To the editor:
Reading this past year about the campgrounds proposed — and turned down —-in Leelanau County reminds me of a recent summer vacation. My wife and I rented a condo in Frankfort, and spent one of our days driving, shopping, and hiking Leelanau County. We went partially “around the horn” on M-22, and drove by what used to be Timber Shores. and in the early afternoon of the busiest month of the year... there wasn’t another car in sight on M-22. Taking the scenic route back to Frankfort, we drove across M-204 to Lake Leelanau, then down County Road 643 towards Cedar, right past Leelanau Pines Campground...and there wasn’t another car in sight there either. The response to expansions at these campgrounds reminded me of something the county planning director when I worked at the Enterprise, Toni Perfect, told me... When people buy a place in Leelanau, he said, “they look to the east, they look to the west...they look to the north, they look to the south... and say, NOTHING I SEE IS EVER ALLOWED TO CHANGE.” It’s also called pulling the ladder up behind you once you make the climb up to God’s Country. The areas around those campgrounds aren’t Traverse City. Heck, they aren’t even Suttons Bay or Leland. And several dozen more campers a week wouldn’t make them that way. Most campers are conservationists (okay, maybe not the 75-footlong motorhome crowd) and take care of the lands we visit. Just a thought.
Matt Roush Southfield
