Statement
Peter VanAvery, Batchellerville Bridge Action Committee
Hudson River-Black River Regulating District Board Meeting
Northville, NY
July 14, 2009
So the rule-making process for permit holders on Great Sacandaga Lake is
dead -- at least for now. Amount of time you spent on the effort: 53
months. Number of accomplishments: zero (unless you count driving your
permit holders to new heights of dislike and distrust).
From January 2005, when the Board launched the rule-making process,
until June 2009, when the Governor's Office drove a stake through its
heart, you asked us to speak out at numerous public hearings. We did!
You asked for written comments. We submitted hundreds of pages! You
asked us to form an advisory committee. We volunteered for it! The
result of our cooperation: You ignored most of our key recommendations!
What a waste of our time!
I was present at your May 12 board meeting in Johnstown when you told us
that the Department of Environmental Conservation had made major changes
to the proposed rules. DEC wanted to reverse 78 years of practice and
convert the access permit zone into a public park open 24 hours a day,
seven days a week.
What was especially appalling about that May 12 board meeting was the
fact that, with essentially no discussion, you rubber-stamped DEC's
"suggested changes" and voted to forward them to the Governor's Office
of Regulatory Reform. You must have known what the lake community's
reaction would be. Why didn't you tell DEC that it could take its
suggested changes and stuff them in its hat?
To me, the answer is pretty obvious. Only four out of seven board
members showed up for that May 12 meeting. And all four of you shared
something in common -- you were all appointees of former Governor George
Pataki, a Republican. I believe you recognized that the bone-headed
decision to open the access permit zone to the public was guaranteed to
bring down a firestorm on Governor David Paterson, a Democrat. His
public opinion ratings were already in the tank. So why stand in the way?
As expected, that firestorm did develop. The Governor's Office received
thousands of outraged phone calls, e-mail messages, and letters. Well
over 100 angry permit holders made the long drive to remote Inlet, NY,
to attend the June 9 board meeting, and 34 of them got up to give you a
piece of their minds.
Two days later, Judith Enck, Deputy Secretary for the Environment, who
is above DEC in the State pecking order, pulled the plug on the
rule-making process. It's all over. If you want to change your rules
sometime in the future, you will have to start from scratch.
Deputy Secretary Enck says that the current situation is simply a
"time-out" that will give the State an opportunity "to fully analyze the
implications of the changes." This sounds ominously like Arnold the
Terminator and his famous line: "I'll be back!" She also said: "We want
to encourage public input in this process." Excuse me, but haven't we
just been there and done that?
This rule-making crisis lasted exactly 30 days -- from May 12 to June
11. To permit holders, it seemed like an eternity. Throughout, you
showed total indifference to the distress experienced by Great
Sacandaga's 4,800 permit holders -- hard-working men and women who have
invested large sums of money and sweat equity in their lake homes -- and
paid correspondingly high property taxes. Nor did you consider the
potential ripple effect on local towns and villages as lake property
values tumbled.
It's hard to believe that you will be allowed to resume the rule-making
process before the next gubernatorial election in November 2010.
Stirring up a hornet's nest of angry voters doesn't seem like good
politics -- especially with an already unpopular Governor at the helm.
But considering that good judgment has been in short supply throughout
this fiasco, I don't exclude the possibility that rule-making will be
back in the short-term future. If it is, I hope that you and the State
have learned a lesson. If you haven't, we'll be happy to teach it all
over again.
Thank you.
