue of gambling. “If you get this hotel,” Snyder ventured, “who’s to say that in 10 or 15 years, the Governor and the General Assembly won’t turn the hotel into a casino?”

•Jim Sweeney of Schererville remarked that the DNR’s pledge to lease to a hotel developer previously disturbed land “doesn’t mean a heck of a lot” when you’re talking about the Dunes, which if given a chance have a way of reclaiming any ground pretty quickly. “A private entity would be managing for a profit margin, to the detriment of lovers of the Dunes,” he said. And on the matter of the proposed long-term lease—up to 45 years with options for two 35-year renewals—Sweeney had this to say: “One hundred years ago the City of Gary was founded. So a lot can happen in 100 years.”

•Jim Fitzsimmons of Duneland, on the subject of getting “the camel’s nose under the tent,” as he put it, asked Hupfer whether the DNR would have the authority to lease land on the beach for condominium development. “I would assume so,” Hupfer replied.

•Kathy Haburjak of Duneland called IDSP “one of the best places in the world” and “globally unique,” but by the standards of other Indiana state parks “much smaller” and “over-used.” The loss of the west parking lot would prove “catastrophic” for most people, she said, including seniors who are now able to enjoy the lakefront from their vehicles but would be unable to walk any distance to see it. Haburjak also called Cornett’s suggestion to build a shuttle service “a great idea” and concluded with this plea: “Please do not tear up any more of the Dunes.”

•Carolyn Marsh of Whiting began by noting that she has some experience of the private development of lakefront, namely, the casino in Hammond. “Is the state wealthy because of this?” she asked. “I hate to see the state park commercialized and privatized. You can’t repair the damage there and there will be damage.” And what would be next? Jet skis? Snowmobiles? Dirt bikes? “That’s what scares me,” Marsh said. The purpose of the DNR is to “preserve resources, not to find loopholes for private enterprise.”

•Bob Schroeder of Duneland said that he has just moved to the area and specifically chose it as a home because of the Dunes. Some 650,000 people visited IDSP last year, Schroeder remarked. “How many more are you expecting to get from an inn and for what?”

•State Sen. Karen Tallian, D-4th, had two questions for Hupfer. (1) What statutory authority is there for the type of public/private partnership envisioned by the DNR? (2) Does the DNR take the position that it’s not subject to local zoning ordinances? Actually Hupfer had already answered the first question in a presentation earlier in the evening: IC 14-18-2. The second question he did not answer during his wrap-up later in the evening.

•John Crayton of Duneland characterized IDSP as “one of the world’s most important botanical areas in terms of diversity, plant species.” It’s a world-class site, in fact, “but I don’t see hotels put in the middle of world-class sites,” he said. There’s no hotel next to the Taj Mahal and none next to Old Faithful in Yellowstone. “It is not done. Don’t do it here. You don’t put a hotel in the middle of a pristine important area.”

•Bobbie Atzhorn of Duneland raised a couple of issues ignored by others. For one thing, she said, IDSP attracts a “very cosmopolitan and ethnically diverse” range of visitors and the whole idea of removing the west parking lot, where they picnic, play, and relax, could be taken as “ethnically discriminatory.” For another thing, the construction of a multi-story hotel with a 200-vehicle parking lot for guests—all of it, presumably, brightly illuminated at night—would taint IDSP with new and unwanted light pollution, make the viewing of the Northern Lights and meteor showers impossible, and deprive astronomy clubs of one of the last good places left in Northwest Indiana for night-time star-gazing.

•Lynda McGinnis, speaking on behalf of the region’s avid birders, predicted that a hotel, a well-lit structure on a dark shoreline, would be responsible for the confusion and deaths of untold numbers of migratory birds. “We’ve lost hundreds of thousands of birds just at McCormick Place in Chicago,” she said.

•Gina Darnell of Duneland urged Hupfer to go to the April meeting of the Natural Resources Commission and reject all proposals submitted by hotel developers as well as the specifications on which they based their proposals. “Admit that those specs are poorly conceived and very publicly unpopular,” she said. Instead, Darnell suggested, think quaint and think small. Do not think beach-view.

•A man who did not give his name merely indicated that the DNR’s proposal is part and parcel of the ongoing development of the state’s lakefront. “Billions will be invested in developing Northwest Indiana’s beaches,” he said.

•And Claude Chandler of Duneland, responding to a point made earlier by Hupfer—that Generation Xers and Yers do not generally enjoy outdoor activities like hiking and camping and need to be enticed by other means to Indiana’s state parks—observed that a lot of Generation Xers and Yers right now can barely afford the gate fee at IDSP, much less the cost of a room at a swank hotel. Chandler had two other remarks. Why was no economic and environmental impact study conducted prior to the DNR’s advertising its prospectus? he asked. And, were the DNR to look a little, it would undoubtedly find “more suitable opportunities for development elsewhere,” Chandler said. To Chandler’s question Hupfer had this reply: the prospectus was itself an economic impact study.

Posted 3/21/2006