Adirondack airport debate highlights region’s balkanization

I’ve been reporting on the heated debate over the future of the Adirondack regional airport, in Harrietstown, which boasts significant growth in passenger flights, while also facing real questions about its future viability.

Interviewing local officials about the airport, I stumbled once again against the incredible fragmentation in local government and leadership — a fragmentation that often pits neighboring communities in the North Country against one-another.

Where the airport is concerned, some officials in Harriestown and Saranac Lake are convinced that the facility warrants big regional support.

Chamber of Commerce director Sylvie Nelson says thousands of  tourists and business travelers fly in every year and quickly disperse to places like Lake Placid, Upper Saranac Lake, and Tupper Lake.

“Adirondack regional airport is one of the economic drivers in our region,” Nelson argues.

But just a few miles away, leaders in North Elba and Tupper Lake are skeptical.  They are busy with other concerns and aren’t interested in adding another big project to their already cash-strapped budgets.

North Elba town supervisor Roby Politi points out that his community is also focused on supporting its own small airport.

And by the time you get to the county seats in Malone and Elizabethtown, the idea of supporting a regional airport an hour’s drive away can seem like a distant and far-fetched concept.

Why should lawmakers representing taxpayers in places like Schroon Lake and Fort Covington vote to support a facility their constituents will likely never use or directly benefit from?

But of course, the same can be said for many of the big projects that come up for debate in our far-flung communities.

Why should taxpayers in Saranac Lake (which makes up a big part of North Elba) chip in to support the Olympic Regional Development Authority, as they do currently — to the tune of more than $900,000 a year?

Why should taxpayers in North Elba (which has its own nursing home) chip in to support the county run facility in Elizabethtown?

Why should taxpayers in distant parts of Essex and Franklin Counties pay for expensive improvements to the North Country Community College Campus in Saranac Lake?

What about the Adirondack Scenic Railroad?  Even within the relatively compact Tri-Lakes region, people see the project very differently, with folks in Lake Placid viewing the project as a boondoggle and folks in Tupper Lake seeing it as a hopeful venture.

And what about the so-called “rooftop highway”?  Is that an important regional venture that we should all get behind, or a backyard issue that matters only to a narrow strip of towns in northern Clinton, Franklin and St. Lawrence counties?

What’s clear is that, going forward, many of these big projects will need regional support to succeed.

Taken separately, our tiny towns and hamlets just don’t have the budgets or the expertise to run regional airports or pay for tourist trains.

So how do we begin to think about these priorities and trade-offs collectively?  How do we decide which projects have economic benefits that go beyond our little valley or bend in the road?

During my trip this winter to Canada, I found that communities north of the border seem to be doing a better job thinking regionally, trying to put the economic pieces together in a way that is both affordable and brings benefits the biggest area.

The North Country Regional Economic Development Council may be a step toward developing that kind of big-picture thinking.

“I think it was a sigh of relief in terms of being able to work together,” said Bill Farber, head of the Hamilton County board of supervisors, referring to the Council’s efforts.

“I think it was a sigh of relief that there wasn’t the level of parochialism that some people were concerned with.”

Perhaps local leaders are waking up to the notion that they can’t fly solo anymore, especially as state and Federal subsidies for their operations continue to shrink.

When Harrietstown supervisor Larry Miller says “We can’t do this alone,” he’s talking about one airport in the Adirondacks.  But he could just as well be talking about dozens of projects across the North Country.

Tags: adirondacks, analysis, economy, politics, transportation