Father knows best?

Last week, New York Gov. David Paterson vetoed the Upper Delaware Greenway Bill. The bill would have established a council whose mission was to create a plan for a greenway that would “increase awareness of the Upper Delaware River… [and] the importance to the economy of Sullivan County, provide State assistance for municipal improvements, and increase tourism along the Route 97 Scenic Byway corridor.”

We believe that most of the objections detailed in the governor’s veto message were reasonable, but also fairly straightforward to fix. But there is one that could be, and probably should be, a deal breaker.

One of Paterson’s well-taken concerns is that the bill authorizes the greenway council to “subcontract with private organizations to carry out the purposes” of the bill, without placing limits on that authority. This could lead to private groups co-opting public responsibilities. To understand why Paterson might think this could lead to disastrous results, we need look no further than the Bush administration, and its habit of letting private industry into the process of drafting legislation. Such procedures gave us the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and other laws and regulations that amount to a looting of public resources for private profit. To that extent, a rewrite that would establish clearer limits on the authority to subcontract is a good idea.

Paterson also thinks that the bill leaves too much power in the hands of the locality, and too little in the hands of the state, with regard to access to and use of funds. It requires that grants be made to municipalities “upon the request of such a municipality,” without enumerating any limits to the grants or criteria according to which they should be awarded.

Given that any monies disbursed come from taxpayers all over the state, and not just those who live in the greenway area, it seems reasonable to request that clearer limits and criteria be delineated with regard to the award of funds. On this point as on the previous one, it should be fairly straightforward to construct a rewrite that would overcome Paterson’s objections.

But on one point, Paterson goes too far in his desire to maintain state control over the process. He objects to the fact that the bill says a majority of the council’s membership should be appointed by the municipalities through which the greenway will run. He believes instead that “a majority of the members of the Greenway’s governing body should be comprised of State agency officials and/or persons appointed by the Governor.”

The council should indeed have state agency officials on it—and as proposed in the legislation, it does: the commissioners of parks, recreation and historic preservation; environmental conservation; agriculture and markets; and economic development, or their designees. They will be very much needed for their expertise and experience if a viable and effective plan is to be put together. But to say they should have a majority on the body is to say that they should have the deciding vote in what plan is put together.

It would be nice if we could trust Big Daddy in Albany to make decisions on an Upper Delaware Greenway that would be in our best interests. Unfortunately, that trust has been seriously impaired by incidents like the casino fiasco, in which the state tried to foist multiple casinos on our area for the purposes of bolstering state coffers and settling the state’s legal disputes with Native Americans; and the recent truckling to the gas drilling industry, resulting in a law that will mean more gas wells built closer to our homes.

It is true that the plan the council comes up with will not go into effect automatically, so if the municipalities don’t like it, they can reject it before it goes into effect. But it would be a sad waste of time and money to spend four years putting together a Father-knows-best plan that wound up raising the maximum local opposition. More importantly, the chance that municipalities will sign up to participate in the greenway in the first place drops dramatically with Paterson’s suggested change.

We hope that a compromise can be reached on the other enumerated concerns. It might even be possible to tinker with the composition of the council—but not to the extent of stripping municipalities of a majority vote. The state has a right to maintain some control over the way its funds are disbursed. But if it stands by the attitude, “It’s our money and we’ll tell you how to use it,” we’re better off walking away.

Dr. Punnybone

French Door