TUPPER LAKE - A posting on the Tupper Lake Chamber of Commerce's website has disturbed a number of area organizations and local government entities in an ongoing rail-trail debate.
The post about the Adirondack On Track Partnership included about 35 entities - groups, government bodies, businesses, politicians and institutions - but a number of those people have spoken up, saying they never heard of such a partnership or don't support it.
Last week, the chamber uploaded to its website the post listing "a broad and growing coalition in support of the preservation and renewal of all existing rail infrastructure in the Adirondacks, including the Adirondack rail line from Remsen to Lake Placid, the Saratoga and North Creek line to Tahawus, and the railway to Newton Falls."
The controversial part of that partnership in the Tri-Lakes area is the Remsen-to-Lake Placid corridor. The Adirondack Recreational Trail Advocates are organizing to rip up the tracks and create a multi-use trail there, while Next Stop Tupper Lake and the Adirondack Rail Preservation Society have joined forces to raise money to rehabilitate the tracks between Tupper Lake and Saranac Lake.
At a recent meeting of the Tupper Lake Chamber of Commerce, chamber officials said they got the information as an email update from Garry Douglas, head of the Plattsburgh-North Country Chamber of Commerce, and just posted it to their website.
But Douglas said Tuesday the information was not meant to be made publicly available. It was more of a check-in to make sure those organizations were still on board.
Douglas told the Enterprise no formal release on the partnership was ever issued.
"It is a long-standing list of commitments going back four years when the original effort was launched at the Saranac Lake train station," he said. "It was recently broadened in purpose to reflect the three lines, and was recently circulated to a number of those on the list, asking them to reaffirm their position. Responses are still being received. Some have been dropped, and a number of new ones have been added. We plan to make an actual release when updates are completed."
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Organizations
A number of organizations said they either don't support the partnership or hadn't heard of it, or that they want to remain neutral on the topic.
Paul Smith's College, one of the organizations listed, said the college has no plans to actively participate in the partnership, and no one at the college can recall signing up for it in the past.
Harrietstown town officials said their board never made an endorsement one way or the other on the partnership and doesn't consider itself to be part of the organization.
The Adirondack Public Observatory was also listed. While several members of the APO board support the effort, including President Keith Wells, the APO has never taken a formal position on the issue. Wells told the Enterprise he asked Douglas to remove his organization from the list.
The village and town of Tupper Lake and Franklin County are all included on the list. None of them passed resolutions specifically in support of the partnership.
But Paul Maroun, who is mayor of the village and Tupper Lake's representative on the Franklin County Board of Legislators, said both his boards have passed resolutions supporting rail restoration in the Remsen-Lake Placid corridor in the past.
He wasn't with the village the last time it passed one, but he said the last one passed at the county level was in 1994. He said he personally supports a rehabilitated railroad.
The Saranac Lake Area Chamber of Commerce also has been part of the partnership without having a formal board resolution on it as well, said Executive Director Sylvie Nelson.
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Meeting
The post prompted two members of the ARTA to attend a Tupper Lake Chamber of Commerce meeting Monday to ask chamber members to have open minds about a trail.
Tupper Lake residents Chris Keniston and Hope Frenette told the chamber board they see a trail as a more realistic option for the corridor. They said it would cost too much to put in tracks that would be useful, and they believe a trail would be more economically beneficial to the area.
"I think it will just remake this town," Frenette said.
Tupper Lake has been a train town for a long time, and that makes some people nervous about speaking out in favor of a trail, Keniston said. But he said he went to the chamber at the request of some business owners who didn't want to be named.
"It's kind of a sensitive issue with some people," Keniston said. "Frankly, I'm going to tell you that there's businesses that are afraid to speak up because they're afraid to lose business."
Later in the meeting, Keniston and Frenette left, chamber Vice President David Tomberlin explained the posting. He said the chamber is part of the Plattsburgh-North Country Chamber of Commerce, which years ago started the Adirondack On Track Partnership, promoting rail restoration.
"Garry Douglas had sent out an email updating all of the members, here's what's going on, there's movement, blah blah blah, and it had a list of members," Tomberlin said. "We just posted that on our website - basically, here's the update, contact Garry Douglas if you have any questions. Certain folks within ARTA were upset that we had posted that.
"We just directed them back to Garry because it's not our organization."
He said Tupper Lake's chamber is a member of the partnership because it belongs to the North Country chamber, because rail restoration is part of the North Country Economic Development Council's plan and because it's part of Tupper Lake's revitalization plan.
"The train was one of those key goals identified a long time ago as the development plan for our community," said Rick Wilburn.
"There's nothing new about it," Tomberlin said. "It was just kind of highlighting something we've already been a member of."
Wilburn said he's concerned that chamber businesses are afraid to voice their opinion on the topic.
"(Keniston) made a comment about businesses being afraid to speak up to us or to come to us," Wilburn said. "We've just got to work to make sure we don't alienate people, I think. We've just got to listen to what they have to say."
Piercefield town Supervisor Neil Pickering, also a Tupper Lake business owner, told the Enterprise he heard that a number of groups in the list weren't on board, so he asked Chamber President Doug Wright to pull the post off the website, at least until they could get the members of the partnership verified.
"Personally, if our chamber runs something on their website, they ought to verify it is a fact," Pickering said.
The post remained on the website at press time today.