Abolish the APA

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Iceman, I am really unaware of the overlap between DEC and APA on new building. I agree that where there's overlap, something needs to be done. But the APA can have my thirty cents a year. I've seen too many beautiful lakes turned into dumps. Despite the APA, there are something like a thousand new houses built in the park yearly. (Anyone have the actual number?) If you do that every year for 50 years, what's it going to look like? Especially when you figure the percentage of those 50,000 houses that are going to be on a lake or pond somewhere.

thank you. Ok, I accept those numbers but those numbers are abysmally low for prime recreation area. The towns you campare outside the park are not a fair comparison. The APA has thoroughly stifled good development and bad. .. and it is a double, costly process. I am not saying the APA doesn't have some good, knowledgeable folk because they do. The agency is not needed for anything. the alternative is to eliminate the DEC from all review process. I do not support that idea but it better than a two headed dragon. I enjoy the park for its wildness but that does not mean we must be prisoners in this wild. The APA as an agency has a passion to hold us prisoner. Elimintae the APA, we cannot afford them.

Iceman, it IS the median income. You're right, the average is skewed by a few very high incomes. But the figures in the demographic section of Wikipedia articles on towns is very definitely the median.

Here's a cut 'n' paste from the Indian Lake page: "The median income for a household in the town is $32,328, and the median income for a family is $39,438."

They're generally the 2000 Census numbers. I don't know if the 2010 Census data is out on incomes yet.

Actually I have seen those numbers. However, I do not feel the mean is a fair average. The median may be a closer number. There are enough elite homes with incomes based on investment or outside sources in these towns to get any kind of feel for the true average. Agree?

Everyone always says that the APA is hurting park residents, but if you compare the median household income of towns inside the park with towns outside the park, the Adirondack towns often come out on top. Go to Wikipedia and compare Saranac Lake, Tupper Lake, or Indian Lake, etc. with Moira, Malone, or Ogdensburg. I think you'll be surprised.

I do not have the figures to contest your mathematics to verify that you have all costs included such as pensions and healthcare and I will not. However, you are not accounting for the loss of business inflicted on many communities by the double process of NYSDEC and APA with differeng standrds for completely sound projects. The APA standards are very gray, self serving and constantly shifting. The process of presenting a project to get through the lambrynth of APA and DEC review is simply costing our communities dearly. It is not about a bar set too high, it is knowing where tyhe bar is and how many will appear. The APA is redundant and poorly managed. It needs to be partly absorbed by the NYSDEC. I prefer to hold onto my 31 cents, thank you.

The annual budget for the APA for 2009-10 was $6,157,000 (I can't seem to find last year's figure). That's 31 cents per person, per year.

Yes we are imprisoned. The APA is completely a redundant agency. It is not the principle of preservation or not. It is the simple concept of paying for 2 government bodies doing the same thing.

It's a completely pointless discussion. There are 20 million New York state residents, most of whom favor the APA. There are fewer than 200,000 residents of the park, not all of whom favor getting rid of the APA. Do the arithmetic.

I don't know how this got here but I will not complain:).....

It is good the people are upset, the squeaky wheel always gets atention...

I was referring to "Home Rule" powers of a community. If local towns and villages administered their own zoning rules, the multiplicity of layers in government might be reduced some by eliminating those areas of the APA that overlap. It is a plausible method in some sense.

Wilford "communities would each have their own unique zoning rules". Do you really believe that will ease the redundancy in government, save time and reduce costs???? I heard a quote once that "before there were trolls there were bureaucrats" John Scott. You should also read Shirkey's write up on the collapse of complexity; in particular his one paragraph "Bureaucracies temporarily reverse the Second Law of Thermodynamics. In a bureaucracy, it's easier to make a process more complex than to make it simpler, and easier to create a new burden than kill an old one". Something to think about Wilford... less government not more..

It does seem like if the communities would each have their own unique zoning rules that the DEC could take care of the rest of it all.