Jean Klock Park

Jean Klock Park is an historic city park along Lake Michigan in Benton Harbor, Michigan, United States. In 1917, John Nellis Klock and his wife Carrie borrowed the money and bought a significant stretch of lakeshore including tall dunes and 2950 feet of shoreline, 90 acres in all, and then gave it to the City of Benton Harbor for a public park and bathing beach for the people of the city and surrounding communities. The Klock deed stipulates that the property be used for a public park or other public use, which is generally understood to mean something which is developed and owned by the public. Although the recent conversion of the central core of the park to three holes of a championship golf course (part of the Harbor Shores development) is described by proponents as a "public" golf course, it is a privately owned golf course with daily fee useage available to anyone with $150.00 to spend per round. Residents of Benton Harbor, the poorest community in the state of Michigan, can play for about $40.00 off peak, but that fee does not include use of golf clubs, shoes, caddy or golf cart.

John and Carolyn Eisley Klock and the gift of Jean Klock Park

John and Carrie Klock were devastated by the loss of their daughter, Jean, when she died at the age of 15 months. They asked that the park be named in her memory, and the city council resolved to name the land Jean Klock Park, not Jean Klock Beach, as recent media campaigns have sought to do. In his autobiography, Mr. Klock gave the reasons for this philanthropy, as well as many others he and Mrs. Klock bestowed upon the community:

"There is little joy in piling up money that you do not need....Our first major gift was Jean Klock Park, ..which was given to the city of Benton Harbor. ..My wife was very anxious to give this park to the city in memory of our little child. Her untimely death made possible the giving to other children the share of our earnings which belonged to her, but which she could not use."

At the park dedication ceremony, Mr. Klock gave a heartfelt speech to the assembled thousands who came to celebrate the momentous offering:

“In taking an inventory of life, we all take stock of the circumstances surrounding the happiest moments. The giving of this park to the city of Benton Harbor has been to Mrs. Klock and myself, the happiest moment of our lives. The deed of this park in the courthouse of St. Joseph will live forever. Perhaps some of you do not own a foot of ground, remember then, that this is your park, it belongs to you. Perhaps some of you have no piano or phonograph, the roll of the water murmuring in calm, roaring in storm, is your music, your piano and music box.”

In closing Klock affirmed: “The beach is yours, the drive is yours, the dunes are yours, all yours. It is not so much a gift from my wife and myself, it’s a gift from a little child. See to it, that the park is the children's.”

Development vs. Preservation

Jean Klock Park is one of the oldest public parks in the state of Michigan and predates the formation Michigan's state parks, which occurred in the early 1920s. In 1952 the city of Benton Harbor purchased an adjoining parcel of land along the northern border of the park to be added to the park acreage. Mr. Klock had tried for years with no success to buy it himself, but his death in 1938 and then WWII deferred the long sought acquisition. The addition extended the beach shoreline by 300 feet.

In 1990 the city commissioned a master plan for Jean Klock Park, and the report (referred to as the Troyer Report)stated:

"Two general areas comprising the majority of the site are particularly sensitive to human impact. The sand dunes and the wetlands on this property are of a level of quality that they require protection from overuse. Their importance as a resource cannot be overestimated."

The golf course development has severely, possibly irrevocably, damaged the natural resource values on the park property by nearly denuding the dunes of native vegetation, lowering the north dune to remove the new asphalt installed on the beach and 100 year-old road from view of golfers. Other invasive measures include cutting further into the south dune, previously damaged by major infrastructure changes begun in the late 1940s, for an access road to replace the one eliminated for the eighth green. (See graphic of park area actually taken at actual conversion area)

Until recent years, Jean Klock Park was considered untouchable for commercial development. The deindustrialization of the very industrial town of Benton Harbor opened the way for desperate measures. In 1986 the city sought to add the eastern part of Jean Klock Park, excluding the dunes, to a Downtown Development Authority (DDA), but that brought howls of protest from nearby residents who claimed to be enraged by the city's disregard for the Klock deed restrictions and community understanding of acceptable uses for the park. In answer to the challenge the Michigan Attorney General's office issued an opinon that land not contiguous to a city's downtown area could not be incorporated into a DDA.

Then in 2003 the entire park was threatened by a luxury housing development called Grand Boulevard Renaissance. Once again nearby residents banded together to prevent the city from actually selling part of the park. Six people filed a lawsuit claiming that such a sale would violate the terms of the Klock deed. Two of the plaintiffs formed a legal entity called the Friends of Jean Klock Park and developed a website to inform the public about the litigation. Initially the circuit court issued a temporary stay until the matter could be litigated. Then another judge was assigned the case due to the original judge's retirement, and she ordered facilitative mediation between the parties.

The resultant settlement agreement was memorialized in a Consent Judgment stipulating that:

"The Court permanently enjoins the City from using any portion of the property depicted as Jean Klock Park in Exhibit to this Consent Judgment for any purpose other than bathing beach, park purposes or other public purposes related to bathing beach or park use except for recreational vehicle park campsites provided however that the City shall for all time be authorized and empowered to operate its water treatment facility located at the south end of the park including but not limited to capital improvements and expansion. The restrictions in this paragraph shall run with the land and shall be binding upon the City and its successors."

Unbeknownst to the plaintiff group at the time, the city of Benton Harbor was represented by an attorney who simultaneously was representing a constituent member of the Harbor Shores development consortium, then named Edgewater-River Run. This is significant because the city and the Harbor Shores developer entered into the subsequent contract, executed in 2006 and again in 2008, allowing the Harbor Shores developer to lease Jean Klock Park acreage for 35 years with 2 automatic renewals, or allowing the developer quiet enjoyment of the land for up to 105 years.

Further, the plaintiff group believed that the settlement they had reached with the city, allowing the sale of about 4 acres in exchange for the agreement quoted above, would ban any further invasive development in the park. However, the Harbor Shores developer has used the Consent Judgment language to justify construction of a portion of a golf course in the park, because Michigan law allows that a golf course is a public park use. See "Benton Harbor Sees Boon, Bust in Resort Plan,", Detroit Free Press, August 7, 2007.

Ongoing Litigation

Once again plaintiffs in the 2003 litigation filed another lawsuit in 2008 claiming that a privately owned and operated golf course is not a use contemplated by the Klock deed and violates the Consent Judgment entered in 2004. In August, 2008, the Berrien County Circuit Court sided with the developer, citing very expansive uses to which public parks in Michigan have been subjected, including runways and nuclear reactors. Clearly, the plaintiffs in the 2004 litigation did not anticipate this possibility, and they immediately appealed the circuit court decision.

Concurrent with the state circuit court action, seven other people filed a lawsuit in federal court against the City of Benton Harbor, the National Park Service, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. Golf course construction required permits from the Corps of Engineers and the state of Michigan, as well as permission from the National Park Service. The development of which the golf course is a part covers over 500 acres and takes in federally regulated wetlands, two rivers (subject to Section 10 of the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899) and Lake Michigan, all regulated as waters of the United States. The federal lawsuit claims substantive violations of the National Environmental Policy Act, the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act, the Clean Water Act and the National Historic Preservation Act. No hard look at potential environmental impacts was taken, because the development unfolded in stages, and the developer intentionally fragmented development processes as much as possible to prevent any one agency from having a 360 degree perspective regarding environmental impact. The federal plaintiffs allege that the government was a willing partner in the intentional fragmentation of regulatory and statutory oversight.

Land outside of Jean Klock Park is the subject of the federal litigation, because land taken from Jean Klock Park acreage had to be mitigated or offset by other land to be used for recreation. The offset land consists of seven scattered parcels along the Paw Paw River which are supposed to be developed as part of a trail system but as yet remain unimproved. All but one of the scattered parcels is contaminated from industrial legacy wastes and illegal dumping. It is believed that this is the first instance of the National Park Service allowing contaminated land to be used as mitigation since the Land and Water Conservation Fund's inception in 1965. Numerous communications from the state of Michigan advise that the NPS will not approve contaminated land as mitigation.

Support by Proactive Environmental Protection Organizations

Plaintiffs in both lawsuits as well as many others continue to defend the Klock deed and the public's right to accountable government contained in federal laws enacted to protect the land and the water and precious ecosystems. Other organizations have supported the efforts to preserve Jean Klock Park since 2003 including the Alliance for the Great Lakes, the Michigan Environmental Council and Freshwater Future.

External links

• Deed conveying the park to the City of Benton Harbor

Friends of Jean Klock Park Protect JKP federal litigation site