Transcripts

MARK STEIL: State government owns about 10% of Minnesota's land. The DNR has bought an average of 6,000 acres each of the last five years. The department's real estate management administrator Jim Lawlor says about 20 DNR employees work full time on land deals.

JIM LAWLOR: We have probably 300 parcels in some stage of process any given workday. And you never know when a new parcel is going to come on the market that day or somebody else is going to take theirs off the market.

MARK STEIL: The DNR buys undeveloped land that showcases natural land types once common in Minnesota-- prairies, wetlands, uncut forests. Most of the deals never get past the talking stage. Still Lawler says the DNR buys a couple hundred parcels of land each year.

That's too much for some state residents, like Bob [INAUDIBLE]. [INAUDIBLE] raises bison on his farm near Lake City. He says state land buys are bad for the area because they take property off county tax rolls and removes it from local control. Standing in his front yard, he says the state of Minnesota is his neighbor.

SPEAKER: Well, as far as you can see towards Lake City is State Park all the way down to number two. It follows on up past my farm, around my farm, and it goes most of the way to Wacouta. And there's since their new purchase, they'd be approximately 2,200 acres, I guess round figures.

MARK STEIL: The new purchase adds about 400 acres to Frontenac State Park. [INAUDIBLE] says the million dollars spent for the farm demonstrates what he calls the DNR's hunger for land.

SPEAKER: They want to control every tree and animal in Minnesota. And this, to me, is not right. If the government wants to own all the land, we're going to go back to it was in Europe when they had the feudal lords. This is just the way they act.

MARK STEIL: DNR officials say their land buys are not power moves. They don't get every parcel they pursue, and the ones they lose often are developed. An example is Sibley State Park in Central Minnesota near New London. The DNR was outbid on 115 acres adjacent to the park. Homes are now being built on the land.

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Walking across the most recent addition to Frontenac State Park, Park Manager Harry Roberts pauses when a patch of blue breaks the mostly brown landscape.

HARRY ROBERTS: We're standing looking at a cut in the Bluff Ridge looking down on the Mississippi River where it's starting-- where it's widening out to form Lake Pepin with birch trees in the foreground and some other hardwoods and just a very picturesque scene.

MARK STEIL: Roberts says preserving that unspoiled view is worth a million dollars.

HARRY ROBERTS: This costs a lot of money, but it's not going to go down. It's going to-- the price is always going to be going up. So the park's philosophy is that we need to keep some of these real scenic areas available for the entire public and not all be tied up in development.

MARK STEIL: Roberts says the legislature provides the overall guidance for state land purchases. Lawmakers have identified all the land they'd like to see included in the state park system. Roughly 200 parcels are owned by private citizens. The DNR's Jim Lawlor says if any of that land goes on the market, he's interested.

JIM LAWLOR: We negotiate. If they want to sell to us, they will. If they don't want to sell to us, they want to sell to somebody else, they won't sell to us. If we can cut a deal that's in the interest of the state and future generations on preservation in the park or access to a resource or whatever, that's part of our mission.

MARK STEIL: It's a mission Bob [INAUDIBLE] disagrees with. The Lake City farmer says the DNR is a bad neighbor. He questions why they're buying more land when he says they don't have money or staff to take care of the land they currently own at Frontenac State Park.

SPEAKER: Well, I'm in the process of building a new line fence all around the farm. And we're building six wire, 5-feet tall. And this is not to keep the bison in. This is mainly to keep the deer and the trespassers out from the State Park.

MARK STEIL: Park manager Harry Roberts says it's true the DNR's day-to-day budget is tight and it can't do everything it wants with its property, but he says it's still necessary to buy land to protect it from development.

HARRY ROBERTS: So we do that by acquiring the property as we can even if it means just setting it aside for a while, but then it is there and for use in the future.

MARK STEIL: The DNR would like to buy another 600 acres for Frontenac State Park. Some nearby residents predict they'll have a tough time doing that. They say some people so dislike the DNR that they'll never sell. This is Mark Steil, Main Street radio.