Panel looks at Adinrondack Park's growth

By Blake Jones
The Post-Star, Glens Falls, N.Y.
Nov. 25--The Adirondack Park economy has been hurt by a shifting employer base, parochialism, a fragmented voice and a lack of telecommunications infrastructure, according to panelists at a public policy forum Monday, in Albany.

Three local and regional authorities discussed prospects for the North Country and New England at The Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government in Albany, where talk turned to the Adirondack Park Agency's role in the park's current economic condition. Panelist Todd Shimkus, president of the Adirondack Regional Chamber of Commerce, said the regional economy is in crisis, and its survival at risk, due in part to an environmental bias. Shimkus fingered the Adirondack Park Agency for not doing enough to plan and track the park's economic growth.

"If the APA is serious about balancing economic growth and environmental responsibility, they would create a plan," he said. According to Shimkus, the most recent analysis of the park's economic performance was completed in 1994. He placed the onus for more regular studies of jobs, payrolls, wages and new businesses on the agency. In contrast, a representative for the Adirondack Council, a park conservancy group, suggested the APA has taken on too much regulatory authority. 

"They've fallen into a regulatory morass, where everything comes before their review," Brian Housel, the council's executive director, said. The APA's economic affairs representative offered his thoughts from the audience that comprehensive economic plans already exist on the local level.

Stephen Erman said while he is amenable to a broader plan for the entire park and agrees with Shimkus on the need for more local data, he's not sure a state regulatory agency should be tasked with completing either. "I don't see that mandate in the park," he said in an interview after the forum. 

Erman questioned whether the agency was responsible for hindering economic growth, a charge leveled by some in the community following a recent decision to tighten shoreline development rules. "If you took away all the regulations," he said, "would companies be developing in the park?"

Joe Short, a program manager at the regional think tank Northern Forest Center, raised the same question from the panel. He noted that New York, Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire share similar economic problems, even though all have different land-use policies.

"The Adirondacks would have many of the same challenges they have today, with or without the APA," he said.

The Northern Forest Center recently completed a report outlining a strategy for economic resurgence across the bucolic four-state region, which prompted Monday's discussion. The plan entails forest preservation, creativity and entrepreneurship, providing necessary infrastructure and renewable energy, and follow-through with regional coordination.

Contributing to the problems, Short said, is a shift over time from a small number of large employers to a large number of small employers. At the same time, local governments have had difficulty coming together on shared issues, and communities have not developed a collective voice. Another hindrance to park business and tourism has been insufficient broadband and wireless communications service, but the panel disagreed on the reason why.

Housel said cellular companies don't have a market to justify paying for towers throughout the park, and a public-private partnership may be required to meet the need.

Shimkus again looked to the APA, saying the agency should first set aside land where cell towers can be built so there are no excuses when interest arises.

Short, returning to the issue of parochialism as an obstacle to progress, pointed to similar but separate initiatives to bring broadband access in each of the four northeastern states studied by The Northern Forest Center.

"Why not join forces?" he asked.

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