State tax freeze pulled from budget

<a href="mailto:kdedam@pressrepublican.com">By KIM SMITH DEDAM</a>
Staff Writer

March 30, 2009 02:45 pm

— LAKE PLACID — Adirondack communities lauded the budget change that scrapped a plan to freeze tax payments on state lands.
“It would have been horrible public policy, if enacted,” said William Farber, past president of the Adirondack Association of Towns and Villages.
“Now we have to be sure the legislature adopts it as drafted. If that’s the case, the good guys win one.”
The proposal to hold tax payments at present rates would have affected about $8.5 million taxes and payments-in-lieu-of-taxes on state-owned lands throughout New York.
Farber said that removing the tax freeze was an agreement made by the governor and both houses, which could make it last.
He was with a large coalition of Adirondack leaders and conservation groups that met with the governor several weeks ago.
“Getting both houses and the governor to agree seemed to us to be a stronger position long-term. The total $8.5 million in savings statewide was just so miniscule it wasn’t worth it.”

ONLINE ATTACK
AdkAction.org, a political action committee founded in Saranac Lake a year ago, joined the coalition of environmental and governmental groups to fight the freeze. The committee ran an intense, three-week, online advertising campaign seeking signatures in opposition.
More than 600 individuals from all over the state and country signed the petition.
“We were amazed at the response to our online ad campaign, which clearly indicated the strong public opposition to this harmful idea,” said Marsha Stanley, AdkAction spokesperson.
“We are told that the response rate to our ads was unusually high. We believe that the proposal to freeze the state’s share of taxes hit a such nerve with the public that it will never be resurrected.”

ACQUISITION IMPACT
Neil Woodworth, executive director of the Adirondack Mountain Club, said the tax freeze would have severely undermined local support for state land acquisition, an issue already simmering in hot water.
“The freeze would have crippled the state’s open-space program at a time when so many critical parcels are available,” he said.
John Sheehan, spokesman for the Adirondack Council, heralded the concerted effort made by Adirondack stakeholders.
“We had the pleasure of working very closely with local government officials, the Common Ground Alliance and the Adirondack Association of Towns and Villages to persuade the legislature not to pursue what could have been a disastrous change in the state’s financial support for the Forest Preserve and the communities that help to protect it.”
Woodworth noted that in 1886, the year after the legislature created the Forest Preserve, it “allowed these lands to be taxed because lawmakers recognized the problems that would be created if large tracts of land were removed from the tax rolls of these small rural communities.”
Last year, New York paid nearly $70 million in local taxes on Adirondack Park lands.
Some towns, such as Arietta, are more than 90-percent state-owned land.

E-mail Kim Smith Dedam at:
kdedam@pressrepublican.com