Please Make up your Mind

October 20, 2007

This is getting a little tedious. For the sake of brevity, you can review what we found wrong with all the brochures the Supervisor was sending out claiming that all open space purchases were "dedicated parklands"--our first explanation of the problem here, and then later in commentary here. And you can read town attorney Michael Klein's latest rendition of the legal justification (Different paths to parkland protection--Community View Oct. 20) here.  

The whole convoluted mess in a nutshell:

When Town brochures were sent out this year claiming that all open space purchases were protected as dedicated parkland, Preserve Ramapo submitted a Freedom of Information Act request asking for all properties that were formally dedicated, and all meeting documents that would verify those dedications.

The list we got back had only one property listed as formally dedicated; that's the one pictured above around the Supervisor's house.

At a subsequent Town Hall meeting we asked that all the others be dedicated and St. Lawrence refused. His reason: You want me to dedicate the wellfields as a park? I answered yes as open space, but he wasn't moved to do so.

The Journal News called and asked the same question, and they were told by attorney Klein that there were covenants in the deeds. And then, almost immediately after, the reporter was told, by Klein, there were no covenants--or he couldn't find any. Covenants are a way Clarkstown protects its open space from future sale.

Then St. Lawrence wrote a Community View in which the assumptions flew with few or no legal specifics. Saying something is so doesn't make it so--as I discovered over three years documenting the sewer overflows and the recent engineering study that has outlined $50 million in necessary repairs to a system that St. Lawrence absolutely swears is an environmentally sound miracle of engineering.

Then, just days later, attorney Klein formulated a new approach published as the Community View (linked above). This time there's no mention of covenants in the deeds, but the wording is in the bonding documents calling for "acquisition of land at various locations for public parks and other preservation purposes." Klein claims the Town Board resolutions declared each property as parkland, but when we FOILed the documents from Town Meetings we didn't get these--was that due to incompetence on the part of the Town Clerk, or a purposeful attempt to keep information out of the hands of the public, or are those statements legally irrelevant?

Klein refers to New York State common law that goes back to 1871, but he doesn't specify which law(s). Originally, when he claimed that using a parcel of land as a park protects it forever as a park, I asked for citations to case law that would validate that claim, but I was told by the Town Clerk we don't have to give you that information.

So. Where are we now? Will there be weekly explanations, or will the doubt in the minds of all those who showed up at town hall to rally for formal dedications linger? It all goes away with 15 minutes in a public town board session where the other properties are protected just as St. Lawrence's backyard is. Is that such an outrageous demand from those of us who have paid millions for these properties. What adds a little additional acrimony to this autocratic response on the part of the Supervisor is that there was an Open Space Committee formed to review and advise, and this committee has never met. These purchases, our purchases, were done in the dark of Supervisor's office until such time as he decided to announce them, and then, erroneously, declare them formally dedicated and protected forever.

Michael Castelluccio