PRESS RELEASE For immediate release January 25, 2012 Contact: Terry Lodge, plaintiffs attorney, 419-255-7552 Plaintiffs

website: Protect Jean Klock Park, www.protectjkp.com Plaintiffs (Appellants) Response to Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals Decision On Jean Klock Park Privatization Seven foes of the private takeover of the heart of Jean Klock Park in Benton Harbor, Michigan, for 3 holes of the Harbor Shores golf course development, today called the January 25 decision of the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals flawed and incomplete. A three-judge panel of the court, which is located in Cincinnati, turned down a public interest challenge of federal permits authorizing construction of the privately- owned and -operated golf course in the city park, one of the states oldest public parks. The plaintiffs, all from Benton Harbor and Benton Township, sued the National Park Service and the Army Corps of Engineers in August, 2008, claiming violations of the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the National Historic Preservation Act and the Clean Water Act after permits were issued for construction. The Court of Appeals stated that most of the case was rendered moot - that it need not be decided - because the golf course was finished by the time that court heard arguments from the parties and made its decision. Were perplexed that the court mentioned nowhere in its opinion the serious toxic contamination of five of the seven (7) parcels of land traded to the public to make up for the loss of the acreage on the crests of the Jean Klock Park dunes, said Terry Lodge, attorney for the plaintiffs. Harbor Shores own consultant report suggests that only the thick concrete and wood-chip paths across the parcels, which the consultant calls isolation zones, will be safe for families and children to use. The City, Harbor Shores, and ultimately the National Park Service all completely failed to tell the public before the deal was sealed that 5 of the 7 parcels of supposed new parkland have serious poisons oozing to the surface and polluting the Paw Paw River, and they did not explain how that economically-worthless acreage was a fair trade for the spectacular and unpolluted Lake Michigan overlooks of Jean Klock Park. The appellate court also said that the plaintiffs did not have legal standing to question the appraisal which set the value of land traded for the Park. Harbor Shores, the developer, oversaw the appraisal. That appraisal set a price on prime, beautiful Lake Michigan-overlook dune crests of pennies on the dollar. The appraisal for 22 acres of Jean Klock Park was $900,000, for land that according to sales in the immediate vicinity should have been valued at perhaps $12,000,000 to $16,000,000, commented Lodge. But the court ruled that the plaintiffs could not have a court decide whether the appraisal was corrupt. So anytime the publics parks are sold for development, the public cannot question the price tag set by an appraiser picked by the developer who stands to profit. Julie Weiss, one of the plaintiffs, commented: What troubles me most is that the state seems to have forgotten how many golf courses already are begging for business, and yet the state has bet the ranch on this development, although that bet was wagered with public resources and public money. The federal agencies all took a pass on independent review of many dubious conclusions presented to them, or they failed to ask pertinent questions. The review of JKP's historic significance conducted by the

Corps of Engineers in concert with the State Historic Preservation Office is the definition of gerryrigged. The government can be very incurious and obtuse when it chooses to be. LuAnne Kozma, an activist formerly with Defense of Place, now with Public Park Advocates and a member of the plaintiffs' legal team, noted, It is a travesty that the National Park Service argued this case to trade historic Jean Klock Park land, with its half-mile of Lake Michigan lakefront and dunes, for worthless, contaminated parcels inside a private golf course. Now that the National Park Service got the decision it wanted, it must watch over the contaminated Harbor Shores parcels in perpetuity as public parkland. But in perpetuity means nothing any longer. The public in Benton Harbor has lost a park that was precious and priceless. What has been lost to everyone in the U.S. is the idea that parks are to be protected forever. Kozma's YouTube video "Save Jean Klock Park" focused early attention on Benton Harbor residents' insistence that they not lose their park and that the Land and Water Conservation Act's legacy is to protect parks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6B6hUa_SC0 The plaintiffs have not determined whether they will take the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court, or not. -30Court of Appeals decision: http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/12a0086n-06.pdf