This correspondence highlights the City of Superior’s 2022 effort to clarify the history of the Paine Property conservation easement, originally established by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) in 1988. That year, the DNR placed the Barker’s Island Bird Sanctuary easement on land later owned by the Paine family, where buildings were eventually constructed—raising long-standing questions about how the sanctuary was sited and recorded.

In 2022, property owner Thomas Paine sought answers about why the bird sanctuary appeared to have been placed on his family’s land without notice. City Councilor Jenny Van Sickle—then married to Mayor Jim Paine, Thomas’s first cousin—took the lead in contacting DNR representative Cherie Hagen and City Economic Development Director Jason Serck to review property records, deeds, and historical documentation.