LETTER: Kohler exploits a loophole to  put golf course on sacred site

To Ozaukee Press:

After years of court battles, Kohler can begin construction of a luxury golf course on land eligible for the National Register of Historic Places and home to Native American burial sites. A federally mandated 2018 archaeological study of the original golf course unearthed human remains in seven locations.

Kohler is now exploiting a legal loophole. After the courts revoked their wetland permit, the company redesigned the course to avoid wetland permitting and federal requirements for archaeological studies triggered by such permits. 

The new layout is likely to unearth additional human remains and requires a new conditional use permit and archaeological study, which local commissions can require as conditions of approval. Yet

Sheboygan’s Plan Commission extended Kohler’s permit without requiring either, ignoring its authority—and moral responsibility—to make protection of Native burial sites a condition of approval.

Ryan Sorenson, Sheboygan’s mayor and Plan Commission chairman, told the Wisconsin Law Journal he was concerned about the burial sites and said that Kohler was “trying to find some legal maneuvers to get this approved.” Yet at the meeting, his only question to the Kohler representatives was  whether they needed more time. He and the commission then rubber-stamped Kohler’s permit without a single question about whether or how they would protect burial sites.

Kohler is eager to break ground, apparently indifferent to what lies beneath.

As commission chairman, Sorenson has the power—and the duty—to stop them. He must require a new conditional use permit that protects sacred ground. Native burial sites deserve protection, not erasure.

Belle Rose Ragins

Town of Wilson

Editor’s note: The new Kohler golf course is planned for a 47-acre site on the shore of Lake Michigan, just north of Oostburg on land that was in the Town of Wilson before being annexed to the City of Sheboygan.