The Winnebago Lutheran Academy executive board will be making a recommendation to the school’s governing board next week on the future of developing a portion of McDermott Park for softball diamonds and a parking lot. A proposed 50 year lease between WLA and the City of Fond du Lac has been met with opposition from the public and suffered a major setback recently when the city learned a portion of the area to be developed was in a flood way. WLA spokesman Pastor John Boggs says the school has to decide whether to proceed with an alternative plan or not to move forward. Boggs says he still believes the lease agreement would be good for the city. “We look at this as a benefit for us and we look at this as a benefit for the city,” Boggs told WFDL news. “We look at ourselves as Fond du Lac and so with all the grief that we’ve received and a lot of the unfounded rumors and accusations there has been a thought of we need to walk away from this right now and need to begin exploring immediately where we should be as an academy for our long range plan.” Boggs says the final recommendation won’t be announced until the meeting next week. Nancy Sondergard with the group Friends of McDermott Park says their opposition to the proposal isn’t an attack on WLA. “What we’re opposed to is the vision for the use and development of McDermott Park that we think is not in the best interest of all citizens,” Sondergard told WFDL news. Sondergard says the Friends group has come up with their own list of potential park improvements. “They’re talking about bike trails from north to south to link that bike trail into the Fond du Lac loop, an idea for a botanical garden, a disc golf course, fitness and equipment zones, more gazebos or picnic shelters.” Sondergard says another idea is a park theatre.
