Adirondack Local Government Review Board overrides local governments

A few weeks ago, I published an essay about controversial attempts by the Adirondack Local Government Review Board to meddle in the New York state’s purchase of two tracts of land, which is not part of the LGRB’s taxpayer-funded mandate. The purchase was approved by every single one of the municipalities affected. Any one of them could’ve vetoed it and a few towns did, which forced the deal to be re-worked. The LGRB, without consulting the towns affected, wants to override the localities in question. The LGRB’s purpose is to represent local interests against top-down imposition from the state and yet top-down imposition is precisely what the LGRB wants in this case.

I’m not the only one who’s noticed this hypocrisy. In something else you’d never read in The Post-Star Duane Ricketson wrote a good essay in Adirondack Almanack explaining the recent history of state land purchase inside the Blue Line and brought some-much needed illumination of actual facts regarding the process. He also noted that LGRB executive director Fred Monroe is a member of a hunting club that would be displaced if the purchase went through.

Taxpayer funded local government group misrepresents its members, exceeds its mandate

The Adirondack Park Local Government Review Board (LGRB) is a taxpayer funded group whose statuatory objective is to provide oversight of and feedback to the Adirondack Park Agency (APA), purportedly as the voice of the Park's local governments.

In reality, the LGRB's main objective is to lobby on behalf of development interests and against conservation efforts. A look at the Board's Our Issues webpage looks more like the writings of a private advocacy group than a public oversight board. Except private advocacy groups aren't funded by taxpayers.

The Board is chaired by the rabidly anti-conservation Fred Monroe, who is also the town supervisor in Chester and was, until recently, the chairman of the Warren County Board of Supervisors.

The LGRB recently passed a resolution urging the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to not go ahead with the planned purchase from the Nature Conservancy of Follensby Pond and the former Finch Pruyn lands in the Adirondacks. The Board argued that with the state facing dire financial circumstnaces, this was not the time for it to keep its promise to the Nature Conservency.

The resolution caused quite a stir for two reasons.

First, the LGRB was created by the legislature to provide oversight to the APA (which acts as a Park-wide zoning board for private land). As the LGRB's own website describes its mission: We work to insure that the interests of the people of the Adirondack Park and their local governments are protected as the Adirondack Park Agency carries out its duties set forth in the Adirondack Park Agency Act, the Freshwater Wetlands Act and the Wild Scenic and Recreational Rivers Act.

And yet this taxpayer funded board was trying to block the actions of the DEC (which manages state-owned land), which is outside of its mandate.

As North Country Public Radio investigation pointed out, the way state law on land purchases is written, any town can single-handedly nix a land purchase paid for by the Environmental Protection Fund. All the towns involved okayed the deal, including Fred Monroe's town of Chester.

So how did the LGRB pass a resolution opposing the Finch and Follensby land deals?

The NCPR investigation explained: But an investigation by North Country Public Radio found that in fact no local government leaders from any of the towns affected by the Finch deal voted on the Review Board’s new resolution.

What’s more, Monroe now acknowledges that most town leaders involved in the Finch project weren’t consulted about the resolution before it was passed.

Monroe said, “Did I specifically go to all the towns that voted to approve these deals? No, that’s a valid criticism," but then went on to suggest that the opinions of the towns involved don't matter because he personally thinks it's the wrong time to be expanding the Forest Preserve.

NCPR also spoke with the town supervisors of Minerva and Indian Lake about the LGRB's resolution. They both re-iterated their towns' support for the deal.

Monroe dubiously claimed that the all the towns involved agreed to the deals under duress. A rather flimsy explanation was offered by member of the Saranac town board, though one wonders if such 'duress' was complained about at the time. But numerous other local elected officials quoted by NCPR involved disagree and cite the process as a model for how such deals should be done.

The Nature Conservancy, for its part, pointed out that that they also canceled plans to expand the forest preserve in two communities, Fort Ann and Long Lake, because town boards there objected. Even Monroe doesn't deny this.

Fred Monroe has some explaining to do. Why is the LGRB not only ignoring the wishes of its elected government members but to openly campaign against them? Why is Monroe having the LGRB using tax money to agitate on an issue outside its legal mandate?

If Fred Monroe wants to advance his personal anti-conservation agenda, that's his prerogative. But he ought not to falsely claim he speaks for town governments who actually oppose his position and he ought not to use taxpayer money to do so.

Further de-bunking of the hit job against The Nature Conservancy

Another follow up to my original piece about The New York Post state editor Fred Dicker's smear on the Nature Conservancy (TNC)...

The Adirondack Daily Enterprise's editorial page, a venue not typically sympathetic to environmentalists, blasted Dicker's hit job.

Additionally, North Country Public Radio's Brian Mann filed a report noting that it appears that the land sale included a series of checks and balances designed to insure a fair deal.

The report also pointed out that (shock!) Dicker's trash omitted several key facts. It noted, for example, that the state used five separate appraisals before agreeing a sale price.

When asked by NCPR if he had concrete proof of an unethical working relationship between TNC and the state, Warren County Board of Supervisors Chairman Fred Monroe (Dicker's main source) admitted, "Do I have any evidence? No."

So much like The Post-Star's Will Doolittle, The Post's Dicker parroted serious allegations of (likely criminal) collusion between the state and TNC without insisting that the accusers offer a single shred of evidence. To call this merely irresponsible would be a huge understatement. I'm surprised TNC hasn't filed a lawsuit.

And journalistic big wigs think that you have to be a Fox- or MSNBC-loving ideologue mistrust the mainstream news media.

Follow up to Nature Conservancy land deal story

Further info on my earlier piece on The New York Post state editor Fred Dicker's hit job against the Nature Conservancy...

Adirondack Almanack's Phil Brown did an excellent analysis of the deal. It's definitely worth a read.

Journalist continues to poke holes in questionable Post-Star anti-APA series

Another followup* on the controversial two-part series on the Adirondack Park Agency (APA) written by The Post-Star's Will Doolittle.

(Note: I've offered Doolittle the opportunity of a rebuttal to be published here but he's so far not done so.)

North Country Public Radio's Brian Mann has continued to fill in a lot of the holes that plagued Doolittle's pieces. Mann, a reporter without an open, long-standing contempt for the APA, has provided depth and context that was sorely lacking in the original piece. Mann asked questions where Doolittle accepted answers uncritically from anti-APA interviewees.

Mann's latest piece is definitely worth a read.

Maybe this is why I'm a paid member of NCPR but no longer subscribe to The Post-Star.

**

Update: When I questioned the wisdom of assigning Doolittle (who's well-known for his outspoken and regular criticism of the APA) to do this purportedly objective story about the APA, most people, including Brian Mann himself, dismissed my concerns. These concerns which were less about overt bias (at least at the time... now I'm starting to wonder) but about less conscious decision making based on the assumptions and preconceived notions of someone who's firmly established that he's one on side of the issue. I remember explicitly wondering if Doolittle had failed to ask follow up questions or pursue further, perhaps not consciously but because he assumed that any accusation against the APA was in and of itself credible, because of his own notions about the Agency and what it represents. The excellent follow up reporting done by Mann makes me feel completely vindicated in my concerns. I know self-appointed watchdogs generally bristle at anyone watching them, but I'm glad NCPR's Mann is performing that service to the public. It's just unfortunate that the excellent journalism in NCPR's blog will get only a fraction of the audience as the daily's piece.

Further update: I've refrained from using the phrase 'hit job' to describe the original piece, but some are less circumspect. One anonymous poster at NCPR's blog writes:

While I'd like to commend you on excellent investigative reporting on this post, the sad fact is that this contradiction to Douglas's claim should have been paragraph 2 in the original Post-Star story. And not so hard to dig up, at that.

What disturbed me all along about the series in the P-S was how thoroughly orchestrated it was: first the series, then the story about reaction to the series (with no reaction from the organization the original story had defamed); then the editorial; then the online poll: "Should the APA be disbanned (sic) ?" Even that peculiarly emasculated Don Coyote had something to say. So over-the-top, you half expected Mark Trail to chime in from the funnies page.

This was a crusade, pure and simple. It left me feeling like I'd been bludgeoned by a Pulitzer medallion.

Thanks for exposing the rot at the core.

Anonymous should be reminded that the paper's Pulitizer was not for journalism, but for editorial writing.

**


*-OTHER PIECES ON THIS BLOG ABOUT THE SAME SERIES
-My original critique of the series and the journalistic ethics involved;

-The piece in which the Nature Conservancy refuted accusations of criminal collusion in a letter to The Post-Star;

-Questioning why the daily's website has exceptionally failed to publish an online version of said letter.

Things that make you go hmmm....

A few days ago, I wrote about a letter published in The Post-Star written by the Nature Conservancy's Michael T. Carr regarding unsubstantiated allegations of collusion between the group and the Adirondack Park Agency made in an article written by the daily's Will Doolittle.

If you go on the Letters to the Editor page of their website, it lists every letter published in the print edition since Jan. 8... except the two published on Jan. 20 (one of which was Carr's and one of which criticized the paper's crusade against the residents of the Madden Hotel). A site search of 'Michael Carr' does not turn up the letter either.


Update: Carr's letter, published in print on Jan. 20, finally appeared online on Feb. 5, two weeks later. On Jan. 26, a TNC spokesperson told me that they were "working with the Post Star to get it posted online." No indication was given as to why the TNC had to lobby to get the same treatment as every other letter writer.

Nature Conservancy refutes accusation of collusion

Last week, I reported and commented on a two-part investigation of the Adirondack Park Agency by Post-Star projects' editor Will Doolittle.

In the first part, one of the parties who felt aggrieved (probably with some justification) by the APA claimed that there was a secret conspiracy between the APA and the Nature Conservancy to steal his land. Doolittle passed along this accusation without evidence or further investigation. North Country Public Radio's Brian Mann DID do further research and reported categorically that he found no evidence of any collusion and plenty of belief (even by anti-APA folks) that the secrecy needed for such collusion was be virtually inconceivable.

What's interesting is a letter appeared in today's Post-Star. In it, the executive director of the Keene Valley chapter of the Nature Conservancy Michael T. Carr claimed that in a phone conversation made shortly before the articles were published, Doolittle told him that he'd "found no evidence of collusion between The Nature Conservancy and the Adirondack Park Agency" (the part in quotes are Doolittle's words according to Carr). As usual, the big story is featured prominently on the front page while the rebuttal is buried in a tiny side column of A5 between a big news article and ads. (Curiously, this appears to be the only day for which letters to the editor are not available on their website.)

Yet, Doolittle did not mention this very relevant piece of information in his story.

If Carr's attribution is correct, it is grotesquely reckless journalism by Doolittle and only reinforces my assertion that he, with his harsh and longstanding anti-APA position, was not the right person to do this particular article. How can you publish an unsubstantiated accusation of criminal wrongdoing by a prominent state agency by someone with an obvious ax to grind, knowing you have no evidence to believe the truth of said accusation and, in order to give sufficient context to the reader, at least not mention the fact that neither you nor the accuser had no evidence of this serious accusation? Doolittle did include the Nature Conservancy's denial but while an observant reader would've noticed that no evidence for the accuser's accusation was presented, the author did not point out this glaring omission explicitly nor is it clear if the journalist even asked for it. Still, if you're going to publish a serious accusation of criminal wrongdoing without evidence, you should at least mention the fact that you found no evidence or that the accuser refused/failed to provide it.

I've offered Doolittle the opportunity to publish a response here to my original piece, but he's so far not done so.