Breaking: Adirondack Nature Conservancy cleared in AG probe
Phil Brown at the Adirondack Explorer magazine is reporting this afternoon that a probe by the NY Attorney General’s office has cleared the Adirondack Nature Conservancy in its land deals with the state Conservation department.
“We were happy to cooperate with the investigation, and we are pleased with the outcome,” said Connie Prickett, a spokeswoman for the conservancy.
New York State Assistant Attorney General Rachel Doft wrote the conservancy’s lawyer last week to say the investigation is over.
“The Nature Conservancy complied with all relevant laws, regulations and policies in connection with those transactions,” Doft said in the letter.
A probe began last April after critics of Adirondack land deals, including Fred Monroe head of the Adirondack Local Government Review Board, suggested that the DEC might be overpaying for land owned by the Conservancy.
Claims about “sweetheart” deals were widely trumpeted by Albany-based conservative talk radio host Fred Dicker.
Dicker’s reporting was later lambasted in an editorial in the Adirondack Daily Enterprise.
This news comes as green groups are hoping to finalize other big conservation deals, including the Finch, Pruyn and Follensby projects. NCPR will have more on this story tomorrow morning during the 8 O’clock Hour.
Tags: environment
Does anyone know why Fred Dicker insists on dickering around in the Adirondacks?
I wonder if the Post-Star, whose reporter amplified the collusion accusation verbatim and unchallenged, will issue a retraction.
How about Fred Monroe issuing an apology for his false accusations of the Nature Conservancy? Better yet, the Governor should deduct the cost of the Attorney General’s investigation from the Local Government Review Board’s budget. Maybe then they will be less apt to spout off and cause this waste of taxpayer’s dollars.
No, far from it, the latest headline is “Monroe Still Questions Land Purchases” (http://www.adirondackalmanack.com/2011/05/monroe-still-questions-land-purchases.html)
He’s part of the Don’t Confuse Me With The Facts movement that is so prevalent these days.
AG spokeswoman Jennifer Givner just told me that the inquiry actually wrapped up in December, while Andrew Cuomo was still AG. This is odd, because I had asked several times this year about the status of the probe and was told it was continuing. Givner would not comment on the discrepancy.
Maybe Fred and his Review Board should offer to purchase the properties from TNC. That way they could save their hunting camps and make a bundle logging the land.
This still doesn’t change the fact that NYS owns far, far too much land already. There is absolutely no need for further purchases, especially in todays economic conditions.
The state land master plan specifically states that productive forest land should be protected with conservation easements and not by adding the land to the Forest Preserve. Look at the policy and you will see that this is stated very very clearly. This is the direction given to the DEC by the APA in the SLMP. If the LGRB did not criticize these deals they would be shirking their duty. The agency wrote the rules not the LGRB.
These deals make no sense from a policy or an economic perspective. This investigation simply says that these policies of allowing a deep pocketed environmental group to bear no holding costs is legal. Are they smart? That is debatable. Could the DEC have negotiated a better deal on behalf of the taxpayers? I think so.
By the little “thumbs” here it looks like folks strongly support Forest Preserve acquisition to conservation easement protection for Adirondack land. Except the folks who support Pete’s idea of having Fred Monroe buy the land!
If we have some TNC supporters here I assume they are familiar with the Washington Post articles (“A House in the Woods”) that reported on how the TNC has a policy of selling prime parcels of land to its supporters at a loss so that they can build second homes? I think I read that the TNC has planned to retain a number of parcels in the Finch deal. Brain, do you know what the TNC’s plans for that land they are holding on to?
Here is something that struck me as odd when I read the announcement that the DEC was purchasing the land in the Finch deal (from the DEC website):
“DEC will now conduct an appraisal to determine the value of the Forest Preserve and easement lands in order to make a formal contract offer to TNC.”
This was AFTER they agreed to buy the land? At the point they cut a deal they had no price. No appraisal, nothing?
Does anyone really believe there is no back room dealing going on here?
Bret, I would not call it “back room dealing” since the DEC has TNC folks in house in Albany helping them make these decisions. It is all well disclosed. But is it a fair way to deal? That is debatable.
Fair enough Paul. But anyone who thinks the State deciding the State and it’s pals did no wrong isn’t open to suspicion is operating in a different dimension from reality.