July 2003
Tom Miller is a small petroleum producer in Allegany, Cattaraugus County, New York. He is the founder of the Allegany Citizens Rights Committee, which led an effective effort over several years against implementation and enforcement of zoning ordinances that would squeeze out many small local businesses and cause many other problems for local homeowners and property owners.
Mr. Miller is a 1971 graduate of St. Bonaventure University, with a B.S. in physics. He has taught high school for one year. He has been an independent oil producer in New York and Pennsylvania for 29 years and is a director of Pennsylvania Independent Petroleum Producers (PIPP). As a member of the Property Rights Foundation of America national Advisory Board, he advises the organization on issues related to independent petroleum production and monitors local zoning efforts. Because timely information he gave to local citizens in the Town of Machias, they gave him much of the credit for the defeat of zoning there last year.
He was elected to a four-year term on the Allegany Town Board in 1997, where he staunchly advocated for minimal, constitutional government, standing against government subsidies of some businesses to the detriment of competing enterprises. At the same time, he worked against harsh land-use controls. Previously, he served on the Allegany zoning advisory board, as part of a difficult effort to contain zoning within constitutional bounds. In 1999, he received the Third Annual New York State Private Property Rights Defender Award from the Property Rights Foundation of America. He has accumulated 26 years as a volunteer fireman. Tom Miller lives on top of a mountain with his wife Patricia of 29 years, in Rock City, Town of Allegany.
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