per sere Oro. B-OnN BU la Le bers N 9 
Might not a county conservation district board get too interested in 
developing golf courses and other recreational facilities for the bourgeoise 
and neglect the common people? This is another question that was asked 
in Macon county’s referendum campaign. Iowa’s experience was turned 
to for an answer to this. 
The Iowa Conservation District Board directory lists only two golf 
courses in the 502 recreational areas in the 83 counties that have con- 
servation districts operating. John Wymore, director of the Polk county 
meen district, defends development of golf courses where they are 
needed. 
“We should meet the recreational needs of all the people, and while 
golf has little interest for me, it is an avid sport for many. Our Des Moines 
park district courses and the city’s private courses are so crowded that a 
considerable number drive 40 miles to Ames and some as much as 100 
miles to Waterloo to play on weekends.” 
Iowa’s experience with the conservation districts has shown that much 
land is given by private donors who have tracts they would like to see 
perpetuated as open space areas, and know of no other way to insure this 
kind of use. Much of the land most desirable for parks and other recrea- 
tional or nature preserve use is rough terrain, and productive of little or 
no income to the owner. By gift disposal to the conservation district he 
is relieved of paying further taxes on it. 
Director Lodge of the Illinois Conservation Department believes the 
conservation district idea will spread faster in this state now that a few 
key counties have undertaken such programs. 
“An added value of such development,’ Lodge pointed out, “would 
be attractiveness to industries looking for sites to locate branch plants. 
Industrial management likes to pick places where employees and their 
families will have easy access to recreational facilities.” 
Lodge also sees a great opportunity in the new Land and Water Con- 
servation Act passed by the last Congress. It sets up funds for 50-50 
federal matching of money for purchase of land and development of re- 
creation and conservation projects. 
“This is too good to pass up. We ought to have a conservation district 
in every county,” Lodge believes. 
Illinois counties setting up. conservation districts are under a financing 
handicap during the approximately 18 months they have to wait for their 
first tax money that the Iowa counties didn’t face. Under Iowa’s law, the 
county boards of supervisors could provide funds for a survey or inventory 
or desirable sites to acquire and projects to develop, along with a program 
listing priority of projects. Under the Illinois law county boards may find 
it difficult to do this; in such case, use of anticipation tax warrants may be 
the only alternative to waiting out the 18 months before starting operations. 
It is interesting to note that Vermilion county has employed Ron 
Pennock, Winnebago County Forest Preserve manager, as its conservation 
district director. He is to be paid $10,000 a year, and his first job will be 
to prepare a plan for district development. 
— 531 So. Dennis Ave., Decatar, [lf. 
Editor’s Note: More information on this subject can be obtained by writing to the 
Illinois Conservation Department, State Office Building, Springfield, Ill., or to George 
B. Fell, Director, Natural Land Institute, 819 No. Main St., Rockford, Ill. 
