Our club was established in 1943 and has owned and leased land in Washington County from that time until today. We now find ourselves in a position of losing those lands as a result of FP selling all of their lands in New York State.
I have further explained how TNC along with the ADK and the state with DEC in the forefront have each played a role in these transactions.
It seems to me, and I fully believed, that TNC was the “bad guy” in all of this. Turns out that I was totally wrong. All of the transactions concerning the sale of the 161,000 acres FP wanted to unload and the transfer of these lands to either the state or other private sector owner would have happened with or without TNC. If anything, the out come would have been more controversial had TNC not existed and not gotten involved.
TNC has a history of involvement in conjunction with the state in their attempts to secure and protect wild lands. The process is/was that when lands become available and the state wishes to secure these lands for addition to the ADK there is an obvious need for funding. In this case, the price was $110,000,000.00 payable to FP. Now here’s where I was wrong - again (this is very depressing). TNC is not funded by the state. They are privately funded by donations and membership fees. They utilize certain “set aside” funds that have been legislated by the state primarily the excise tax placed on all real estate transactions that take place within the state.
There is a law in place whereby a small percentage of the transaction price is placed in this fund for the purposes of acquiring available lands.
However, as in all cases where government gets involved, it takes time for these funds to be directed to the specific project at hand and it can not be expected for a company such as Finch Pruyn to wait around for Albany to allocate the money. So, in order to meet the DEC/ADK’s objectives, a short term solution needs to be employed. Enter, The Nature Conservancy. Their roll was to step in with more immediate funding to acquire the lands from FP and then, by their charter, work with the state to protect and preserve these lands and in this case, they had to go out into the financial world and borrow the money. None of this makes them into “the bad guys.” In fact, without TNC, the future of these lands would be much more a mystery.
If TNC is guilty of anything, it is being bad, no, very bad, communicators. It is my feeling that they act far too defensively and should have explained what it took me weeks to find out and that is exactly what it is that they do and how do they do it. It took me only a couple of paragraphs.
They surely can do better than I can having their 38 years of history available to support their image.
Much has also been said about taxes and how once these lands transfer to TNC and/or the ADK (both of whom are tax exempt), the towns within which these lands lie would loose all of the land taxes. NOT TRUE! TNC has chosen the position that, although they are tax exempt, they will continue to pay local taxes so long as the title to these lands is in their name. Secondly, the State of New York (DEC) also pays all land taxes at the locally established tax rate, to the respective towns and has done so since 1885 and is not about to change this policy. If it did, it would bankrupt every town within the ADK. TNC’s primary roll is to facilitate the final outcome by “bridging” the financial process.
To further overcome the image of being the bully by dictating the final outcome of these lands, TNC has developed three options that have been painstakingly presented to each affected town and given the town a voice in the outcome. Herein lays another entire story for another time.
So, I hope you better understand where each of the player’s falls in what I believe has been a very confusing and misunderstood issue. I have to apologize to TNC and to DEC/ADK for not becoming fully informed before I took my initial position. To Dirk and Tom and Connie, I can only offer my support and thanks.
See you outdoors!
You can reach Dick at rtotino@nycap.rr.com
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