ADIRONDACK & CONSERVATION GROUPS SEEK PERMISSION TO JOIN
LAWSUIT & WIN BACK STATE TAX PAYMENTS TO LOCAL GOV’T
State’s Property Tax Payments on Adirondack Forest Preserve
Help Support
Park’s Economy & Schools; Compensates for ‘Forever
Wild’ Development Ban
For more information:
John F. Sheehan
518-432-1770 (ofc)
518-441-1340 (cell)
518-456-4512 (home)
Released: Monday, May 12, 2008
ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- A coalition
of Adirondack and conservation organizations is
seeking permission from the Appellate Division of NYS Supreme
Court to join in the state’s legal defense of its tax payments
to local governments in areas where the state owns large tracts
of forest land. Those payments were threatened by a lower court
decision last October.
The coalition asking permission to join in the state’s defense
of property tax payments to
local governments is comprised of the Adirondack Council, Open
Space Conservancy,
Adirondack Landowners Association, Adirondack Mountain Club,
Residents’ Committee to
Protect the Adirondacks, Association for the Protection of the
Adirondacks, Catskill Center for
Conservation and Development, and Audubon New York.
The deadline for such requests is May 19. The case is being heard
by the Appellate
Division’s Fourth Department in Rochester. The case is expected
to be heard in September.
Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is defending the state. The groups
filed their “friend of the
court” brief in an effort to assist the attorney general.
At stake is more than $70 million in annual property tax payments
to 92 towns, 12
counties and dozens of school districts in the Adirondack Park
alone, on 2.7 million acres of
constitutionally protected NYS Forest Preserve. Statewide, close
to $200 million in annual
revenue to local governments is at stake.
Last fall, a NYS Supreme Court justice ruled that all state property
tax payments to local
government must stop. In that case (Dillenburg vs. New York State,
2007) a Chautauqua County Town of Arkwright supervisor sued the
state because it would not pay taxes on state-owned forest lands
in the town, although it made payments to other towns for similar
forest lands.
The judge ruled that the town was right in claiming unfair treatment
and issued an order
halting all state tax payments to all local governments. The
judge voluntarily held-off on the
execution of his order, allowing the state time to appeal the
decision before the payments to
local governments are stopped.
Ironically, the judge also added that the state tax payments
to local governments in the
Adirondack and Catskill parks were both the oldest (established
in 1886) and most legitimate, having been created with a clear
public purpose in mind. However, he refused to exclude them
from his ruling.
Laws passed after 1886 granting tax payments to communities outside
the two wilderness
parks have been poorly justified, he ruled. Rather than sort
out which were legitimate and which
were not, the judge ruled that all state tax payments to local
governments must stop.
“The Legislature had good reasons for allowing the state
to be taxed on state Forest Preserve by local towns, villages,
counties and school districts in the Catskills and Adirondacks,”
said Deborah Meyer DeWan, Interim Executive Director of The Catskill
Center for Conservation and Development. “Those reasons
still apply today. They are state parks, serving a statewide
purpose. The Forest Preserve protects pure water and standing
forests, while providing tourism revenue.
“Local governments provide road access to many preserve
lands and many of the services
needed by tourists,” said Brian L. Houseal, Executive Director
of the Adirondack Council.
“Local governments help fight forest fires and also arrest,
prosecute and incarcerate those who
steal timber and poach wildlife from the Forest Preserve.”
“It was inappropriate for the lower court in this case to
lump the Adirondack and Catskill
Forest Preserves in with other state forest lands," said
Neil Woodworth, Executive Director of
the Adirondack Mountain Club. "Tax payments on non-Forest
Preserve lands were set up at
different times for different reasons. The payments on Forest
Preserve lands have received broadbased public support and have
been upheld by New York's courts over the past 122 years."
"The Association views the payment of taxes on the Forest
Preserve as a permanent, essential and inviolate commitment from
the people of the state, who benefit so greatly from the preserve,
to the taxing districts in which those lands are located,”
said David H.Gibson, Executive Director of the Association for
the Protection of the Adirondacks. “We are glad to join
a large Adirondack coalition appealing this decision."
“All of the towns in the Adirondacks and Catskills have
a more solid claim to state tax
payments than the Town of Arkwright, which filed the original
complaint, or any other town
outside those two parks,” said Houseal of the Adirondack
Council. “For example, there is
nothing stopping local contractors from harvesting trees on state
lands outside the two parks.
However, timber harvesting is banned on Forest Preserve lands
inside the parks, as is all private
or commercial development. It is very unlikely that we will receive
support from local
governments for any new purchases of Forest Preserve in the Adirondacks
or Catskills if the tax payments aren’t secure. If the Forest
Preserve becomes tax-exempt, it will be seen as a burden to local
taxpayers, not an asset. Some Adirondack towns are more than
70 percent state-owned Forest Preserve.”
The groups cited a number of court cases in which other state
tax payment plans were
found to have little or no lawful justification, but were upheld
anyway. Those courts didn’t
substitute their own beliefs for the judgment of the duly elected
NYS Legislature. The groups
urged the Appellate Division panel to exercise the same caution
and overrule the lower court,
which did not. The organizations are being represented by Marc
S. Gerstman of Albany, former
chief counsel for the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation,
which oversees most
state-owned forest lands.
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