OPPOSITION MOUNTS TO GREENWAY CONSOLIDATION Mike McCagg ccSCOOP News 03-01-09 - Opposition is growing to a proposal by Governor David Paterson to consolidate the Hudson River Valley Greenway into the Department of State, even though the governor failed to remove the proposal from his budget during the thirty-day amendment period that followed his initial budget proposal. Assemblyman Marc Molinaro (R-Tivoli) has garnered support for his opposition to the governor's proposal on both sides of the aisle and on both sides of the Atlantic.

"I am confident that we are closing in on getting a positive outcome," said Molinaro.

Moliano has recently been joined by Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-Hurley), as well as Lubomir Chmelar, director of the Friends of Czech Greenways organization, and Roberto Gambio, director of the European Centre of Documentation on Nature Park Planning at the Polytechnic University in Turin, Italy. Both men have heralded the Greenway, and the Czech Greenway organization was modeled after the Hudson River Valley Greenway.  

"While I recognize and appreciate the budget challenges raised by the State's serious fiscal crisis, the proposed elimination of the Greenway contributes minimally towards resolving that crisis, while also undermining a tremendously important and effective regional program," Hinchey stated in a letter sent to Governor Paterson recently.

While in the state government, Hinchey worked with Senator Stephen Saland (R-Poughkeepsie) to author the Greenway Act, which created the two Greenway organizations: the Hudson River Valley Greenway Communities Council and the Greenway Conservancy for the Hudson River Valley. Molinaro said he is working with Hinchey to make sure "the legislature and governor's office is aware of the risks of the federal funding being lost” if the Greenway agencies are merged with the Department of State.

Officials have charged that the move would mean an end to the $1.2 million in federal funding the Greenway receives for managing the Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area, because the federal government has consistently frowned upon state agencies managing federal heritage areas. The Greenway, Molinaro contends, provides a quasi-independent organization that met the federal government’s requirements. The governor's proposal would eliminate that, he said.

“If the Hudson River Valley Greenway dies, Europe mourns to see the fate of its sister Greenway. . . .The Hudson Valley Greenway was the inspiration for the founding of the Czech Greenways, a network of hiking and biking trails from castle to castle between Prague and Vienna, inviting western visitors to fascinating regions accessible after 45 years behind Iron Curtain,” Chmelar wrote in a statement released by Molinaro.

“The Hudson Greenway was one of the basic inspirations for the Project APE (Appennino Parco d’Europa), a very big project, financed by the Italian Ministry of Environment, for a transregional greenway covering a surface of more than 9 million hectares, more than 2,000 communes. I would like to stress that the main interest for the Italian scholars was the philosophy of the Greenway, based on careful environmental stewardship, a flexible governance system, and compacted planning tools,” Gambino wrote in a statement also released by Molinaro .

Paterson's proposal to consolidate the Hudson River Valley Greenway Communities Council and the Greenway Conservancy for the Hudson River Valley with the Department of State was made in the executive budget proposal released in December.
 
Both organizations were created in 1991 by the Hudson River Valley Greenway Act, as a way to regionalize the Hudson Valley. The Greenway Conservancy works with local governments, organizations, and individuals to promote the Hudson River Valley as a tourism destination area, assist in the preservation of agriculture, establish a Hudson River Valley Trail system, and, with the Council, works with communities to strengthen state agency cooperation with local governments. 

Approximately 90 percent of the 242 communities in the Greenway region— which includes Columbia County—are a part of the organization. Every Columbia County municipality has opted into the Greenway through a resolution approved by either the town or village board or, in the case of the City of Hudson, by the Common Council.