Our Environmental Borough President?

by Hillel Lofaso

On December 15, 2006, the Advance reported that Borough President James Molinaro has created a nonprofit conservancy to raise money to buy environmentally sensitive private property slated for development.
Called the Staten Island Community Preservation Conservancy, the nonprofit organization can raise money from public and private funds, and it has already received its first donation of $200,000 from Staten Island developer, R. Randy Lee, according to the Advance. The donation seems small when you consider that it was donated from proceeds from the $6.9 million state purchase of 12 acres that Lee and eight other investors owned in Richmond Valley.

Molinaro said that the point of the conservancy is to act like a national trust, preserving land here through creative financing. He assured the Advance that the conservancy was not set up to help builders. “The clear purpose is to preserve environmentally sensitive land,” he said.

In our Fall 2006 Bulletin president emeritus Richard Buegler wrote:

“Unlike most other large communities, counties or states throughout the United States, Staten Island does not have a land trust organization of its own. I don’t believe it ever had one. Land trust organizations are skilled in encouraging well-to-do residents of the area to dig deeply into their purses and pockets to purchase a valuable natural area that may end up, eventually, in the hands of developers. We have many well-to-do residents, but no one skilled in convincing them that buying land, meadows, forests and streams for the public becomes a permanent memorial to them, often being given their name as a thankful testimonial to their beneficence. In Protectors’ efforts to preserve threatened natural open spaces on Staten Island, we have relied upon other not-for-profit organizations to arrange and complete the transfer of private lands to some public body or agency such as New York City Department of Parks, New York State DEC or even the United States Department of the Interior. The Trust for Public Land has most times been the transferring organization for Staten Island, and they know and respect Protectors for our preservation efforts, and have worked closely with us.”

We hope that the formation of the Staten Island Community Preservation Conservancy engenders in our elected officials an enlightened awareness of the dwindling natural resources on Staten Island and the need for preservation before our natural areas are developed out of existence.

Our Bombastic Press
The press continues to hammer away at Protectors every chance it gets, however. In a January 2, 2007 editorial on the Borough President’s desire to build an ornate bridge in Bloomingdale Park, the Advance excoriated Protectors for its past failed attempt to halt the development of Bloomingdale Park. “Environmentalists like Protectors went nuts” the paper said (this particular editorial writer loves to wallow in negative hyperbole). The editorial goes on to relate how Protectors (joined by the respected Manhattan law firm Sullivan and Cromwell), sued the city for its failure to exercise proper oversight of our natural resources, wetland and woodlands, resources that if protected, increase the public good, as do properly sited ballfields. The editorial attacked the Parks Department as well, calling the agency “environmental zealots” for being opposed to this elaborate bridge on the grounds that it is unnecessary and not in keeping with the plans for the park.

Let’s be clear: We see the disparagement of Protectors as a gratuitous snub of a venerable organization. Protectors is not involved in this issue. In fact, once we lost the lawsuit, we moved on to other projects.

As members, you know that we represent a sizeable segment of Staten Island’s population who are tired and angry about the ongoing chipping away at our parkland and woodlands. No one in Protectors acts alone. We work hard at coming up with consensus after careful discussion and deliberation of the facts and our options. Contrast this with our Borough President, who feels he can act unilaterally and demand that his projects be carried out, and if an agency acting in a stewardship capacity opposes his idea, he threatens to take back the taxpayers’ money he has earmarked for that particular agency.

Protectors receives grant
Protectors has received generous funding from the New York City Environmental Fund to continue our series of walks through Staten Island’s parks. Our naturalist-led walks are geared to a variety of tastes and skill levels and can be enjoyed by people of all ages. We are grateful for the continued funding by the New York City Environmental Fund that enables us to provide New York City with this service.

—Hillel Lofaso