“APA Ruling Against Couple in Royal Anchorage
Estates Subdivision Reversed”
- Matthew D. Norfolk
“Bulletin: Split Ruling on Adirondack Park Agency’s
New Regulations” - By Carol W.
LaGrasse, PRFA, November 27, 2009
State Supreme Court Judge Robert Muller ruled on November
25 that the APA’s new regulations requiring a variance
for most expansions of lakeshore houses are valid, but held that
the new rules restricting non-jurisdictional hunting and fishing
cabins to primitive conditions and the new rules eliminating
automatic separate lots when a waterway or highway divide a parcel
are invalid.
“Arthur Spiegel’s Federal Suit Against APA
Ends with Dismissal”- News Brief,
PRFA, September 2009
“Hamilton County Disaster Expert Attacks APA
for Failing to Protect Human Population” - News Brief, PRFA, Summer 2009
“Adirondack
Park Agency Maps ‘Watershed Protection Area’ that Specifies
Visibility from Sacandaga Reservoir”
- News Brief, PRFA, Summer 2009
“Gov. Spitzer Orders that State Agencies Broadcast
Their Meetings over the Web, APA Asks for Exemption” - News Brief, PRFA, March 2007
“Tragic
Death on Adirondack Northway Focuses Attention on Environmentalist
Obstruction of Cell Phone Coverage”
- News Brief, PRFA, March 2007
Opposed to Limiting Access to Adirondack Park - Sen. Elizabeth O’C Little Letter to Carol
W. LaGrasse, June 5, 2006
“A Slew of Property Rights Bills Submitted to
State Legislature” - By Carol
W. LaGrasse (PRFA, June 2006)
Bi-partisan bills in the New York State Legislature tackle
eminent domain reform, local permit applicant uncertainty, and
uniformity of Adirondack regulations with statewide rules, as
well as economic impact of Adirondack Park Agency and DEC planning.
Assemblywoman Teresa R. Sayward Letter of to DEC Commissioner
Denise M. Sheehan, Mar. 24, 2006
Expressing concern about the controversy over
DEC’s Unit Management Plan
proposed for the Moose River Plains, which has provided access
for all, including hiking, canoeing, hunting, fishing and snowmobiling,
and asking that access not be changed.
“Adirondack League Club Raises Arson Reward to
$100,000” - PRFA
News Brief, February 2006
With six remote camps destroyed beginning in 2003, the Adirondack
League Club is offering a reward of $100,000 for information
leading to the arrest and prosecution those responsible.
“Letter to Gov. Pataki signed by 33 of 37 female
APA employees stating that the APA is not a ‘hostile or
chilling environment for women’”
(Adirondack Park Agency, September 12, 2005)
“Sacandaga Lake property owner Faults Adirondack
Life Article” — Letter to
the Editor by Guy Poulin, March 2005
Access permit holders maintain the shoreline, pay income to
the Hudson River - Black River Regulating District, and pay premium
local property taxes. The April Adirondack Life article
attacking the permit holders had many important errors.
“State to Acquire Domtar’s 104,000 Acres
of Timber Land in Northern Adirondacks by Conservation Easements
and Fee Simple” - Property Rights
Foundation of America, January 10, 2005
“Chinese Officials and Researchers Study under
Adirondack Park Agency and TNC”
- Reprinted from N.Y. Property Rights Clearinghouse, Vol.
8, N. 4 (Property Rights Foundation of America, Fall 2004)
“Septic Restrictions Proposed to Stop Nearly
All Development in the Adirondacks and Many Other Areas” - April 2004
Using the Public Health Law as a surrogate to stop development,
a new amendment seeks to restrict septic systems to make it impossible
to build them without five feet of usable soil above impermeable
deposits, no raised septic systems, and many other conditions
impossible to meet in vast areas of New York where public health
would not be jeopardized by septic systems.
“Bulletin - Hearings for Comprehensive Adirondack
Snowmobile Plan” - Property Rights
Foundation of America. January 2004
Environmentalists long to close down snowmobiling. Sportsmen
and women, and all who believe in preserving the rural economy
should stand together. Access for snowmobilers helps to keep
the Forest Preserve open to all. Full article contains hearing
schedule across New York State beginning February 9 in Guilderland,
ending March 11 in Utica.
“Statute of Limitations on Violations of APA
Act Proposed - Betty Little and Teresa Sayward Introduce Bill
for Ten-Year Limit”
- By Carol W. LaGrasse, (Reprinted from the New York Property
Rights Clearinghouse, Summer 2003)
A bill introduced by Senator Betty Little and Assembly Member
Teresa Sayward would relieve the perpetual insecurity of Adirondack
property owners, granting them a statute of limitations for APA
enforcements, just as criminals are afforded under the American
system of law.
Letter
from Robert K. Davies, Director, DEC
Division of Lands and Forests, to Adirondack Explorer,
January 13, 2004.
“[S]nowmobiles are an allowable use in non-wilderness
areas of the Adirondack Forest Preserve… [T]he dangerous
and inflammatory rhetoric used by Mr. Van Valkenburgh in his
article is
counterproductive…Such cavalier mention of booby-trapping
snowmobile trails should be strongly renounced by everyone who
wishes for a civil public process.”
“Ross Whaley Appointed to Head Adirondack Park
Agency”
— September 2003
On September 16, the New York State Senate unanimously confirmed
Gov. George E. Pataki’s appointment of Ross Whaley
to chair the Adirondack Park Agency.
“The Adirondack Conservation Council is Sponsoring
a ‘Sportsman’s Rally’ and Fund Raiser”
Sportsmen and outdoor recreationists are invited
to a chicken barbecue at the Schroon Lake Fish & Game Club
on August 16, 2003 (noon to 5 p.m.) in support of reopening and
keeping open the roads and waters of state lands in the Adirondacks.
“Court
Rules that LaGrasse Had No Right to Challenge New APA Rules” (Property Rights Foundation of America, Nov. 2001)
“Open Space Plan Reveals the Same Old Illegalities—DEC
Fails to Reveal Full Extent and Impact of its Land Acquisition
Plans” - Press Release
(Property Rights Foundation of America, November 13, 2001)
The plan violates the State Environmental Quality Review Act,
SEQRA, by failing to reveal the current statistics of government
land ownership and the full extent of future land acquisition
plans.
February 2001:
“Pataki
Wants to Increase Funds to Buy Land”
“Adirondack Park Land Use and Development Plan
Map and State Land Map”
Adirondack Park Agency - 1999
Additional Resources
“Oppose DEC ATV Plan!” - by Don Sage, Adirondack Council
Life Member, April 28, 2005
This DEC plan to block ATV’s from the Adirondacks
is based on lies. ATV riding has been formally allowed for decades.
Hikers are the most destructive users in the forest preserve.
Since 1986, over $6 million has been taken from ATV fees, but
there is nowhere to ride on state-owned land. DEC illegally closed
300 town roads in the forest preserve. These and 1,000 miles
of trails should be reopened with an interconnecting trail system
for all types of recreation.
This large official map depicts the
categories of land use established by the Governor-appointed
zoning agency, the Adirondack Park Agency (APA), for all private
and State-owned land within the of the “Adirondack Park.”
For Information on the APA:
Subscribe to the Adirondack Park Agency Reporter
An independent monthly record of the deliberations of the Adirondack
Park Agency
address
To contact the Adirondack Park
Agency:
address
Diamond Sportsmen’s Club, Inc
(New sportsmen’s club near South Colton
in St. Lawrence County seeks members.)
address & website
French-Canadian Residents Ousted from Their Land in
Indian Lake - Historian’s report,
posted March 2005, originally attached to New York State’s
1987 management plan for Siamese Ponds area.
The “Report of the Town and County Historian of
the Area Known as ‘Little Canada’in the
Town of Indian Lake” by Ted Aber, Historian, January
25, 1982, tells how the French-Canadian residents were, “without
exception, ousted from their land” when it was sold
to New York State. In 1987, the APA Siamese Pond “Wilderness”
designation threatened access to the cemetery and abandoned settlement
on historic John Pond Road. The State closed the old road anyway.
Websites
Adirondack Park Agency Reporter
adirondackmaps.com/apar.htm
Department of Environmental Conservation, State of
New York
(See “What’s new” for information
about each Unit Management Plan, including documents available
and hearing dates.)
www.dec.state.ny.us |
|
 |
In-Depth Information
|
 “Judge Says
‘No’ To Multiple APA Illegalities” - By Carol
W. LaGrasse, PRFA, June 30, 2010
Citing multiple illegal and unconstitutional impositions,
on June 2, 2010 Essex County Supreme Court Judge Richard Meyer
reversed the majority of the Adirondack Park Agency’s
enforcement decision against Joseph and Patricia Zelanis, who
own a shorefront home on Lake George in the town of Putnam in
Washington County. The APA has routinely imposed the illegal
impositions on property owners.
|
 “A
State Snowmobile Plan & the Local Economy: Worth Commenting”
- By Carol W. LaGrasse, Reprinted from the New York Property
Rights Clearinghouse, Vol. 14 No. 2 (PRFA, Early Summer 2010)
A new snowmobile plan for the area in the vicinity of Lake
Pleasant in Hamilton County, known by DEC and APA as the Jessup
River Wild Forest, is touted as facilitating a “connector"
between communities that stops the use of a popular established
route that is too deep in the forest for the environmentalists‘
taste. However, the “connector” dead
ends at the Piseco Community Hall, not exactly a snowmobile destination,
while prohibiting the use of Oxbow Lake to reach the Oxbow Inn
and Oxbow Hotel and eliminating short spurs that make it possible
for local residents to get to the trail.
|
- “APA
Statute of Limitations Passes Senate” - By Carol W.
LaGrasse, PRFA, June 30, 2010
On June 25, 2010 the State Senate passed legislation sponsored
by Sen. Elizabeth O’C. Little that would impose a
ten-year statute of limitations on enforcement of violations
of the Adirondack park Agency law. The ten-year limit would be
measured from the date of the alleged violation or from the date
on which a public servant, exercising reasonable diligence, should
have discovered the violation.
|
- “A
Letter to Residents and Legislators of the Adirondack Park”
- By James N. O’Rourke, Sr., Lake Pleasant, N.Y. 12108
Referring to the Town of Lake Pleasant and the Village of
Speculator in Hamilton County,World War II veteran and former
town supervisor James N. O’Rourke, Sr., describes
the decline in this thriving community after the Adirondack Park
Agency came into existence in 1973.
|
- “Statement
Opposed to the Rerouting Snowmobile Trails in Jessup River Wild
Forest” - By Carol W. LaGrasse, PRFA, June 16, 2010
The proposed plan to reroute snowmobile trails in the Jessup
River Wild Forest does not satisfy the Adirondack Park Agency
law’s requirement for balance. The elimination of
trails, lake crossings, and spurs will threaten one of the few
surviving businesses in Lake Pleasant, the Ox-Bow Inn on Route
8.
|
- “APA Re-votes: Waters
& Underlying Land of Lows Lake Are Not Classified”
- By Carol W. LaGrasse, PRFA, November 14, 2009
According to the APA’s vote in September, the
waters and underlying land of Lows Lake on the border of Hamilton
and St. Lawrence Counties would be classified as “wilderness”
and “primitive” because the underlying
land is state-owned and most of the surrounding land was state-owned.
This would have been the first such determination where all of
the surrounding land was not state-owned. However, one of the
votes was invalid and the APA reconsidered the decision at its
November meeting. At this meeting, every commissioner was present
and all of the State agency designees sided with the opponents
of the classification. In addition, one of the governor-appointed
commissioners who had favored the classification reversed his
position. The new vote was 7 to 4 in favor of approving the land
use classification for the area around Lows lake, but not the
lake itself.
|
 “The
Meaning of the Champlain-Adirondack Biosphere Reserve”
- By Peter J. LaGrasse, Chairman, Stony Creek Board of Assessors,
Thirteenth Annual National Conference on Private Property Rights
(PRFA, Lake George, N.Y., October 17, 2009)
The meaning of the Champlain-Adirondack Biosphere Reserve
is made clear by a study of the technical literature of proponents
and a map study of the state acquisition of land in the Adirondacks
since the designation in 1989. The core area, reserved to be
without human influence, is defined as all of the state-owned
land. The areas between the state-owned land in 1989 are rapidly
being filled in with fee simple state acquisitions and state
purchases of conservation easements. The Biosphere Reserve designation,
which is under UNESCO auspices, is at the heart of the goal to
depopulate the region.
|
- “Victory:
Old Mountain Road Opened to Motor Vehicles” - By James
McCulley, President, Lake Placid Snowmobile Club, Lake Placid,
N.Y., Thirteenth Annual National Conference on Private Property
Rights (PRFA, Lake George, N.Y., October 17, 2009)
Jim McCulley’s first-hand account of his successful
battle to restore motorized use to Old Mountain Road between
Keene and Lake Placid brings the entire history to life. This
is the first time DEC has been forced in court, both in the Essex
County Supreme Court and in the DEC Administrative Court, to
open up a town road that the agency tried to close.
|
Jim McCulley, President, Lake Placid
Snowmobile Club, Lake Placid, N.Y.
The freedom spirit and excitement of Jim McCulley’s successful
battle to open up the Old Mountain Road is inspiring a movement
to open roads elsewhere in the Forest Preserve. |
- “Righting
the APA/DEC Access Policy” - By Ted Galusha, President,
Adirondackers for Access, Warrensburg, N.Y., Thirteenth Annual
National Conference on Private Property Rights (PRFA, Lake George,
N.Y., October 17, 2009)
In 1998, Ted Galusha and other disabled individuals filed
suit in federal court and immediately won an injunction opening
the roads, trails and areas that the DEC officers drove on to
access the Adirondack Forest Preserve and illegally arrested
them on for using motorized vehicles. After three years of fighting
in court, they had a consent decree, signed by the judge as a
court order on July 5, 2001. This speech is a heart-rending litany
of the myriad ways that the state has chosen not to comply with
much of the consent decree and the Americans with Disabilities
Act.
|
Ted Galusha, President, Adirondackers
for Access, Warrensburg, N.Y.
Ted Galusha is a champion of the disabled, as well as all
people who object to the DEC’s barricading and destroying
roads and campsites so that the people, whether disabled or not,
are denied access to much of the Adirondack Forest Preserve that
they used to enjoy. |
- “The
Adirondack Park Agency Idea” - By Carol W. LaGrasse,
President, Property Rights Foundation of America, Inc., Thirteenth
Annual National Conference on Private Property Rights (PRFA,
Lake George, N.Y., October 17, 2009)
The idea of the Forest Preserve changed from one of protection
of the forest in the late nineteenth century to assure a benefit
to the state as a whole (primarily the protection of the flow
of water to assure commercial navigation on the Erie Canal and
the Hudson River) while extending fair policy to the local people,
to the current state policy of radical preservation, massive
state land acquisition, and a systematic program to cause the
depopulation of the local people in a vast region many times
the size of the original Forest Preserve.
|
 “APA
Classifies First Water Body - Lows Lake Mainly ‘Wilderness’”
- By Carol W. LaGrasse, PRFA, September 20, 2009
The Adirondack Park Agency asserted a new power in September
by classifying a water body for the first time, in this case
designating Lows Lake in the town of Long Lake as mainly “wilderness.”
In addition to designating the waters and bed of the lake as
largely “wilderness” and also “primitive,”
the agency decided that the shores of lakes do not have to be
entirely owned by the State of New York for the lake itself to
be classified and so managed, as long as the bed of the lake
is owned by the State.
|
- “Statement
in Opposition to the Reclassification of Lows Lake and Vicinity”
- By Carol W. LaGrasse, PRFA, August 25, 2009
The proposed classification of Lows Lake itself (the actual
waters of the lake) as wilderness is a new power grab by the
APA, which has never before classified the waters of a lake.
Acting Executive Director James Connolly called it a “progression
in the way it deals with water bodies.” This six-page
statement shows how the illegalities and injustices in this group
of classifications exemplify the bias against seaplanes and the
like and favoritism toward canoers, kayakers, and hikers, who
are the political clientele of the wealthy who control the APA.
Environmental considerations are not a factor.
|
- “The Fraud
and Double Standard” - By Carol W. LaGrasse, PRFA, August
15, 2009
The APA was just defeated as it tried to exert illegal jurisdiction
over farm worker housing. The wealthy forces from New York City
use an environmental façade to victimize local people.
A double standard allowed APA Chairman Curt Stiles to unlock
a gate to drive through designated “wilderness”
to camp at Lake Lila, but ordinary people have to hike to see
the lake.
|
 “Statement
in Opposition to the Lows Lake Classifications and Reclassifications”
- By Susan Allen, August 28, 2009
This succinct one-page statement covers a range of reasons
why the Lows Lake Classifications and Reclassifications should
not be approved. For instance: “Dams, roads and private
inholdings contradict the description of the area as ‘wilderness.’”
Bias is indicated by the DEC’s plan to increase the
number of campsites for canoers, whereas campsites for hunters
and families in the forest preserve are being greatly reduced.
|
- “DEC Administrative
Judge Rules in Favor of McCulley’s Use of Old Mountain Road”
- By Carol W. LaGrasse, PRFA, May 31, 2009
The DEC’s Chief DEC Administrative Law Judge James
T. McClymonds concluded that the Department of Environmental
Conservation staff failed to overcome the presumption that Old
Mountain Road between the towns of North Elba and Keene in Essex
County continues to exist as a public highway, whether as a town
road or other legal public right-of way. DEC Commissioner Alexander
B. Grannis then dismissed the DEC enforcement proceeding that
had been brought against James W. McCulley because he drove his
truck into the Adirondack Forest Preserve on the road.
|
- “Is
There an Adirondack Awakening?”
- By Carol W. LaGrasse, April, 2009 (Reprinted from the
New York Property Rights Clearinghouse, Vol. 13, No. 1)
The extreme policies of the Adirondack Park Agency, Department
of Environmental Conservation, and Governor David Paterson are
arousing opposition that has been brooding for years. Local citizens
and officials are expressing mounting anger about the state’s
regulatory impositions; prosecutions of landowners; obstruction
of economic development; unbridled state land acquisition; impeding
and closing of travel, recreational access and campgrounds; and
the attempted imposition of unbearable real estate taxes.
|
- “Warning:
Strict New APA Hunting and Fishing Cabin Regulations”
- Flyer (Publ. Property Rights Foundation of America, Inc., February
8, 2009)
The jurisdictional exception for 500 sq. ft. or less hunting
and fishing cabins under Resource Management that was negotiated
into the APA law in 1973 is being watered down by imposing regulations
that are tighter than the law, so that it will be harder to build
a non-jurisdictional hunting and fishing cabin in the future.
|
- “State
Acquisitions for Adirondack Forest Preserve Have Monumental Hunting
Impact” - Two-page flyer published by Property Rights
Foundation of America, Inc., February 8, 2009
The Department of Environmental Conservation misleads the
public about the purpose of land acquisitions for the Forest
Preserve. State ownership does not to increase access, as claimed.
This flyer summarizes ten years of DEC’s actions
to impede and close hunting access; eliminate hunting camps;
lock out snowmobilers, ATV’s, and motorized vehicles;
and close roads and state campsites. A roster of major land acquisitions
is also included.
Requires Adobe
Acrobat Reader
|
- John Maye Personal Statement
Against Tax-exempt Bonds for The Nature Conservancy - Transcript
from public hearing held by the Colorado Educational and Cultural
Facilities Authority at City Hall, Glens Falls, N.Y., December
2, 2008
After John Maye and his wife moved into their camp, The Nature
Conservancy approached the couple several times to sell their
property, but they weren’t interested. “The
Nature Conservancy was aware of the conjured up violations by
APA and DEC to force the sale of my property…March 28, 2008
my total maximum penalty was $2,962,000…” The
enforcement penalty was dropped after four years, but the toll
on his health remains great.
|
- Letter in Opposition to
Tax-exempt Bonds for The Nature Conservancy to Acquire Land in
the Adirondacks - By Howard Aubin, Councilman, Town of Black
Brook, N.Y., E-mail to Frederic H. Marienthal, Attorney for Colorado
Educational and Cultural Facilities Authority, November 25, 2008
Requirements of IRS Code Sec. 147 for local government approval
have not been met. In addition, The Nature Conservancy contacted
an elderly couple this summer to buy their property and when
the couple refused to sell, the Adirondack Park Agency threatened
the couple with a $2.962 million fine. “Giving such
a bond to the Nature Conservancy only helps them to terrorize
more people within the Adirondacks.”
|
- “APA
Announces GIS-Based Enforcement” - By Carol W. LaGrasse,
PRFA, February 2, 2008
It is over thirteen years since PRFA published its “APA
Shell Game” revealing that the APA was developing
an unsurpassed GIS capacity to enforce its environmental zoning
regulations. This January the APA announced that it was going
to tap into a statewide real estate database, coupled with GIS,
to find old violations of the APA law. The State Legislature
should pass a statute of limitations on violations of the APA
Act.
|
- “A
Sound, Consistent Policy” - “Worth Commenting”
By Carol W. LaGrasse, PRFA, January 2008
Since 1886, the State has paid real estate taxes on its Adirondack
Forest Preserve, now amounting to three million acres contained
within the six million-acre “Blue Line”
of government and private land in northern New York, because
the State-owned lands provide a statewide benefit of, first,
watershed protection, and, additionally, more recently, environmental
preservation envisioned by statewide residents. The economic
sacrifice of the 100-plus towns and villages in the Adirondacks
has been recognized for over a century, as well. Legal action
to end these tax payments, in Dillenburg vs. State of New
York, is not justified.
|
- “Adirondack
Stretch of North Country National Scenic Trail Planned”
- By Carol W. LaGrasse, PRFA, January 2008
Property Rights concerns for the 140 mile stretch of the Adirondack
segment of the 4,600-mile North Country National Scenic Trail
include acquisition techniques, exact location, liability, ultimate
ownership, and impacts on hunting and trapping. The plan for
the trail has been moved out of the High Peaks region to a less
scenic area to the south after over two decades of opposition
by the Adirondack Mountain Club.
- North
Country National Scenic Trail - Letter from Thomas L. Gilbert,
Superintendent, Ice Age & North Country National Scenic Trails,
Madison, Wisconsin, to Carol W. LaGrasse, President, Property
Rights Foundation of America, Inc., March 31, 2008
In response to Ms. LaGrasse’s February 18 and February
25 letters and her article in the New York Property Rights Clearinghouse,
Mr. Gilbert stated that the article recounted the North Country
National Scenic Trail history “quite well.”
He enclosed important documents and answered the questions Ms.
LaGrasse raised about trail width, ownership of the trail, and
hunting access, and discussed the trail liability issue.
- North Country National
Scenic Trail - Adirondack Segment - E-mailed response to Carol
W. LaGrasse, PRFA, from Thomas L. Gilbert, Superintendent, Ice
Age & North Country National Scenic Trail, Madison, Wisconsin,
February 19, 2008
This e-mail discusses whether the state or local government,
or the National Park Service would own the Adirondack segment
of the North Country trail, initially and ultimately; what the
width of the land that is owned or managed for the trial will
be; and what the width of the functional walking trail that is
cleared and maintained will be.
- North
Country National Scenic Trail - Letter from Thomas L. Gilbert,
Superintendent, Ice Age & North Country National Scenic Trails,
Madison, Wisconsin, to Peter Frank, Division Chief, NYS Department
of Environmental Conservation, January 4, 2008
Official Park Service comment on the Draft Adirondack Park
Trail Plan for the North Country National Scenic Trail. A particular
point that needed clarifying, was that the 47 miles of “New
Trail” that will need to be built is in addition
to the 27 miles of “Temporary Corridor.”
These two categories total 74 miles in addition to the 70 miles
of “Existing Trail” (including “herd
paths”). A future Memorandum of Understanding is
proposed, which would cover acquisitions, administrative policy,
marking the trail, shared-use trails (to ultimately be hiking-only),
and compatibility with range of existing landowners and landscapes.
Requires Adobe
Acrobat Reader
|
 “The
Craze of Environmental Irrationality” - By John Berlau,
Director, Center for Entrepreneurship, Competitive Enterprise
Institute, Washington, D.C.; Eleventh Annual National Conference
on Private Property Rights (PRFA, Albany, N.Y., October 13, 2007)
Environmentalism is dominated by disdain for human life, grounded
in Rachel Carson’s vilification of DDT and thus arguably
causing more deaths from malaria and other insect-borne diseases
than from any other cause during the twentieth century. A recent
local example of this disdain for human life was the death of
Alfred Langner from exposure while trapped in his car for 2 days
after an auto accident, unable to reach help because his cell
phone had no reception on the Interstate Northway because environmentalists
banned cell towers.
|
- “Our Stolen Legacy:
The Betrayal of the Declaration of Independence for the Cause
of Landscape Preservation” - By Carol W. LaGrasse, President,
PRFA, July 5, 2007
Government from distant places, fatiguing the people into
compliance; a multitude of new offices and swarms of officers
to harass the people…A government far from the vision
of justice based on all men being created equal, endowed by their
Creator with certain inalienable rights, including life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness. Landscape preservation from the
regional, state, federal and international level takes precedence,
eradicating freedom.
|
- “‘Smart
Growth’ to the Rescue” - By Carol W. LaGrasse (PRFA,
July 27, 2007)
The Spitzer Administration announced on July 17 that it was
setting aside $1 million for “smart growth”
planning to revitalize the economy of the Adirondack region.
But the Adirondack region already suffers from the groundbreaking
1973 smart growth-style Adirondack Park Agency Act. The economic
difficulty of the of the 12-county Adirondack region is caused
by the State Adirondack Park Agency’s radical land
use controls and the State’s voracious appetite for
land, driving up the price of real estate beyond local means
and leaving little land for any practical use.
|
- “DEC’s
Insidious Disregard for the People—Comments on DEC Draft
Wilcox Lake Wild Forest UMP”- By Carol W. LaGrasse,
President, Property Rights Foundation of America, March 2, 2007
DEC’s insidious disregard for the people is exemplified
by its treatment of Stony Creek and environs. The proposed Draft
Unit Management Plan for Wilcox Lake Wild Forest should be discarded.
The plan should be re-drawn under new assumptions, with the local
culture, economy, history, and the community included as salient
factors in a plan that respects the local people.
|
- “Disabled Apartheid-DEC’s
Betrayal and Discrimination” - By Carol W. LaGrasse,
Hearing Statement on DEC Lake George Wild Forest UMP, Queensbury
Town Hall, December 13, 2006.
DEC has betrayed the visionary effort of the disabled to open
up access to the Forest Preserve to people with disabilities
and people who are not athletic, by virtually closing down the
popular family recreation area on the Hudson River in Warrensburg,
which was established on land acquired from Niagara Mohawk, while
keeping open the most limited facilities exclusively for the
disabled.
|
- “New
York Property Rights Directions”-Speech by Carol W.
LaGrasse, Cato Institute Conference-“Property Rights on
the March: Where from Here,” December 1, 2006, Washington,
D.C.
An overview of where property rights stand in New York, what
the directions are, and where the work for our cause has been
effective: focusing on the battle to keep land in private hands,
holding off extreme land-use regulation, the issue of conservation
easements, regional preservationist land-use battles, ubiquitous
zoning conflicts; and eminent domain.
|
 “Land Acquired
- But Wait, Access Closed” - By Carol W. LaGrasse (Reprinted
from the New York Property Rights Clearinghouse, PRFA,
Summer 2006)
New York State’s announcements when acquiring
vast tracts of private land for the Forest Preserve promise more
access for the public, but over decades, more recently over a
very short time, the campsites and access roads are being closed
and the land is being cut off from hunters and other recreational
users that do not fit the mold approved by extreme environmentalists.
|
- “Four
More APA Porn Violators Revealed, New Ethics Accusation Made”
- By Carol W. LaGrasse, Reprinted from the New York Property
Rights Clearinghouse, PRFA, Spring 2006.
Edward J. Hood, top planner and UNESCO Champlain-Adirondack
Biosphere Reserve figure, was punished for computer porn along
with the APA spokesman Keith McKeever. The State Ethics Commission
accused APA staffer Sunita Halasz of violating the Public Officers
Law by attempting to funnel work to her spouse and accused her
supervisor Dan Spada of holding meetings for this purpose.
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- “Our Hike
on the Threatened Road to Whitehouse-A Photo Story, April 11,
2006” - by Carol W. LaGrasse (PRFA, June 2006)
In order to enlarge the Silver Lake Wilderness, the State
Department of Environmental Conservation proposes to deliberately
destroy the West River Road, a town highway leading to the historic
site of Whitehouse on the West Branch of the Sacandaga River
in Wells, N.Y. Two fine steel suspension footbridges will be
deliberately allowed to deteriorate, locally cherished old stone
chimneys at the ghost town will be lost, and large, active campsites
enjoyed since at least 1962, when the State acquired the land,
will be deliberately destroyed. Access to a nineteenth century
cemetery will be cut off.
- “The
Cemetery at Whitehouse” - Photo Story by Carol W. LaGrasse
(PRFA, June 2006)
The DEC’s radical eradication of highways closes
down access to cherished cemeteries, so that descendants and
local people who would like to visit, pay their respects, and
maintain the graveyards are stymied.
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- “Porn
Disclosure Subjects APA to Continuing Ridicule” - By
Carol W. LaGrasse, Reprinted from the New York Property Rights
Clearinghouse, Vol. 10, No. 1 (PRFA, Winter 2006)
After the story exploded across upstate New York and the wire
services that Adirondack Park Agency Director Daniel Fitts was
using the State computer for porn, he was forced to resign. The
region reacted with “Adirondack Porn Agency”
T-shirts, a house-sized “NO APA” sign,
and other ridicule. The replacement director, Richard Lefebvre,
was accused of sending pornographic e-mail to women at his previous
post as chairman of the Hudson River Black River Regulating District.
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- “Fear
and Trembling”- By Carol W. LaGrasse (“Worth Commenting,”
Reprinted from the New York Property Rights Clearinghouse,
Vol. 10, No. 1, PRFA, Winter 2006)
Most property owners faced with the threatening experience
of dealing with DEC wetlands bureaucrats and APA officials are
so terrified that that they will not ask their elected representatives
for assistance. Anyway, representatives can not be counted on
to help property owners facing unjust environmental permit conditions
and enforcement, but, instead, are good at getting grants for
communities.
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 “The
Campaign to Save Hurricane Mountain Fire Tower” - By
Gretna Longware, Elizabethtown, N.Y.; Speech to the Ninth
Annual Conference on Private Property Rights (PRFA, Albany,
N. Y. October 22, 2005)
The 80-year-old Hurricane Mountain Fire Tower is the symbol around
which local Adirondack people are rallying to preserve their
cultural heritage. Mrs. Longware is leading a campaign to stop
a State plan to dismantle the tower.
Gretna Longware 1932- 2010
Gretna Longware, who was beloved and admired throughout
the North Country, died on April 22, 2010. She successfully focused
efforts to save historic fire towers by leading a campaign to
save Hurricane Mountain Fire Tower near Elizabethtown where she
lived.
“We won,” she said in a message that
she left Carol LaGrasse after an APA meeting a few days before
her death. “I couldn’t make it. We showed
them that people still have rights in northern New York.”
The fire tower survives her and is still the subject of deliberations
by the DEC and APA about preserving it as a historic site.
She was born Gretna May Lewis in Wadhams on June 1, 1932. Her
rich life was marked by memorable contributions to the community,
including co-authorship of Elizabethtown Bicentennial Book and
campaigning to save the historic Baptist church steeple. She
was recognized for her many years as a Morse code operator, with
her ham radio call number WA2WHE. She is survived by her husband
of 60 years, Melvin C. Longware, whose uncle and great uncle
served as forest rangers at the tower lookout; four daughters
and their families; and one remaining sister.
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 “Adirondack
Park Agency Officials Used State Computers for Porn”
- By Carol W. LaGrasse, (PRFA, August 6, 2005)
APA Executive Director Daniel Fitts was indefinitely suspended
without pay after the Office of the State Inspector General examined
seized computers and discovered that he and four other officials
at the agency were using the state computers to share obscene
photos of nude and partially nude women.
Photo
Gallery
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 “NO APA Sign Adorns House
on State Route 9” - Photo Gallery and brief article,
by Peter and Carol LaGrasse, and Ted Galusha, August 2005.
Ted Galusha, the president of Adirondackers for Access, and
a Warrensburg homeowner, gathered a group of people who are disgusted
with the Adirondack Park Agency to raise a big NO APA sign on
his house.
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 “A
Hike to Little Canada on John’s Pond Road” - By
Carol W. LaGrasse, PRFA, May 1, 2005
Our walk to a small graveyard along an old Indian Lake town
road barricaded by New York State Department of Environmental
Conservation (DEC) to enlarge the Adirondack Forest Preserve
wilderness shocked us with the realization that DEC is eradicating
roads, trails, and history.
Photo Gallery
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- “Entering
the Lake Champlain Watershed” - By Susan Allen (PRFA,
May 2005)
During late spring 2004, large highway signs suddenly appeared
that declared, “Entering Lake Champlain Watershed”
and “Entering Hudson River Watershed.”
The federally and state funded Lake Champlain Basin Program,
which already has precipitated the regulatory scenic byway and
many other programs, had spawned the Champlain Watershed Improvement
Coalition of New York, which had the DOT place the signs. All
of the signs disappeared late in the summer!
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 “Entering
the Lake Champlain Watershed” - By Susan Allen (PRFA,
May 2005)
During late spring 2004, large highway signs suddenly appeared
that declared, “Entering Lake Champlain Watershed”
and “Entering Hudson River Watershed.”
The federally and state funded Lake Champlain Basin Program,
which already has precipitated the regulatory scenic byway and
many other programs, had spawned the Champlain Watershed Improvement
Coalition of New York, which had the DOT place the signs. All
of the signs disappeared late in the summer!
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