To the editor:

DNR officials certainly do appear dazed and confused when fielding questions about the proposed Upper Sioux Agency State Park transfer. These government employees expect taxpayers to spend over $10 million dollars so the DNR can demolish historic buildings dating to the 19th century, crush outbuildings paid for with public funds within recent years and forget what the Upper Sioux Agency State Park holds – a vast history – visited by more than 30,000 yearly.

DNR leaders cannot give total costs to surrender the Park and refer to emotional reasons, disrepair and a sinkhole for the millions needed drop the Park from state ownership. The DNR does not tell taxpayers that none of those reasons satisfy federal code that requires no alternative option exists before property can be converted to tribal land including a “do nothing” alternative. Even $5 million would repair the Park’s buildings.

Taxpayers are to forget the burials of Iowa tribes people who inhabited the land from 900 A.D. to 1700 within the Park and the unmarked civilian graves of those who died in 1862 while kept hostage by Dakota and force marched through the Park’s rivers and bluffs. The primary purpose of Upper Sioux Agency State Park was to keep the history and area open to all, not to a few hundred from a single Indian tribe.

Enough taxpayer money and legislator time has been spent on a topic that cannot pass federal scrutiny. It is time for the DNR to stop whining and repair what needs to be repaired and follow what it set out to do according to its own 2009 management plan.

Stephanie Chappell

Glencoe