“Right to Know Advocate Speaks” - By Peter J. LaGrasse, February 12, 2011
Questions answered by Robert Freeman included one about APA
reluctance to identify current litigation.
Moose River Plains Plan to Take Away Much Hunting
Access
Sept. 17, 2010
“APA Ruling Against Couple in Royal Anchorage
Estates Subdivision Reversed”
- Matthew D. Norfolk
June 2, 2010
Selection of Thirteenth Annual Conference Speeches
on the Adirondacks Published:
Book of Talks by Influential Grassroots Speakers Catches Spirit
of Event
Grassroots Speakers, Edited by Carol W. LaGrasse
Bulletin, May 12, 2010
PRFA’s New
“Welcome” Postcard:
Satirical Postcard Carries a Message about the
Adirondack Park
January 2010
Ordering Information
“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
|
 “APA
Deals Blow to Elderly Couple’s Home Improvements”
- By Carol W. LaGrasse, PRFA, June 2011
The Appellate Court has upheld the Adirondack Park Agency’s
order to Marilyn and Milton Wechsler to remove the gabion
wall they built beyond the shoreline in front of their house
on Loon Lake in Franklin County and other landscape structures—two
wooden stairways, a stone patio, stone wall and driveway,
which the APA deemed to be one continuous structure although
they are not connected.
|
 Statement
in Opposition to APA/DEC Plans for Moose River Plains
- E-mail to APA/DEC by Carol W. LaGrasse, PRFA, September
16, 2010
Sportsmen beware: The extreme plans for this most popular,
yet remote area of the Adirondacks will convert 15,062 acres
of land deeded as the Moose River Plains Recreation Area to
APA/DEC Wilderness category, forever cutting off roads and
all access except for use by the most athletic individuals.
So-called “roadside camping,” which
is simply camping where the motor vehicle can be driven on
a narrow dirt road to a parking spot close to the primitive
encampment, will be restricted to a thin string one tenth
of a mile wide on either side of Cedar River Road. In addition,
Otter Brook Road and Indian Lake Road will be closed. The
present number of camps of 170 will be reduced to 83. (Many
camps have already been stealthily taken away, reducing the
number from over 200.) Forty-nine miles of snowmobile trail
will be closed and only 14 miles created.
|
- “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.
|
- “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.
|
|
|
- “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.
|
- “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.
|
 “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.
|
|
|
 “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
|
 “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.
|
 “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
|
|
|
|
|
- “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!
|
 “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!
|
|
