“There is beautiful wildlife there,” Frey said. “It would be sad to see it go.”
Frey, along with several citizens, fears potential development on the land located on the north east side of Oshkosh.
Picnic Point, approximately 117-acres of state-owned property on the Winnebago Mental Health Institute grounds, may soon be put up for sale. Profits from the sale would be used to help relieve the statewide budget crisis.
Frey, a 40-year resident of the area, and Town of Oshkosh chairman, pleaded with the Common Council last Tuesday, to support the acquisition of the land by the Department of Natural Resources. If the DNR could acquire the land, then possibly this natural pristine area he loves so dearly could be preserved. He persuaded the council to agree with him on a 6-1 vote, and even got the Winnebago County Board to vote in his favor 37-0. But his battle hasn’t even begun.
The vote from the council Tuesday is only a mere recommendation by the city on a decision that is made in Madison.
The decision determining who the land would be sold to is in the hands of the Wisconsin State Building Commission. If and when the decision is made is still unknown.
“If the decision does come up to agenda, that would in some way or another trickle down to the media in Madision and even to local governments,” said Tom Solberg, a spokesman for the State Department of Administration.
But as the future of Picnic Point is still in a gray area, many are looking at possiblities for what may happen to the land.
The property is one of the few undeveloped areas of shoreline along Lake Winnebago.
The DNR, a state-owned entity, has expressed a great interest in acquiring the land from the state. The DNR supports a title transfer of the land but does not seek to purchase it. If they can’t get a title-transfer from the state, then they would support any entity or agency that promises not to develop on the property.
“This is one of the last bits of undeveloped shoreline on the western shore of Lake Winnebago,” said Kendall Kamke, a DNR senior fisheries biologist. “It’s priceless; when it’s developed it’s gone forever."
The goal of the DNR is to preserve, protect and enhance the environment.
Kamke said that the state should consider what kind of losses and gains might develop from the sale of the property.
“Is the permanent loss of this land worth the short-term monetary gains of selling it?" Kamke asked.
Another point of interest is the documented archeological sites located on the property. Native Americans are known to have once inhabited the area before Oshkosh was established.
The area, containing several waterways and high ground resource areas, made the area an attractive spot for ancient inhabitants.
“The city of Oshkosh had a major prehistoric occupation,“ said Jeffrey Behm, an anthropology professor at UW-Oshkosh. “We don’t know much about this site because it hasn’t been investigated enough, but it may be incredibly important.”
The only law that may protect the site from disturbance is if a burial site is discovered. Under Wisconsin State Statute 157, a burial site must be excavated.
If a burial site is discovered, then the financial responsibility of excavating bodies from the site is in the hands of the developer.
"If there are burials at Picnic Point, a developer may not find it until they start construction," Behm said. "That's the worst way of finding something because it's already partially destroyed."
Fifteen Indian graves were found in April 2005 at a construction site of Neenah’s Water Filtration Plant along Lake Winnebago. The graves were discovered during the trenching of a storm sewer.
The bodies were excavated by the Great Lakes Archeological Research Center of Milwaukee and construction was allowed to continue.
The cost was estimated to be between $20 to $25 thousand that the Water Treatment plant had to pay for.
The only laws that protect an archeological site stop there.
State law requires an archeological survey to be conducted on any state-owned land that is sold.
If there is no burial site discovered, then no law will protect an archeological site from being disturbed or destroyed. A covenant may be issued, which is an agreement betweent the property owner and the Wisconsin Historical Society, to not disturb the site in excange for a property tax exemption.
“The site has potential for stratified deposit which can tell us who came before who,” said Robert Watson, principle investgator of the Great Lakes Archeological Research Center. "This is not very common in Wisconsin.”
Behm sees potential historical importance of the archeological site on Picnic Point.
"Not everybody reads books but it would be a loss if someone was to bulldoze a library," Behm said. "It would be a great loss of history."
posted by Oshkosh Music Scene @ 5:18 PM
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