Dexter Takes First Step Toward Permanently Protecting Monument Park

Council Action Clears Way for Voters to Decide Park’s Future

With little discussion and no public controversy, the Dexter City Council on June 8 approved two resolutions that may ultimately settle one of the city’s longest-running land-use disputes.

The council first voted to vacate portions of Main Street and Central Street right-of-way within Monument Park, then approved ballot language asking voters whether the property should be dedicated as parkland in perpetuity.

The actions were procedural, but their significance reaches back more than three decades to a bitter debate over whether a road should be built through what is now considered the heart of downtown Dexter.

If approved by voters in November, the charter amendment would provide the strongest protection Monument Park has ever received.

A Fight That Shaped Village Politics

The roots of the issue stretch back to the late 1980s and 1990s, when village officials discussed extending Baker Road north to Central Street through land that now forms part of Monument Park.

Archived editions of The Dexter Leader show the proposal generated strong opposition from residents, who packed public meetings and challenged village leaders over plans that included a Baker Road extension through the park area.

According to Councilmember Joe Semifero, the controversy became a defining issue in the 1998 village election.

“There were (candidate) write-ins for those spots, and the write-ins won like two to one in the election because the people that were on council wanted to put this road through, and the people in the village voted them out of office and voted in this contingent to save the park,” Semifero said.

Articles published before the election highlighted the emergence of four write-in candidates whose campaigns centered, in part, on opposition to the proposed road.

Semifero said the question never completely disappeared.

“All the way back to 1990, the council’s been talking about how to make the road right-of-way a park and keep it a park,” he said. “It would come up, and then it would die down, come up, and it would die down.”

Why the City Had to Vacate the Right-of-Way

One of the more surprising discoveries made during the city’s recent effort to permanently preserve Monument Park was that much of the land residents viewed as parkland was never formally designated as such.

Parts of Monument Park remained legally classified as public right-of-way, a remnant of the original village plat.

The city commissioned a survey and determined that portions of the property had to be formally vacated before they could be incorporated into a single park parcel.

“So the first thing we did on Monday, we vacated the parcels,” Semifero said (4:15).

Vacating the right-of-way removes its legal status as street land. Because the city owns the surrounding property, the vacated land became part of the Monument Park parcel.

From Open Right-of-Way to Protected Parkland

“The second thing we did on Monday night was we approved the ballot language to go on the ballot in November to say, should this become a park and stay a park in perpetuity?” Semifero said.

The distinction is important because a voter-approved charter amendment would make future changes significantly more difficult.

Making Official What Residents Already Believe

For decades, Monument Park has functioned as a community gathering place, hosting festivals, concerts, civic events and daily activity in downtown Dexter.

Yet legally, portions of the property remained something else entirely. The result was a park that existed in practice but not entirely on paper.

“We’ve just laid out the curbs and put in the grass and said, ‘Okay, now it’s a park,'” Semifero said. “But now it officially will be a park.”

The Decision Now Belongs to Voters

The June 8 council vote did not permanently preserve Monument Park.

Instead, it cleared the legal hurdles necessary to put that question before residents.

The right-of-way has now been vacated, the property has been consolidated, and the proposed charter amendment has been approved for the ballot.

After more than 30 years of recurring debate over roads, rights-of-way and park preservation, the final decision will now rest with Dexter voters.

Featured photo: Monument Park has served as a community gathering place in downtown Dexter for generations. A June 8 City Council vote to vacate a long-standing street right-of-way within the park marks the first step toward a proposed voter-approved dedication of the park in perpetuity. Photo by Doug Marrin.