The open house will host Lake County Commissioners, staff, and posted information on the options and plans proposed by the Forest Preserve. You may arrive anytime within the Open House hours. There is no formal presentation. The purpose of this Open House is to gather feedback on the proposals.

Public Open House to be held at:

April 8 from 5PM to 7PM
Midwest Young Artist Center
878 Lyster Road (Map)
Town of Fort Sheridan Subdivision

If you cannot attend, please send comments to both:

Ann Maine, President LCFPD amaine@lcfpd.org
Bonnie T. Carter, Chair, Planning & Restoration Committee BCarter@lakecountyil.gov

There is no online response form by the county nor is this event on the County calendar or on the Forest Board calendar.

The open house will host Lake County Commissioners, staff, and posted information on the options and plans proposed by the Forest Preserve. You may arrive anytime within the Open House hours. There is no formal presentation. The purpose of this Open House is to gather feedback on the proposals.

Public Open House to be held at:

Midwest Young Artist Center
878 Lyster Road (Map)
Town of Fort Sheridan Subdivision

In the absence of an online response form, send comments to:

Ann Maine, President LCFPD amaine@lcfpd.org
Bonnie Thompson Carter, Chair, Planning & Restoration Committee BCarter@lakecountyil.gov

We’re retiring this blog for two reasons:

1) This blog was created to discuss the challenge of using the Fort Sheridan Forest Preserve as a golf course. That threat is now past. The challenge today is to bring the community together around the best management of the Preserve. So instead of being the “Fort Sheridan Golf Course Forum” it will become the Fort Sheridan Forest Preserve blog.

2) This blog is technically challenged. We can fix it. But it makes more sense to migrate to an entirely new theme on the existing WordPress platform.

Just click here.

Thanks for your interest!

Sonny

I. Introduction

The Lake County Forest Preserves District is embarking on a plan for improvements and management of the Fort Sheridan Forest Preserve. With the cooperation of multiple individuals, we have endeavored to draft a compelling vision for the preserve that optimizes its value to each of its stakeholders including its residential neighbors, nearby communities, adjacent land uses and land owners and all Lake County residents.

This vision incorporates Fort Sheridan’s history and its location on land having rare and unique attributes.

II. Vision

Fort Sheridan Forest Preserve should be managed to:

• Showcase its unique natural features including
  • Lakefront
  • Lakefront bluff
  • Ravines
  • Prairie grassland and savanna
  • Cultivate a vibrant & protected grassland bird habitat
  • Identify & protect environmentally sensitive areas
  • Manage land subject to ecological criteria
  • Provide an amenity to Lake County and the Town of Fort Sheridan
  • Respect and relate to its adjacent land uses
  • Contribute to the well-being of Lake Michigan

III. Criteria, Constraints & Opportunities

Decisions about Fort Sheridan Forest Preserve should be based on the following criteria, constraints and opportunities including:

• Geography – physical features and relationship to land use at its boundaries
• Flora & Fauna – existing and desired
• Public Use – permitted, facilitated and excluded
• Facilities

III. a. Geography

The Fort Sheridan Forest Preserve is part of a network of publicly accessible land. It must be managed consistent with the overall land use and environmental well-being of the entire area, not merely the land owned by the Forest Preserve. This requires communication and coordination with other entities.

Proximate land in conservation includes the Openlands Lakeshore Preserve on the south and Lake Forest’s McCormick Woods on the north. Together this public land makes up hundreds of acres of forest, savannah, prairie grassland and over 2 miles of Lake Michigan lakefront and bluff.

• Prairie grassland, Oak Savannah, Ravines
• Prime nesting for grassland birds
• Non-motorized user access
• Restoration to pre-settlement condition – probably Oak/Hickory Savanna
• Ecologically correct biodiversity
• Identification and protection of ecologically sensitive areas

III. a. 1. Lakefront

• Manage lakefront access
• Passive use – dog walking, hiking, sun bathing
• Stormwater effluent/water quality management
• Bluff preservation, erosion management and restoration

III. a. 2. Cemetery

• Adjacent land use consistent with the dignity and quiet of the cemetery
• Connection of cemetery (open gate) to adjacent forest preserve perhaps with trails and areas for repose

III. a. 3. Openlands/McCormick Woods/Town of Fort Sheridan

• Consistent and seamless integration with adjacent land use and land development
• Remove barbed wire fence on north side of Ft. Sheridan
• Coordination with Lake Forest on trails and paths between Fort Sheridan and McCormick Woods
• Parking & traffic management

III. a. 4. Historic Ft. Sheridan residential/Parade Grounds

• Surrounded by residences of the historic Town of Fort Sheridan, the Parade Ground should be managed to complement the residential neighborhood.
• Passive use
• Planting to minimize lawn cutting/maintenance requirements
• Water retention/stormwater management

IV. Flora & Fauna

• Audit environmentally important areas (nesting areas, Red-headed woodpecker habitat, etc.)
• Management to insure sustainability of important areas
• Planting to encourage likely/desired animal species habitation

V. Public Use

• Passive Recreation
• Walking, dog walking, running, biking (dedicated areas only)
• Designated picnic areas (near each parking lot)

VI. Facilities

• Restrooms – off existing parking lots
• Parking
  • Improve existing parking and optimize
  • Create second parking lot off Sheridan Road
  • Picnic Shelter(s)

VII. Implementation

• Transparent planning and implementation process and calendar
• Creation of Citizen Advisory Committee (Friends of Fort Sheridan Forest Preserve)
• Ongoing management plan
• Allocation of budget

This vision is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Lake County Forest Preserve District. It is for discussion only.

Comments are encouraged.

In March, after years of analyzing declines in demand for golf and financial feasibility concerns, the Lake County Forest Preserve District Board of Commissioners voted 21-1 not to pursue construction of a golf course at the site. Instead, Forest Preserve Commissioners wanted to concentrate on completing additional trails and other more typical Forest Preserve outdoor recreation and habitat restoration improvements for the general public to use and enjoy at Fort Sheridan.

Staff and commissioners are soliciting your ideas for potential future improvements to this preserve.  What amenities will enhance this environmental gem, ensure that it is an asset for the neighbors and a treasure for Lake County residents?  Your input regarding future trails and other potential outdoor recreation and open space improvements is critical.

At the Planning Open House, the public is invited to drop in anytime between 4 and 8 p.m., to review maps and other information about the natural resources and existing public trails and facilities at Fort Sheridan Forest Preserve, and to provide input regarding options for additional future outdoor recreation and habitat restoration improvements. In an informal setting, Forest Preserve staff members will be available to answer questions. Weather permitting, Forest Preserve historians and naturalists will conduct optional tours of the historic sites and natural areas within the preserve.

Since obtaining the northern 250 acres of the former military base, the Forest Preserve District has restored the wooded ravines and bluffs along the Lake Michigan shoreline, constructed a paved bike and hike trail, installed educational outdoor exhibits, and completed military base cemetery improvements.

Comments from the open house will be reviewed by the Forest Preserve Board of Commissioners and taken into consideration for the site’s future planning.

Directions to the event:

Enter the Fort Sheridan gates on the east side of Sheridan Road At its intersection with Old Elm Road. Follow Simonds Way east to Leonard Wood, and turn right. Follow the road to the right as it becomes Lyster Road. The Midwest Young Artists Center is the seventh yellow brick building on the right. There is parking and a back entrance covered with a burgundy awning.

Those unable to attend the Open House may submit ideas via email at FORT@LCFPD.org.

When the moment came, the vote was predictable in its majority if not its unanimity. But what was less predictable was Highland Park’s continued and active opposition to the will of the county as well as that of most of the people in the county and Highland Park. It is a city council gone rogue and out of step with its public.

Highland Park has two golf courses. With one owned by the City and the other by the Park District, the extent of its financial calamity is muted. Each is losing money. This year the city will shovel a portion of our general operating fund tax dollars into its golf course fund so that bills can be paid. Every time someone tees up on a municipal golf course in Highland Park, the public chips in $25 toward those green fees.  With other municipal needs unfunded and deferred, that’s pretty nice of us to allocate scarce resources to golf.

The City is supposed to unload its financial sinkhole of a golf course onto the Park District by January 1, 2014.  Wisely, in this municipal version of “hot potato” the Park District may not take it. It is an option they have. Which is why it is curious for the City to aggressively be supporting building yet another municipal golf course. If I were the Park District I wouldn’t take this liability knowing more competition was on its way.

When the county held its vote, acting Highland Park City Manager Patrick Brennan told a united Forest Board that, essentially, they were wrong.  What he said exactly was, “it would be our preference that we work cooperatively together to find some resolution to this matter rather than going forward on opposite positions and governmental bodies working against each other.” A not so veiled threat if there ever was one.

Based on its landslide vote, the Forest Board now turns to the Army with whom it holds the agreement to remove the golf course requirement.

What we don’t need is a meddling municipality with its own desperate golf course troubles to interfere.

Do the math

If you add the following:

• ten forest board commissioners who voted “No” to not go forward with the RFP to seek a private developer plus
• three commissioners who voted “Yes” but are actually opposed to the golf course plus
• the commissioners who are running for office and have now publicly stated their opposition
• Anne Bassi, a lame duck commissioner for whom the “process”  she embraced has finally led her to support lifting the deed restriction requiring a golf course

Add these up and, well, it’s a landslide in favor of seeking a change in the deed restriction that mandates a golf course. It’s a crucial moment. But this still isn’t over.

What’s next?

Hopefully with a unified  – maybe unanimous – vote,  the forest board now must address the Secretary of the Army to modify the agreement. The Army has no reason not to comply. Nevertheless, that’s the next step – and possibly the last – in this tortuous ordeal.

This matter has dragged on for years. And while I’ve always believed the “no golf” option was evident from the beginning, the three plus years of public conversations have only proven this assumption.

Now it is time to move forward quickly.  Land use uncertainty is not good for the neighborhood property values. And Fort Sheridan Forest Preserve must get into the queue for financial resources to manage it the way we hope it will be. It would be our expectation that the Army responds quickly to the request the forest board will make of them after they adjourn their meeting on Tuesday.

Fort Sheridan Forest Preserve Update

Board of Commissioner discussion and vote

March 13, 2012  10^th floor  18 N. County, Waukegan

10:30 a.m. or 30 minutes after the Lake County Board meeting adjourns

Following the lack of response to the RFP (Request for Proposals) for private sector proposals to develop a golf course on the Ft. Sheridan Forest Preserve, the Board of Commissioners will discuss, and vote on, the next step(s) at our March 13, 2012 meeting.  The Board will consider our staff recommendation that we begin negotiations with the U. S. Army to amend the portion of the deed restriction that addresses a golf course.

The specific wording of the restrictive covenant on the use of the property is: “The land herein conveyed shall be a golf course and recreational open space in perpetuity and not devoted to another use …”  Forest Preserve District staff is recommending that we ask the U. S. Army to remove the portion of the covenant that reads “a golf course and”, while retaining the portion that states “the land herein conveyed shall be recreational open space in perpetuity and not devoted to another use ….”

The 259 acre Fort Sheridan Preserve was transferred to the Forest Preserve District by the U. S. Department of the Army in three increments between 1999 and 2001; the District received the final deed in 2002.  The property included Lake Michigan beachfront, bluffs, ravines, open space and golf course, and the transfer was subject to a deed restriction stipulating that use of the property is restricted to recreational open space and a golf course.  Forest Preserve maintenance of the Ft. Sheridan Cemetery was also part of the transfer agreement.

The Forest Preserve District has spent years exploring options for developing a golf course on the Ft. Sheridan property in a fiscally responsible way, and in compliance with the deed restriction that accompanied the transfer the property.  We have analyzed the financial implications for different types of courses to determine if there were any development options whereby user revenues would cover the cost of course development, operation, and debt service.

The golf market decline pre-dated the overall economy’s decline by around five years.  Perhaps this is a temporary change in the market, or perhaps it represents a systemic change in the way people currently live their lives and do business.  According to the National Golf Foundation’s article in November 2011: “Golf Industry Economy – “A 10-year snapshot”, “golf course over-supply has diluted the stagnant demand and created a highly competitive environment ….”   Echoing national trends, the Forest Preserve’s four courses have experienced declining rounds annually since 2004.

The Forest Preserve’s policy is that we do not subsidize golf facilities with general taxpayer funds.  Development, operating costs, and debt service for district courses are paid for from course revenues and accounted for in a separate enterprise fund.  The budget for funding Fort Sheridan has always included debt funding for development of the course, to be repaid from user fees.  The taxpayer dollars allocated to the Ft. Sheridan Preserve were set aside for trails, restoration, parking, bridges and roads open to the general public; information relating to this preserve on our referenda dating back to 1993 confirms this.  The funds expended to date on design and feasibility of the golf course were allocated from interest earnings and other non-taxpayer dollars.

To date, approximately $7.8 million has been expended at the Ft. Sheridan preserve, including restoration of Hutchinson Ravine (for which the District won national awards), Janes Ravine, roads, trail bridge, a Lake Michigan bike/walking trail connecting to the McClory Trail, a wood chip trail along the wooded ravine, a storm water management channel to protect the restored ravines from future erosion, education and historical exhibits, demolition of structures, dirt and debris pile remediation and litigation costs.

I understand that there are strong feelings and passions on all sides of the debate on this issue, and all of the arguments have merit.  However, at the end of the day, there are no viable options for building a golf course in a fiscally responsible way.  We need to bring closure to the golf course issue before we can develop a new master plan by bringing stakeholders together to vision the type of preserve that will be an asset for neighbors and a treasure for County residents.  I will be voting in favor of negotiating to have the covenant amended to remove the portion addressing a golf course.

• For more information on the Fort Sheridan Preserve, the District has created a link on its homepage www.lcfpd.org
• You can post your comments for Forest Preserve Commissioners at Fort@LCFPD.org.
• A PowerPoint presentation reviewing the history of the 259-acre Fort Sheridan property can be accessed on the Forest Preserve’s website at http://www.lcfpd.org/docs/2011-3%20Fort%20Sheridan%20project%20history.pdf
• For a “virtual tour” of the Fort Sheridan Forest Preserve improvements to date, visit the link below where you can view images, learn about the preserve’s trails, educational exhibits, cemetery, lakeshore, natural resources and ongoing restoration efforts.

http://www.lcfpd.org/preserves/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.view&object_id=163&type=SF

• Extensive online information about the military and natural history of Fort Sheridan is available at www.ExploreTheFort.org

Anne Flanigan Bassi
Lake County Forest Preserve Commissioner
District 23
abassi@lakecountyil.gov

Undying zombie that is the Fort Sheridan golf course limps forward

The seemingly unending Fort Sheridan Forest Preserve land use dispute is now rolling into its second election season. In spite of the public’s general attention deficit and its desire to see complex issues created, negotiated and resolved in a 1 hour TV time slot (including commercials), the undying zombie that is the Fort Sheridan golf course limps forward. This time, however, political candidates are taking note.

The undead Fort Sheridan golf course’s cohorts, being most of the other municipal golf courses in Lake County struggle for life by attaching themselves to the public trough and sucking up general fund tax dollars. Highland Park is injecting over $300,000 of general fund tax dollars into its golf course holding while trying to pass the hot potato of ownership to the city’s Park District. Lake Forest is rearranging the deck chairs on its Titanic golf cash drain by hoping a private management company will supply their secret sauce to success.

Although golf rounds played have been in decline almost this entire century, most elected representatives have had their heads buried pretty deeply in their sandbox when it comes to addressing their golf problem. Fortunately things are changing. And it is about time.

For those who have followed this long-running serial comic series, Lake County Forest Board decided that it couldn’t afford to build a golf course but maybe they could slough the burden onto an unsuspecting private company. However,  businesses being smarter than most government agencies, the widely advertised opportunity to build a golf course on Lake Michigan received exactly zero response.

Under this political cover, the flood gates of negative sentiment regarding golf at Fort Sheridan have begun to appear.

In the 15^th District, Carol Calabresa, the heroic chairperson of the Fort Sheridan Golf Course Advisory Committee and incumbent commissioner has expressed her opposition to golf at Fort Sheridan. Her opponent, also opposed, wants to also sell off all the other county golf courses.

In the 13^th District, Board candidate and former Illinois State Senator David Barkhausen has been one of the few early opponents of the golf at Fort Sheridan and has now made it part of his campaign.

The local general circulation media, a timid shadow of its former self, rarely addresses a true controversy. Yet the Lake County News-Sun published a thoughtful editorial acknowledging “second thoughts” on the golf course matter and saying, “Perhaps it is time to rethink the county’s commitment to the project…”

As of now, the Fort Sheridan golf course option is wounded but still moving. It would appear, however, that County Board candidates whose public position’s are now in the spotlight are lining up in recognition of the dismal fiscal realities of municipal golf. Media is trailing in agreement. And so is an economically sensitive electorate – at least for as long as they can pay attention to the zombies reaching for their wallets.

Anne Flanigan Bassi
Lake County Board – District 23
abassi@lakecountyil.gov   847-432-6291

The Forest Preserve District has spent years exploring options for developing a golf course on the Ft. Sheridan property in a fiscally responsible way, and in compliance with the deed restriction that accompanied the transfer the property.

In June of 2011, following the recommendation of an Advisory Committee that had spent almost two years analyzing options, the Forest Preserve District (FPD) Board of Commissioners voted to issue an RFP (request for proposals) to the private sector to submit proposals for a privately funded 9-hole golf course at Ft. Sheridan.

The national golf market decline pre-dated the overall economy’s decline by around five years.  Perhaps this is a temporary change in the market, or perhaps it represents a systemic change in the way people currently live their lives and do business.  I have heard opinions on both sides.  The District believed that private sector was in the best position to determine the future of the golf market, and whether they could bring the necessary expertise, economies of scale and synergies to bear on the project to enable them to more economically develop and operate the course.

The deadline for submitting proposals from the private sector was January 6, and no proposals were submitted.  During February or March of this year the Forest Preserve Board will be discussing policy direction in light of the lack of response to the RFP and next step(s).

I am aware that this subject is of interest to many, and will advise you of all future meetings where this subject will be discussed.