Tuesday’s Close Election: Proposal One

Zohran won six days ago. That was the election that everyone remembers. But there was more on the ballot. Proposals 2 – 6 were about New York City (2 – 5 passed, 6 failed). But Proposal One was a state Proposal. And it was one of the closest votes last Tuesday.

New York State has parks. The US Government has national parks. Other states have parks. But none of them, not even Yellowstone, are protected by a constitution. Except for two. Catskill Park and Adirondack Park are protected by the NY State Constitution. They are the best protected parks in the entire country. But are they?

Adirondack Park is huge. Six million acres. Bigger than all of New Jersey. About the size of New Hampshire, or Vermont, or North Macedonia. With different rules for how land is protected and used in the park. It’s a mix of public and private land. There are towns in the park. Over 100,000 people live inside its boundaries.

Here’s a cool map of land use in Adirondack Park.

But I asked, is it really well-protected? (Now I’m forgetting about Catskills, just talking about Adirondack Park.) Well, sort of. There are restrictions and regulations on development, on clearing land, on building structures. But they are not always followed to a T. Some locals, understandably, bristle at some of the limitations – why are they restricted from certain activity on public land? On private land they own? But we are not talking about, mostly, major encroachments. Proposal One was about a major encroachment.

Lake Placid is in the northeast of the Park. Winter Olympics twice. Other major winter sports events. And five years ago the Olympic Regional Development Authority (ORDA) built some cross country or bobsled or somesuch trails – not where they should have been built, but by clearing some land in Adirondack Park that should not have been cleared. 343 acres out of 6,000,000 may seem small, but over 300 acres is a real violation. Here is a summary of the story on public radio up there. Here’s another summary on a local TV station.

So what to do? The approach of Proposal One was to carve the land out of the park (for as long as ORDA is using it, then return it) and add 2500 acres elsewhere to the park. And this could only be done by amending the NY State Constitution.

• Why is this good? Once done, there will be no related violations of the constitution in play. The park will have lost 400 acres and gained 2500 – a net win.
• Why is this bad? ORDA gets away with what it did, without penalty. They claim inadvertent – I’m suspicious.
• Why not another approach? Make them put it back? Seriously, might make us feel better, but doesn’t help.
• What’s not relevant? It does not open up the park for development (the amendment is only about this parcel). It does not set precedent.

And who supported this? All the environmentalists working to preserve Adirondack Park. That’s a big deal. And who opposed this?

Let’s go to election night. Huge turnout in NYC, swamped the rest of the state more than NYC usually swamps the rest of the state. And surprise – early on, Proposal One was going down statewide. Outside of NYC it was passing near 60%. But in NYC? Even votes in Manhattan and the Bronx. Big negative vote in Queens. And huge votes against in Brooklyn and Staten Island. Think about that – when do Brooklyn and Staten Island agree? Not on the choice of Mayor. Or President. Or much else. But they were #1 and #2 in all of NYS, and they almost succeeded in defeating Proposal One.

Late returns from Westchester County, and Rochester and Buffalo, and Niagara County turned Proposal One from a 50,000 vote loser to a win over 100,000 votes. NYC voted “no” by over 150,000 votes. The rest of New York voted yes by 300,000. This map is weird.

The land is in Essex County –

• and Essex and the surrounding North Country counties had most of the highest yes vote in the state.
• High environmental awareness drove yes votes especially in college towns – look especially at Tompkins County, the dark green square where Cornell and Ithaca are located – but also Broome (Binghamton), Saratoga, Albany, Schenectady, Rensselear…
• Pretty much the rest of New York State voted in the mid 50s to low 60s yes, including Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo.
• The NYC suburbs were closer – Nassau and Suffolk in the low 50s, Westchester, Dutchess, Putnam, Rockland, Orange a little higher on average – but definitely a lower average than the rest of the state, except…
• New York City! Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island, what’s up? The original 718. What’s up with that? For some of those voters, a MAGA lean, including “I vote no on everything.” Upstate turnout was lower, there wasn’t a huge competitive mayor’s race. So NYC had many more low information voters – who might be more suspect of government. And who live very far from the affected area. And there was definitely a push (poorly informed) among some local progressive organizations (who are also very far from the affected area) to oppose the measure. Reading what was written, I am fairly certain the drivers of this campaign had neither read the amendment nor spoken to any activists on the ground.

But whatever, Staten MAGA Island and Progressive brownstone Brooklyn came together and almost killed this proposal.

Edit: It is clear that the supporters of this amendment did a poor job getting the word out about why they wanted this to pass. Certainly their thinking did not reach many NYC voters.

Here’s the amended (added) language, linked back to the full proposal:

Notwithstanding the foregoing provisions, the construction, operation, and maintenance to international standards for Nordic skiing and biathlon trails that will accommodate global competitions, training, and events, totaling not more than three hundred twenty-three acres of trails and appurtenances thereto, is authorized on one thousand thirty- nine acres of forest preserve lands at the Mount Van Hoevenberg Olympic Sports Complex in the town of North Elba in Essex county, and as an offset thereto the state must acquire for incorporation into the forest preserve at least two thousand five hundred acres of forest land for inclusion in the forest preserve in the Adirondack Park on condition that the legislature shall determine that such lands are equal to or greater in value.