Protect County Grounds

The many members of the County Grounds Coalition applaud recent decisions by Milwaukee County and Wauwatosa to preserve a large portion of the Sanctuary Woods as parkland and offlimits to development (“Former county asylum grounds to be protected as park,” Oct. 27).

This unique and irreplaceable natural area, north of Watertown Plank Road between N. 87th St. and Discovery Parkway, contains critical habitat for a number of rare and threatened wildlife species and has long been a place of restoration, solitude and solace for local residents and visitors from throughout the metro area.

This news, however, as good as it looks, is not yet a done deal. The Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors requested that Wauwatosa rezone specific “tax key parcels,” excluding only two tracts containing a former county food services building and a water tower — tracts all sides agreed were of no environmental or recreational value.

The Milwaukee County Administration’s Office of Economic Development took it upon itself to undertake a new “certified survey map” of these already well-established tax parcels, effectively redrawing the map the County Board had directed to be protected. “Carveouts” were made that could allow highscale development right up to the drip lines of trees of a certain size — as if wildlife recognize such arbitrary boundaries — and this new map still calls for a paved extension of N. 92nd St. running north right through the critical habitat zone — a road the administration acknowledges has no real purpose “for now.”

We call on Milwaukee County and Wauwatosa to hold to the established parcels identified by the County Board and, above all, to reject any thought of carving a city street through what is intended to be a parkland conservancy. Barb Agnew Jim Price Friends of the Monarch Trail and the County Grounds Coalition Wauwatosa