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A possible reprieve for Belleayre Mountain?
Dec 24, 2010 7:40 am
[caption id="" align="alignright" width="200" caption="Joe Martens, head of the Open Space Institute, is being eyed for Commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Conservation."]
[/caption]Joe Martens, who currently heads the Open Space Institute, seems to be at the top of the list of names being considered for the last big job incoming governor Andrew Cuomo must name come New Year's: commissioner of the power Department of Environmental Conservation. Capitol Confidential reports this morning that Martens' name "has come up as a potential DEC Commissioner in several places and his appointment could be in keeping with Cuomo’s overall theme of austerity — that we are entering into an era of limits on what the state can afford to do." CC quotes Martens from a May interview with NPR in which he spoke about how Adirondack communities may have to play more of a role in managing the vast Adirondack region because the state, which exercises much development control in the Adirondack Park, is simply out of money. Martens also chairs the Olympic Regional Development Authority board of directors which oversees the Gore and Whiteface ski centers in the Adirondacks as well as the skating, jumping, bobsledding and other Olympic facilities around Lake Placid. Given the problems that the DEC has been facing with its Belleayre Mountain facility in Ulster County, where major job cuts have been occurring over the last month, a long-asked for shift of the facility to a new state management agency could be in the offings, after all... A new regional protest against the cuts, and for a shift to ORDA, is planned for this coming Monday, December 27 in Shandaken. Read a story about that at Watershed Post.
[/caption]Joe Martens, who currently heads the Open Space Institute, seems to be at the top of the list of names being considered for the last big job incoming governor Andrew Cuomo must name come New Year's: commissioner of the power Department of Environmental Conservation. Capitol Confidential reports this morning that Martens' name "has come up as a potential DEC Commissioner in several places and his appointment could be in keeping with Cuomo’s overall theme of austerity — that we are entering into an era of limits on what the state can afford to do." CC quotes Martens from a May interview with NPR in which he spoke about how Adirondack communities may have to play more of a role in managing the vast Adirondack region because the state, which exercises much development control in the Adirondack Park, is simply out of money. Martens also chairs the Olympic Regional Development Authority board of directors which oversees the Gore and Whiteface ski centers in the Adirondacks as well as the skating, jumping, bobsledding and other Olympic facilities around Lake Placid. Given the problems that the DEC has been facing with its Belleayre Mountain facility in Ulster County, where major job cuts have been occurring over the last month, a long-asked for shift of the facility to a new state management agency could be in the offings, after all... A new regional protest against the cuts, and for a shift to ORDA, is planned for this coming Monday, December 27 in Shandaken. Read a story about that at Watershed Post.