A report that takes a critical look at the state Adirondack Park Agency drew a sharp rebuke from APA Chairman Curt Stiles last week.
"The Adirondack Park Agency: Under the Influence and In Need of Detoxification" was submitted to Gov. David Paterson last month by the Adirondack Park Local Government Review Board. The "white paper" cites concerns about "the agency's impacts on the people and local governments of the Adirondacks" and calls on Paterson to take action to reform the APA.
Stiles sharply criticized the report last week in a letter that was read aloud by APA spokesman Keith McKeever at a review board meeting in Keene. Stiles wrote that he was "extremely disappointed by the tone, inaccuracies bordering on fabrication and the inflammatory nature" of the document.
"I believe it undermines any and all previous progress and dialogue, and breaches the trust and sincere effort to bring about regulatory reform," Stiles wrote.
The thesis of the 17-page white paper is that there is an imbalance in the Park that's been worsened by the actions of the Park Agency: While environmental protection has been strong, economic deterioration is "deep, prolonged and spreading."
"The Adirondack Park Agency needs to better reflect the needs of the people whose private land it regulates and to take a stronger interest in the economic policies needed to create sustainable communities," the report reads.
Using news reports and articles from the Enterprise, the Glens Falls Post-Star, WNBZ radio and other sources, the review board report outlines numerous controversies that have pitted local government officials against the APA in recent years.
The agency's new boathouse regulations and more restrictive shoreline setback requirements are described as attempts to "legislate by regulation."
"What we see here is an agency engaged in, first, protecting its prerogatives, the wide latitude it enjoys to make arbitrary demands not supported by law or regulation, and second, an agency engaged in using its vast regulatory power to pursue its particular vision of Adirondack land use," reads the report.
The white paper also criticizes the agency's attempt to classify the waters and lakebed of Lows Lake as wilderness as an example of "environmental groups pressuring the agency to make decisions that benefit their members primarily, not the public at large."
Citing agency enforcement cases against Essex farm owner Sandy Lewis, Black Brook campground owner LeRoy Douglas and others, the white paper accuses the APA enforcement division of overstepping its bounds and working in concert with private interests. The report also says the APA board has been "stacked" with leaders of environmental advocacy groups.
Fred Monroe, the review board's executive director, described the issues raised in the white paper as an "indictment" of the APA.
"Yes, we've heard all these issues and facts in the past, but you put them all together and it cries out for a solution," he told the Enterprise. "It's a wake-up call that we need to address these things."
In a letter accompanying the report, Monroe asks Paterson to support legislation that would reform the agency, including a bill that would require the governor to appoint the APA's five resident commissioners from a list of nominees chosen by local government. The letter also asks the governor to cap the maximum fine the APA can levy and support legislation that would set a statute of limitations on violations to the APA Act.
"Those are all things we think the APA should support," Monroe told the Enterprise. "I believe that if they did, and got these issues resolved, there would be a much closer working relationship between the APA and local government. But it doesn't seem the APA wants to address the root cause of the problem of the alienation of the residents and local government."
Stiles, in his response to the white paper, said he's tried to work with local government officials throughout the Park. He noted that many of the issues referenced in the report "were not regularly, thoroughly or even remotely discussed" at the review board's monthly meetings, which the APA also attended.
He called the use of newspaper articles as sources in the report "sloppy staff work and self-serving at best.
"I no longer believe that the LGRB represents the best interest of local government or even has a reasonable consensus or mandate from individual towns inside the Park," Stiles wrote. "The agency remains committed to regulatory reform and will set the record straight on the issues raised in your 'white paper' via a formal reply with appropriate distribution."
Monroe said he was surprised by the response from Stiles. He said the report accurately represents the views of the vast majority of local government leaders in the Park.
Asked about using news articles as the source material for his report, Monroe said the state has cut the review board's funding and it didn't have enough money to pay its attorney to do more research, "but I don't think there's inaccuracies."
Monroe said he met with the governor's staff earlier this year to discuss some of the issues he later highlighted in the report, but their interest has waned. While he doubts Paterson will take any action before his term expires at the end of the year, Monroe said he remains optimistic.
"They can bury their head in the sand, or they can try to solve these problems," he said.
The Essex County Board of Supervisors passed a resolution Monday morning in support of the review board. It was proposed by Newcomb Supervisor George Canon, the county's representative on the review board and a former review board chairman, and passed by a unanimous voice vote.
Canon said the review board is required to make an annual report to the governor and that Stiles had taken exception "to a statutory requirement of the Adirondack review board." Canon briefly summarized the controversy to the county Board of Supervisors, saying the report had outlined issues with the agency and that Stiles had questioned the review board's support from the towns.
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Enterprise Staff Writer Nathan Brown contributed to this report.
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Contact Chris Knight at 518-891-2600 ext. 24 or cknight@adirondackdailyenterprise.com.
