LEROY – Lake Louise State Park at LeRoy was only one of 20 to suffer the indignity of an early closing of camping this year.

Wednesday, September 22, 1999

LEROY – Lake Louise State Park at LeRoy was only one of 20 to suffer the indignity of an early closing of camping this year.

In all, five state parks in southeastern Minnesota were impacted, including Beaver Creek, Carley, Great River Bluffs, Rice Lake and Lake Louise.

There were also four in northwestern Minnesota and four others in northeast Minnesota, two in the central part of the state and five in southeastern Minnesota.

Caught in the middle of the fray was Prairie Visions, which obviously believes a full-functioning Lake Louise State Park will further its own efforts to promote the area.

Prairie Visions helped facilitate a solution to the Lake Louise State Park situation and now it is girding for a battle to keep it open in the future.

If the next battle is anything like this one was, the work is cut out for Prairie Visions.

The DNR estimated it would need an additional $300,000 to restore camping to the 20 parks this fall and next spring.

Already, Lake Louise State Park has been given a lease on life by the Mower County Board of Commissioners, which approved a disbursement to keep the park open for camping and other services through Oct. 31.

Having dodged one bullet this summer, supporters, namely Prairie Visions, are now busy developing a plan to continue pressure on the state to keep "their" state park open.

The generosity of the Mower County Board of Commissioners allowed a popular environmental education program to continue at Lake Louis State Park this month.

Prairie Visions, the joint ventures agreement that spawned an organization of volunteers from Rose Creek, Adams, Taopi and LeRoy, appears to be embarked on a mission to keep the state park open for all services indefinitely.

Margie Meier, secretary of Prairie Visions, says the organization will continue its efforts to promote Lake Louise State Park for year-around use, including camping.

Gerald Payne, president of First State Bank of LeRoy and president of the Independent Bankers Association, is rallying greater Minnesota bankers to come to the aid of state parks in their areas who are threatened with a loss of funds to retain all services.

Payne, Eileen Hutchins, president of Prairie Visions, and Ed Koppen, mayor of LeRoy, huddled immediately after the August confrontation with the DNR at the state park to review possible strategies.

Mayor Koppen is working with the League of Minnesota Cities to attack the dilemma faced by Minnesota’s smallest state parks from a different front.

According to Meier, the question is whether to seek short-fixes or long-term solutions.

When the Mower County Board of Commissioners agreed to contribute $3,500 of county monies to Prairie Visions to keep the state park open through October, that represented a short-term fix.

Long-term solutions will be discussed when the Southeast Minnesota State Parks and Trails organization meets.

Meier and her husband, Gerald, live at Adams and she can’t disguise the pride she feels for the way Prairie Visions rallied to, in effect, save Lake Louise State Park.

"Prairie Visions is proud of our communities; especially when they pick up and get moving on local issues which make a difference for so many of our people," she said. "It’s great to be part of this group."

The August meeting at Lake Louise State Park also was an eye-opener for Meier.

"Our group numbered about 75 person by the end of the evening," she said. "It was so rewarding to see this great group conduct themselves in such an appropriate manner about an issue that is so near and dear to their hearts."

Meanwhile, the DNR’s point of view is this on the early closings of the state’s smallest state parks: the increase obtained from the Minnesota Legislature was consumed and therefore the closings had to be done.

The DNR’s Division of Parks and Recreation gets $25 million a year to operate 70 state parks and recreation areas, plus eight waysides and one state trail.

According to the DNR, significant increases in health insurance costs, plus significant increases in unemployment, severance pay and other unfunded liabilities consumed a part of the increase.

Lastly, the continued erosion of funds due to inflation further exhausted the monies.

The DNR claims it did ask for more money, $1,088,000 per year for the biennium, but only received $850,000 more.

The decision to shorter the camping season in 20 parks was a difficult one, according to the DNR.

Camping accounts for 10-15 percent of the total visitation. By targeting camping at some of the state’s smaller parks, the DNR felt it would impact fewer customers.

By law, it cannot close a park and in the fall, winter and spring, the bulk of state park visitors are day visitors, so the DNR’s goal was to preserve as many services as possible for the majority of park visitors.

Minnesotans are familiar with other cost-cutting measures in the past, including shortening hours, initiating more self-service opportunities like self-registration in the campgrounds or reducing the number of campsites available.

Now, the real work begins for Prairie Visions if it wants to do all it can to keep Lake Louise State Park open.

The DNR remains unfazed by the acts of support to keep the park open.

Officially, the DNR is warning everyone: things will get worse.

Without additional funding, the DNR is warning the state it will have to move toward a day use system only for its smallest state parks.