What if Betty Little and environmentalists joined forces in Albany?

Here’s a list of North Country institutions threatened with closure, if things don’t change radically in Albany over the next few weeks:

-State prisons in Lyon Mountain and Moriah. (Other prisons in the region will close dormitories within prisons, meaning fewer jobs.)

-APA visitor interpretive centers in Newcomb and Paul Smiths.

-Olympic Regional Development Authority venues in Lake Placid, North Creek and Wilmington.

-State-run campgrounds and day-use areas in Clinton and Essex Counties.

Taken together, these institutions don’t just provide hundreds of high paying jobs.

They also buttress the region’s retail and tourism economies.

By various estimates, ORDA alone helps pump between $240 and $350 million dollars into North Country coffers.

A separate study found that Moriah Shock prison brings roughly $8 million in economic activity each year to a depressed area of the Champlain valley.

Even worse, these cuts are threatened in a year when declining state aid could force schools and local governments to lay off hundreds of additional workers.

The Tupper Lake school district is considering a move that would eliminate a quarter of its teaching staff.

In a way, this potential disaster is of our own making: Our region has long relied too heavily on Albany and Washington for our jobs and our investment capital.

But this sudden pull-the-rug-out-from-under-you shift also calls into question Albany’s philosophy for the region — in particular, for the Adirondack Park.

Over the last fifteen years, the state spent hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars acquiring vast tracts of land for the forest preserve.

The promise, made by former Governor George Pataki and others, was clear: resources would follow for stewardship, recreation and tourism development.

But if the ski centers, campgrounds and VICs close — while the state’s Park Agency and Environmental Conservation staffs are gutted — that promise will appear empty at best and downright dishonest at worst.

That’s a fact that environmentalists, now proposing massive new land purchases, should confront openly.

But the current threats also suggest that the North Country’s mostly Republican delegation needs to rethink its strategy in Albany.

Sen. Betty Little — along with Assembly members Teresa Sayward and Janet Duprey — inherited a method for dealing with downstate Democrats that was first developed when Ron Stafford and George Pataki were around.

The strategy was simple: Use the GOP’s majority in the Senate, along with close ties to the Governor, to protect North Country interests.

But those days are gone. We have a Democratic governor and a Democratic majority in the state Senate.

In an era when more population and more power is shifting to New York City and the suburbs, upstate-vs. downstate finger-pointing looks to be a losing bet.

By contrast, it appears that state Senator Darrel Aubertine (D-Cape Vincent) saved the Ogdensburg Correctional Facility through deal-making and compromise.

Like it or not, that kind of partnership-building and horse-trading may be our best hope.

Fortunately, a model for this kind of coalition exists.

When Governor Paterson proposed capping property tax payments on forest preserve land, environmentalists, local government leaders and state lawmakers banded together.

They leveraged all their collective influence — green groups have deep ties to lawmakers and power brokers downstate — to defeat the plan.

It may be time for a more permanent coalition, one that leverages the Adirondacks’ iconic status and environmental importance in a way that helps protect its economic interests in Albany.