{"id":12644,"date":"2013-11-04T10:05:40","date_gmt":"2013-11-04T15:05:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=12644"},"modified":"2013-11-05T08:43:57","modified_gmt":"2013-11-05T13:43:57","slug":"opposition-to-township-40-adk-land-settlement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2013\/11\/04\/opposition-to-township-40-adk-land-settlement\/","title":{"rendered":"Opposition to Township 40 Adk land settlement?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Racquette<\/a>

Racquette Lake NY. Photo: DzikieKwiaty<\/a>, public domain<\/p><\/div>\n

This morning, in my conversation with Martha Foley, I reported<\/a> that the Township 40 land deal in the Adirondack hamlet of Racquette Lake is relatively uncontroversial, compared with the NYCO minerals deal in Lewis.<\/p>\n

Both issues will be on the statewide ballot on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

I think my description is broadly accurate.\u00a0 There hasn’t been an organized campaign to stop Proposition 4, which would authorize the land swap in Hamilton County.\u00a0 I haven’t received a single email or phone call about it.<\/p>\n

But a listener emailed me this morning to argue that there are concerns and that there is opposition, which NCPR hasn’t (I think it’s fair to say) covered.<\/p>\n

Here is the description of concerns on the New York League of Women Voters Website<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Opponents of the amendment argue that a legislative settlement would establish a poor precedent for other private land ownership disputes in the Adirondak Park, inviting an endless stream of private bills and constitutional amendments. They argue that similar land disputes have been resolved via the judicial system and that that is the appropriate vehicle to settle such disputes because it provides transparency and an independent authority, which they say the proposed process does not. In addition, they claim that the fees to be collected from the occupants is greatly less than the accessed worth of the land and will not be sufficient to acquire comparable or better land to be added to the forest preserve, thus delaying the private parties\u2019 clear land title until the town government and state government can agree upon a land purchase.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A similar account of the objections occurs on the NY Public Interest Research Group<\/a> website.\u00a0 But as far as I can tell neither organization is actively opposing passage of Prop 4.\u00a0 They’re just outlining concerns and arguments.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a huge range of organizations, editorial boards, political leaders and activists — including some who have opposed the NYCO Prop 5 land swap, are actively backing the Township 40 swap.<\/p>\n

I’ll update this if I find any groups or activists who are working to urge opposition to Prop4.\u00a0 I hope readers will also chime in if they know of organized opposition.<\/p>\n

Opponents of the amendment argue that a legislative settlement would establish a poor precedent for other private land ownership disputes in the Adirondak Park, inviting an endless stream of private bills and constitutional amendments.<\/p>\n

They argue that similar land disputes have been resolved via the judicial system and that that is the appropriate vehicle to settle such disputes because it provides transparency and an independent authority, which they say the proposed process does not.<\/p>\n

In addition, they claim that the fees to be collected from the occupants is greatly less than the accessed worth of the land and will not be sufficient to acquire comparable or better land to be added to the forest preserve, thus delaying the private parties\u2019 clear land title until the town government and state government can agree upon a land purchase.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This morning, in my conversation with Martha Foley, I reported that the Township 40 land […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[13461],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12644"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12644"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12644\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12676,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12644\/revisions\/12676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}