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Ann Arbor residents urge board to protect Thurston Nature Center as trustees press bond committee for answers
Summary
Dozens of residents and Thurston Nature Center volunteers told the Ann Arbor Public Schools board that proposed site plans for the new Thurston Elementary threaten prairie, rain gardens and an oak savanna, and called for staging or alternative siting; trustees asked the bond committee and administration to gather more data and community input before final decisions are made.
Dozens of residents and volunteers urged the Ann Arbor Public Schools Board of Education to slow work on the Thurston Elementary site plan, saying the current design would remove vital habitat and disrupt the district’s long-standing nature-education site.
"The Thurston Nature Center is one of the country's first educational environmental spaces connected to a school," Praveena Ramaswamy, chair of the Thurston Nature Center Committee, told the board. "We are for the students and for the trees and the bees and the native plants and the wildlife." (Praveena Ramaswamy)
Multiple public commenters described lost prairie, rain gardens and an oak savanna in the proposed footprint and said the plan would replace much open green space with pavement, increase light and noise…
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