  A
Call to Turtles
Letters to Governor Pataki are needed as soon
as possible to urge him to VETO legislation that would strip parkland
status from 11.37 acres on the waterfront in Poughkeepsie known
as the Delaval site.
Senate Bill S7657 was passed late at night, in the closing minutes
of the Session in June, which would alienate the parkland in order
for a commercial development similar to a strip mall to go forward.
The request for the legislation by the Poughkeepsie City Council
was made in a resolution just three hours earlier with no one
present from the press or the public. The resolution was then
taken at high speed in a City police car in order to get to the
Senate before it adjourned. The Assembly passed the bill the following
day. The deal was made behind closed doors, and the Chair of the
Assembly Cities Committee told me that the decision to pass the
bill was made at a level way above him.
Waterfront parkland is special and should be preserved for future
generations, but the Poughkeepsie City Council has little interest
in preserving a true gem on the river. During its environmental
review, the Draft EIS took less than 3 weeks to prepare and throughout
the process, the Council denied that DeLaval is park and, therefore,
there was no need to include a park alternative to the commercial
development.
But now, the city turns around and asks the Legislature to take
away park status for DeLaval. So, the Council now admits that
the site is parkland.
In addition to its failure to provide an appropriate analysis
in the original EIS, the city has failed to carry out its SEQRA
responsibilities under the law to do an environmental review of
its action to request alienation legislation.
Help save this parkland by urging the Governor to VETO S7657.
Please write as soon as you can. Join Pete and Toshi Seeger, Environmental
Advocates, Sierra Club-Atlantic Chapter, Riverkeeper and many
individuals by urging the Governor to veto the legislation.
Here's the address
Hon. George E. Pataki
Governor, State of New York
Executive Chambers
The Capitol
Albany, NY 12224
If you have any questions, send them to jmylod@aol.com
Toshi and Peter Seeger
P.O Box 431
Beacon, New York 12508
July 15, 2004
Governor George Pataki
The Capitol
Albany, New York
Dear Governor:
Public parkland on the Hudson is very precious. We need to save
as much as we have, and work to find more!
Every little village or town or big city along the river should
have waterfront parks for all the people. Not just slivers of
land for walkways, but real parks, and lots of them, where kids
can run around, folks can fly kites, festivals can serve strawberry
shortcake or shad, and people can simply enjoy the river.
That's why were very concerned about a plan in Poughkeepsie to
use most of the DeLaval parkland site on the waterfront for acres
of parking and the kind of stores and offices you can find in
malls on Route 9.
We know that you, too, support a cleaner river and seize opportunities
to increase public parkland.
But legislation will soon come before you that would take away
the parkland designation for the Delaval property so that there
can be commercial development.
We urge you to veto that legislation.
Commercial development can be put almost anywhere, but there
is such a limited amount of waterfront parkland on the river that
giving up any of it would be a tragedy.
Sincerely,
S/
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