The Adirondack Council has released an annual State of the Park report since 1986. The just-released 2021 edition, titled “A Wilderness of Refuge,” offers mixed grades for state policymakers' actions regarding the Adirondacks. But not everyone agrees with the marks the Council has published this year.
The annual report presents thumbs up and thumbs down on a range of actions and policy issues addressed by state, local and federal leaders. In the prologue Executive Director Willie Janeway writes that over the past year the Park has been stressed and tested but stakeholders are hopeful for its future.
Council Spokesman John Sheehan says the assessment offers an overall hopeful tone.
“A number of the things we were trying to get state government to recognize and to begin to act upon we saw some action on in the past 12 months. And certainly we were happy in general with the way the courts treated the Park. There was one exception of a local court but that was on an issue we think can be resolved later on," said Sheehan. "I think also that we saw some positive progress on the federal level that we have not seen in many years. And I think that the transition on the state level from the Cuomo to the Hochul Administration is also a hopeful sign for the Adirondack Park.”
The Council praised the New York state legislature for actions that include proposing a $400 million Environmental Protection Fund. Local government leaders were praised for work to deal with septic systems and hiker overcrowding.
But Adirondack Park Local Government Review Board Executive Director Gerald Delaney says he doesn’t take the report seriously.
"I think amongst local government that is the general assessment. It really is. I mean we know what our communities need. Personally I think the State of the Park is sort of a dinosaur that hearkens back to the way things used to be done.”
The “Fiction Adds Friction” local government thumbs down in the State of the Park is creating friction. The segment notes an op-ed in the Albany Times Union “… by a local government leader inaccurately accused the Adirondack Council of reneging on a promise to support a new network of road-like snowmobile trails connecting Adirondack communities.” The op-ed writer was Town of Indian Lake Supervisor Brian Wells.
“I’m probably one of the few supervisors still in office that was at one of these meetings. I was there. I know what was said.”
Wells says that one segment has compromised the integrity of the entire report.
“And they’re trying to say that the towns were mad at DEC. No. DEC negotiated in good faith and I think DEC had a good plan. We thought we were all in agreement. We thought it was going to be of benefit to the Park. Didn’t work out that way.”
Delaney, with the Adirondack Park Local Government Review Board, also disparaged that section of the State of the Park report.
“Those five towns banded together with Brian Wells and they told their story as truthfully and factually as they could so nobody could come back and tell them they were being dishonest or misrepresenting the truth. And to then say that it is fiction is very disheartening.”
The Adirondack Council’s John Sheehan responds by saying their position has been clear and on the record throughout and is reflected in the park report.
"We were very much trying to get the state to halt what it was trying to do and to redesign the trail system to be more in compliance with state law. And while we were continuing to express that they moved ahead with local government on a plan that began construction and ultimately ended up in the Protect the Adirondacks group’s lawsuit being brought," explains Sheehan. "We were watching the case for a while but then began to participate later on because we felt that there was a chance Protect would not be successful so we filed a Friend of the Court Brief to make sure that they were. So I think our position on this has been extremely consistent.”
