Did the APA unfairly harass John Maye?

Clinton County landowner John Maye has acquired some unexpected — and in his eyes, unwanted — celebrity, thanks to a four-year clash with the Adirondack Park Agency.

APA officials say they were trying to determine whether his cabin near the Saranac River had been built illegally.

The former forest ranger and property rights advocate says he was harassed deliberately by the state, in an effort to force him from his land on the Saranac River.

The goal? To free up the property so that it could be purchased by the Adirondack Nature Conservancy.

“The environmental groups make the snowballs and the Agency enforces them,” he said. “The Agency throws the snowballs.”

NCPR could find no indication that green groups intervened in Maye’s enforcement case in any way throughout the APA’s four year investigation.

But setting aside the question of collusion, there is a legitimate debate over whether Maye was mistreated by the APA.

Suspicions also remain about why the case was dropped abruptly in August 2008.

Critics point out that the Agency ended their investigation soon after receiving a letter from the town of Black Brook suggesting a conspiracy with environmentalists.

Here are some of the facts that we were able to determine:

1. Maye’s case did drag on for a very long time and it appears that for roughly three years the APA simply dropped the ball.

There was no communication between the Agency and the Mayes. APA chairman Curt Stiles, who didn’t arrive on the scene until 2007, blames the inaction on poor staffing.

“It’s not inconceivable that things fall off the table or get lost in a crack,” he said. “Or frankly you just don’t have enough resources to stay focused on it and something else becomes more important.”

That’s a bleak picture, but not implausible. The APA often struggles with a massive case backlog.

2. Some of the delays during the four-year period were caused by John Maye himself, as he acknowledges.

First Maye refused to allow an investigator on his property (as is his legal right). He also failed to respond to APA inquiries.

He also requested — and received — a six-month adjournment of the case for health reasons.

These facts may complicate Maye’s argument that the APA prolonged the case deliberately in order to harass him.

3. Critics have suggested that the APA’s investigation was conducted incompetently and could have been settled at any time with a phone call to local officials, or perhaps by viewing the property from the Saranac River.

Public records reviewed by NCPR seem to contradict this account:

APA investigators did in fact talk to local officials, and acquired local records, which seemed to support the idea that the cabin had been built illegally.

They reviewed public health records (looking for septic tank approvals) and reviewed aerial photographs.

The one fact that remained in dispute — the age of John Maye’s foundation — couldn’t be settled without a close-up inspection.

All of which brings us to the summer of 2008, when the APA ended their investigation and closed the case.

Critics of the APA say this behavior is the smoking gun, evidence that after years of harassment and hidden agendas, state officials were eager to make the case go away.

Here again are the facts we were able to determine about this controversial chapter in the conflict:

1. In the summer of 2008, the APA received a letter from town officials raising concerns about collusion between the state and the Nature Conservancy.

2. Chairman Stiles traveled to Black Brook to talk with Supervisor Ricky Nolan, along with councilman Howard Aubin.

3. Local officials expressed their fears about a conspiracy, and they also assured Stiles that Maye’s cabin was built on an old foundation, which means that it’s legal.

4. Some have claimed that during that conversation, Stiles agreed to drop the Maye case.

But this account is disputed by both Stiles and Nolan. “I do not recall him actually saying that, no,” Nolan says.

5. What’s certain is that Nolan agreed to broker a deal with Maye that would finally allow an APA inspector to visit the site.

6. APA attorney Paul Van Cott visited the Maye property in July 2008. Critics say this visit was a sham, that the Agency had already decided to drop the case.

The APA say they were able to view the foundation and confirm that it was not new construction.

They also point out that after the visit they gathered legal affidavits from the Mayes and from a neighbor, attesting to the age of the structure.

7. In August 2008, the Mayes received a letter confirming that the enforcement investigation had been dropped.

Those are the facts. The various interpretations of these facts appear irreconcilable.

Glens Falls Post Star reporter Will Doolittle has expressed a firm opinion about this episode. He thinks the APA mistreated the Mayes and was then suspiciously eager to drop the case.

For my part, I’m just not sure.

The APA had been asking for a chance to look at that foundation for four years and they finally got it. That’s a significant fact.

Is it possible that the APA also shifted its tone after Stiles’ meeting with local officials? Sure.

Was this an increasingly controversial case that the Park Agency wanted to get off its books? I think that’s very plausible.

Was this a shining example of efficient government oversight? No, probably not.

But does all this add up to evidence of a family being “under attack” by state officials, as the Post-Star suggests, possibly as part of a secret conspiracy?

Your views are welcome.