Clinton County landowner John Maye has acquired some unexpected — and in his eyes, unwanted — celebrity, thanks to a four-year clash with the Adirondack Park Agency.<\/p>\n
APA officials say they were trying to determine whether his cabin near the Saranac River had been built illegally.<\/p>\n
The former forest ranger and property rights advocate says he was harassed deliberately by the state, in an effort to force him from his land on the Saranac River.<\/p>\n
The goal? To free up the property so that it could be purchased by the Adirondack Nature Conservancy.<\/p>\n
“The environmental groups make the snowballs and the Agency enforces them,” he said. “The Agency throws the snowballs.”<\/p>\n
NCPR could find no indication that green groups intervened in Maye’s enforcement case in any way throughout the APA’s four year investigation.<\/p>\n
But setting aside the question of collusion, there is a legitimate debate over whether Maye was mistreated by the APA.<\/p>\n
Suspicions also remain about why the case was dropped abruptly in August 2008.<\/p>\n
Critics point out that the Agency ended their investigation soon after receiving a letter from the town of Black Brook suggesting a conspiracy with environmentalists.<\/p>\n
Here are some of the facts that we were able to determine:<\/p>\n
1. Maye’s case did drag on for a very long time and it appears that for roughly three years the APA simply dropped the ball.<\/p>\n
There was no communication between the Agency and the Mayes. APA chairman Curt Stiles, who didn’t arrive on the scene until 2007, blames the inaction on poor staffing.<\/p>\n
“It’s not inconceivable that things fall off the table or get lost in a crack,” he said. “Or frankly you just don’t have enough resources to stay focused on it and something else becomes more important.”<\/p>\n
That’s a bleak picture, but not implausible. The APA often struggles with a massive case backlog. <\/p>\n
2. Some of the delays during the four-year period were caused by John Maye himself, as he acknowledges.<\/p>\n
First Maye refused to allow an investigator on his property (as is his legal right). He also failed to respond to APA inquiries.<\/p>\n
He also requested — and received — a six-month adjournment of the case for health reasons.<\/p>\n
These facts may complicate Maye’s argument that the APA prolonged the case deliberately in order to harass him.<\/p>\n
3. Critics have suggested that the APA’s investigation was conducted incompetently and could have been settled at any time with a phone call to local officials, or perhaps by viewing the property from the Saranac River.<\/p>\n
Public records reviewed by NCPR seem to contradict this account:<\/p>\n
APA investigators did in fact talk to local officials, and acquired local records, which seemed to support the idea that the cabin had been built illegally.<\/p>\n
They reviewed public health records (looking for septic tank approvals) and reviewed aerial photographs.<\/p>\n
The one fact that remained in dispute — the age of John Maye’s foundation — couldn’t be settled without a close-up inspection.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
All of which brings us to the summer of 2008, when the APA ended their investigation and closed the case.<\/p>\n
Critics of the APA say this behavior is the smoking gun, evidence that after years of harassment and hidden agendas, state officials were eager to make the case go away.<\/p>\n
Here again are the facts we were able to determine about this controversial chapter in the conflict:<\/p>\n
1. In the summer of 2008, the APA received a letter from town officials raising concerns about collusion between the state and the Nature Conservancy.<\/p>\n
2. Chairman Stiles traveled to Black Brook to talk with Supervisor Ricky Nolan, along with councilman Howard Aubin.<\/p>\n
3. Local officials expressed their fears about a conspiracy, and they also assured Stiles that Maye’s cabin was built on an old foundation, which means that it’s legal.<\/p>\n
4. Some have claimed that during that conversation, Stiles agreed to drop the Maye case.<\/p>\n
But this account is disputed by both Stiles and Nolan. “I do not recall him actually saying that, no,” Nolan says.<\/p>\n
5. What’s certain is that Nolan agreed to broker a deal with Maye that would finally allow an APA inspector to visit the site.<\/p>\n
6. APA attorney Paul Van Cott visited the Maye property in July 2008. Critics say this visit was a sham, that the Agency had already decided to drop the case.<\/p>\n
The APA say they were able to view the foundation and confirm that it was not new construction.<\/p>\n
They also point out that after the visit they gathered legal affidavits from the Mayes and from a neighbor, attesting to the age of the structure.<\/p>\n
7. In August 2008, the Mayes received a letter confirming that the enforcement investigation had been dropped.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Those are the facts. The various interpretations of these facts appear irreconcilable.<\/p>\n
Glens Falls Post Star reporter Will Doolittle has expressed a firm opinion about this episode. He thinks the APA mistreated the Mayes and was then suspiciously eager to drop the case.<\/p>\n
For my part, I’m just not sure.<\/p>\n
The APA had been asking for a chance to look at that foundation for four years and they finally got it. That’s a significant fact.<\/p>\n
Is it possible that the APA also shifted its tone after Stiles’ meeting with local officials? Sure.<\/p>\n
Was this an increasingly controversial case that the Park Agency wanted to get off its books? I think that’s very plausible.<\/p>\n
Was this a shining example of efficient government oversight? No, probably not.<\/p>\n
But does all this add up to evidence of a family being “under attack” by state officials, as the Post-Star suggests, possibly as part of a secret conspiracy?<\/p>\n
Your views are welcome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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