Blue Mound State Park
Friends of Blue Mound State Park have supported and raised money for the park for more than two decades.
A state park’s friends group is alleging its members are being intimidated and threatened with retaliation by two high-ranking officials from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources over a lawsuit the group filed challenging a recent decision by the Natural Resources Board to allow a new snowmobile trail through Blue Mound State Park.
Brian Potts, attorney for Friends of Blue Mound Park, writes in an Aug. 11 letter to Gov. Tony Evers and Attorney General Josh Kaul that the friends group agreed to meet with Steven Schmelzer, the DNR parks director, and Missy VanLanduyt, the recreational partnerships section chief, on Aug. 5, with the understanding that the lawsuit would not be discussed. But Potts says that is not what happened.
“At the start of the meeting, Mr. Schmelzer cut right to the chase: he informed the Friends Group representatives that if the Friends Group does not drop its lawsuit by Aug. 17, 2021 — which, coincidentally, is the next filing deadline in the case — then the WDNR will terminate its agreement with the Friends Group, which would end the Friends Group’s decades-long association with the park.”
Potts notes in the letter that the friends group has had an agreement with the DNR for more than two decades to support and raise money for the park. The friends group has helped provide hundreds of thousands of dollars to maintain the park, which is a favorite for silent sports enthusiasts and a popular cross-country ski destination. Potts writes in his letter to Evers and Kaul that the friends group is gearing up to once again host the Horribly Hilly Hundreds bike ride to raise money for the park. The ride is scheduled for Aug 28. “Over the last decade, this event and the Friends group have raised — then donated — over $1 million to the WDNR for use at the park.”
Potts says in a Thursday email that attorneys from the Wisconsin Department of Justice met with him and his clients on Aug. 17 and were told that the DNR employees are now denying they made the threat.
“We are now considering what to do next,” Potts writes in the email. “The friends group representatives who were in attendance have no reason or incentive to make up these threats; in fact, at the end of the meeting the friends group representatives asked the WDNR directly: ‘Are you saying that if we don’t drop the lawsuit you will terminate our agreement with the WDNR?’ And the WDNR answered unequivocally: ‘Yes.’”
Isthmus emailed the Department of Natural Resources multiple times and called for comment. After this story posted, Sarah Hoye, communications director, emailed this: "The DNR disputes the letter’s characterization of the interaction between the Friends and DNR staff. As this involves ongoing litigation, the department is unable to comment further."
The attempt to construct a snowmobile trail through Blue Mound State Park, located about 30 miles southwest of Madison, dates back more than five years and was controversial from the start. The trail was approved in January 2016 by the Natural Resources Board, which sets policy for the Department of Natural Resources based on staff recommendations. That November, Karl Heil, former superintendent of the park, and park user Kenneth Wade, sued the DNR in Dane County Circuit Court, charging violations of the state open meetings law during deliberations of the snowmobile trail.
The court ultimately sided with the friends group, but the proposal returned to the Natural Resources Board and on May 26, 2021, the Natural Resources Board once again approved creation of a new snowmobile trail through the park. In June, Friends of Blue Mound filed suit in Dane County Circuit Court charging that the trail would go through an ecologically sensitive area of the park and that the decision was “short-sighted” and “unjustified” and counter to the DNR and NRB’s “own admission that snowmobile use is declining in the region.”
[Editor's note: This story was updated to include an emailed response from the Department of Natural Resources.]