Mission of Asylum Lake Preservation Association
The mission of the Asylum Lake Preservation Association (ALPA) is to ensure that Asylum Lake remain a natural open space. ALPA intends to do everything within its power to see that the property is preserved as habitat for wildlife and for continued use by the whole community, including the students and employees of WMU, as natural areas for education, research and passive recreation. Additionally, ALPA intends to protect the lands and neighborhoods surrounding Asylum Lake from over development, decline in visual appeal and traffic congestion. To do so will protect Asylum Lake from general, specific, actual and potential forms of pollution.
board members
Wendy Denning | Tom Howes (Secretary) | Judy Huxmann (Treasurer) | Josh Kieser (Chair) | Sharon Koole | Jimmy Lane | Dok Stevens
How ALPA Began
The Asylum Lake Preservation Association (ALPA) formed in December 1990 when citizens across Kalamazoo united to oppose Western Michigan University's proposal to build a business, research, and light industrial park on land south of Parkview Avenue—including parcels that legislative conveyance restrictions reserved for public park, recreation, or open space use. Through petition drives gathering thousands of signatures, packed City Commission and Board of Trustees meetings, a cable-access television program, and a city-wide telephone survey, ALPA rallied neighborhood associations, environmental groups, students, and elected officials. The coalition even researched and wrote its own counter-proposal for a more appropriate "research-only" park—all to oppose a plan that permitted manufacturing, truck traffic, and development on the protected Asylum Lake property WMU had promised to leave untouched. Our grass-roots effort continues today alongside City and State leaders, and there's much more to the story. Read our complete history here.