I am in receipt of your letter dated March 25, 2004 dealing
with your “Greenway” proposal for the seventy-five
mile long Upper Delaware River Valley.
Apparently, you did not thoroughly read or fully understand
my letter dealing with the “Greenway” proposal sent
to you, the Upper Delaware Council, all Upper Delaware town,
village and city officials and concerned community leaders.
1. Attached to the letter was Property Rights Foundation of
America spokesperson Carol W. LaGrasse’s 1994 Congressional
testimony dealing with the “Greenway” (American Heritage
Area) issue.
2. Ms. LaGrasse testified under oath that, “The Hudson
River Greenway established by the State Legislature continues
southward. The mandatory zoning powers sought by Mr. Hinchey
for the Greenway agency were eliminated because of local opposition.
The Hinchey Hudson River Heritage Corridor bill would convert
the State Greenway to a joint National Park Service / State program,
and with the Jeffords’ Champlain-Hudson Heritage Corridor
proposal would establish federal zoning jurisdiction over fully
every county from the Canadian border to the city of New York,
down the historic spine of New York State.” Based on this
precedent, it is obvious that your “Greenway” proposal
is not as benign as you think.
3. I am sure you understand that property rights are a very
sensitive issue, particularly in Sullivan and Delaware Counties,
where people have never forgotten the wholesale condemnation
of towns, villages and farms for the New York State reservoir
system, the steadily increasing regulation of watershed areas
by New York City and the twenty year battle to prevent the National
Park Service from condemning the entire Upper Delaware Valley
including all its villages and towns.
Why then would you seek to reopen these still festering issues
by proposing to turn the Upper Delaware into an unnecessary “Greenway”?
4. Your proposal that the Upper Delaware towns could receive
grant money through the “Greenway” is disingenuous.
As a very fine and effective state senator, I am sure you would
have no trouble moving grant money to the river towns through
other channels without the necessity of a “Greenway”
designation.
5. Whether you admit it or not, the “Greenway” designation
would place an unnecessary third layer of government (The Upper
Delaware Wild and Scenic River, the Route 97 Scenic Byway and
now the “Greenway”) over the river towns.
6. A review of the national literature on “Greenways”,
including the attachments provided to you, the Upper Delaware
Council and the river towns with my last letter, demonstrates
that a “Greenway” designation begins a process
that inevitably leads to regional zoning and an unnecessary curtailment
of property rights.
7. A “Greenway” designation will be like the proverbial
camel that puts its nose under the tent and eventually occupies
the entire tent. Once started, “Greenway” status will
become an attractive nuisance encouraging radical environmental
groups and the “no growth” crowd to intervene in local
affairs to the detriment of local taxpayers and property owners.
8. While I appreciate your promise that you will be the person
writing the “Greenway” legislation, there is no way
you can guarantee that at some future point when you are no longer
in the legislature the regional zoning regulations and property
acquisition elements found in other “Greenways” won’t
be imposed here. That is why it is best not to even start with
such a designation.
9. I am shocked that your staff did not research the down
side of this “Greenway” proposal for you. They have
done you a great disservice by not doing so.
10. I have taken the liberty of contacting Ms. LaGrasse of
the Property Rights Foundation of America and Chuck Cushman of
the American Land Rights Association / National Inholders Association
about your proposal which is now on their respective radar screens
and could eventually become a national issue. You may remember
that Mr. Cushman was a key figure in the initial battles over
the Upper Delaware Wild and Scenic River twenty years ago.
11. In a telephone conversation with me, Mr. Cushman emphasized
that strings are always attached to grants such as you are proposing
under the “Greenway” designation and the towns had
better understand this. I fail to understand why you think this
is so much “free money” that won’t ultimately
erode the rights of local property owners and the towns and villages
of the Upper Delaware.
12. Mr. Cushman, Ms. LaGrasse and other nationally known property
rights advocates I have contacted agree that there is more to
this proposal than meets the eye. They view this as a covert
attempt by the National Park Service, hiding behind state agencies,
to subvert the Upper Delaware Council and extend National Park
Service control over tens of thousands of acres of privately
owned real estate in the Upper Delaware Valley just as Congressman
Hinchey originally tried to do along the Hudson. It is no secret
that the National Park Service has coveted having that power
over property owners along the Upper Delaware for many years.
13. For the reasons stated above, and in the correspondence
previously sent to you and the river towns, the Independent Landholders
Association continues to urge the Upper Delaware Council and
all affected towns, villages and municipalities to send you resolutions
expressing their disapproval of this proposal and to rescind
any authorizations that may have been given before all the facts
were known.
As I stated in my previous letter, you and I have met at a
number of Sullivan County Republican and Conservative Party dinners.
I look forward to sitting down with you at some future time over
a cup of coffee to resolve these issues before they get out of
hand.
Quite frankly, we don’t need a “Greenway” here.
It is a bad idea.
