The view from local government: "The only defense we have is litigation"

I interviewed Fred Monroe this week about a plan by North Country counties to sue the Adirondack Park Agency.

Fred is supervisor in Chestertown and heads the Adirondack Local Government Review Board. During our conversation, he described what he views as a profound shift in the region’s relationship to Albany.

The political climate is obviously changing.

In the past, Adirondack residents and local governments have seen that their Senator — Senator [Ron] Stafford and more recently Senator [Betty] Little — have been our defenders.

When there’s been legislation proposed that we feel would be harmful to our residents, our Senators have been able to block that legislation.

But now with the change in Albany to a Democratically-controlled Senate, we think that the stopping power of our representatives — our Senator, particularly, has been substantially weakened.

It’s likely that the only way we can defend ourselves is through litigation. What other recourse do we have?

Our legislators can propose a bill. But that’s unlikely to be adopted through the legislature. So the only defense we have is litigation, it seems to us.

That doesn’t mean that we can’t work together with environmental groups or the APA or the DEC on things we can agree on.

The environmentalists have done this for years. Every time they’re unhappy about something they start a lawsuit.

And yet they still seem to have the ear of the DEC and the APA.

I think we should be viewed the same way. If we think an agency is going the wrong direction, we have the right and responsibility to challenge it.

And we don’t have any other way to do it.

–Brian Mann — channeling Fred Monroe, supervisor in Chestertown