After over a decade of discussion, debate, and deliberation, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has traded 320 acres of its Cook County real estate for 440 acres of land that was formerly in private hands.
The DNR now owns 11 40-acre parcels of land off the Arrowhead Trail in Hovland formerly owned by Larry and Leanne DeWester, part-time residents of Cook County. In exchange, the DNR traded eight 40-acre parcels it owned in Lutsen – two parcels on either side of the Caribou Trail at the Murmur Creek Road intersection and four parcels on the east side of the Caribou Trail north of Holly Lake—and two parcels off the Gunflint Trail along the Gunflint Transfer Station road. The DNR was interested in this exchange because it would fill in some gaps in the land it owned in Hovland and dispose of smaller, isolated tracts in Lutsen.
According to a DNR publication, “The goal of a land exchange is to allow more efficient and productive management of lands. Quite often an exchange consolidates or fills in the state’s land holdings within existing management units, such as state forests or wildlife management areas.”
The appraised value of each set of properties was $700,000.
DeWester told the Cook County News-Herald that he enjoyed working with Doug Rowlett from the Two Harbors DNR office and Kate Giel from St. Paul DNR headquarters over the last couple of years. DeWester’s first couple of years working with the DNR back in the 1990s were “a positive and seemingly productive experience” as well, but the years in between were more challenging.
DeWester was originally told the exchange would take six to 18 months. The exchange process had to start over when retirement brought about personnel changes in the DNR, and ultimately a combination of factors drew the process out for over 10 years. “Part of the delays [were] due to the slow nature with which the wheels of any bureaucracy turn,” DeWester said. Other delays, in his opinion, resulted from changing state priorities, poor management, and mistakes. “Our experience indicates that the process takes much longer than should be reasonably necessary to accomplish,” he said.
While the DNR had approached DeWesters in the late 1990s about the possibility of the land exchange, DeWester believes some DNR employees opposed it. “Much of the delay we experienced, I believe, came from some internal DNR personnel who oppose land exchange in general (in favor of purchase) working in conjunction with outside opponents to exchanges in general…to create stumbling blocks and delays, hoping to kill an exchange,” DeWester said. “I say this because we were required on a number of occasions to revise and change our lists of pro- posed DNR lands for the exchange due to expressed public opposition prior to the time for any public input. In other words,” DeWester said, “it appears that someone internal in [the] DNR was leaking information to the public long before we reached the time for required public input. Since [the] DNR appears to be oversensitive to proceeding when there is expected to be more than the most minimal of opposition, they react to put out the ‘fire’ if they see ‘smoke’ early on.”
Several Lutsen property owners expressed vigorous opposition to the land exchange at a public hearing last August. They expressed concern that the county might not have enough personnel to properly oversee potential development of the parcels. One property owner feared that wetlands and watersheds might be damaged. Another opposed the exchange because DeWester would be trading his remote property for accessible, developable land that would probably not be developed if it stayed in DNR hands.
In July 2008, DeWester told the county board that he believed exchanging land with the DNR would be better for the community than selling land to the DNR because it would keep the county from losing more of its private tax base, which comprises only 8% of the county.
DeWester took issue with the amount of weight the DNR gave to those who opposed the exchange. “While I am a firm believer in participatory governance,” he said, “I do believe that when government officials have determined that an action is clearly in the public interest…they need to act to educate the public as to their needs rather than to be ‘taken to school’ by them. A handful of individuals should not be allowed to disrupt the smooth operation of government with such relative ease. While public oversight and input are essential as checks on governmental excess or incompetence, strong internal government leadership is important to assure effective and efficient implementation of public policy.”
DeWester also took issue with having to pay half the $7,500 appraisal fee for an appraiser chosen by the state plus $2,400 in deed taxes and recording fees. “When an appraiser feels employed by the state and therefore responsible to them,” DeWester said, “I believe that a certain prejudice towards the state interests may be more likely to be exercised by the appraiser in hopes of getting more future business. …I believe that there should not only be an absolute prohibition against any possible conflict of interest, but that our government should exercise controls which would avoid even the appearance of such a possible conflict.”
When asked what they plan to do with their new Lutsen property, DeWester said they are considering the possibility of an exchange for U.S. Forest Service land in St. Louis County.
“We have no plans, either short or long run, to ‘develop’ any of the parcels we received in the exchange,” he said of the Lutsen property. They are open to selling some acreage in smaller, perhaps 20-acre, parcels. “We have no intention to utilize platting or rezoning,” he said, “unless we see that such a procedure…would serve to divide a parcel in a more rational manner (such as all of a parcel lying west of a road, etc.) and/or…to better protect resources such as wetlands.”
The parcels off the Gunflint Trail might be useable as a county septic disposal site, a land use at the top of the county’s list of priorities.
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