Protect the mature forest

Let the mature forest live. Taxpayers have already paid for it. The City of Naperville recent statistically valid survey verifies a greater than 90% appreciation of the “natural environment” as a key contributor to the quality of life valued by residents.

The infrastructure of this forest on a glacial ridge along 75th Street with hundreds of keystone oak trees, millions of miles of integrated soil structures and verdant native vegetation is vastly more complex and superior to pipes, wires, and concrete buried in dead property where all the life of said forest has been chomped and scraped off by drooling bulldozers.

The appointed DuPage Water Commission and elected representatives of DuPage County, Forest Preserve District of DuPage County, and City of Naperville are the deciders; our local team for community safety and health.

Listen to your constituents and your data. Fund mental health programs and respect Mother Nature who offers, free of charge, wondrous spaces for our well-being.

Naperville Ridge is not a NIMBY, Not In My Back Yard issue. It is a NIOBY issue, Not In Our Back Yard. The forest is all of ours.

Country Lakes turned an abandoned, degraded golf course into a healthy subdivision.

Naper Commons turned an overgrown, compacted parking lot into a healthy subdivision.

Naperville Ridge dangles big money and asks permission to destroy a mature, integrated healthy forest.

Do not do it.

Mary Lou Wehrli, Naperville