May 22, 2023 at 11:46 a.m.
Oneida County board passes resolution opposing proposed Pelican River Forest easement
Advisory resolution leaves room for future negotiations; lobbies for local input
Specifically, there were two critical components of the resolution: One, it put the county on record as opposing the conservation and access easements "as proposed," and, two, it served notice that the county does not want more public land within the county without county and impacted towns' approval if federal or state funds are used to purchase easements.
Several supervisors said they were flooded with emails opposing the resolution and supporting the proposed easement purchase. While The Times could not corroborate that, more then a score of speakers filled the county board room saying just that; not one person supported the resolution.
Still, other supervisors maintain that a silent majority of county residents opposes removing such a large tract of land from any development forever and likewise support having local input, and, at the end of the day, that position prevailed.
During deliberation, supervisor Steven Schreier pointed out that the resolution simply put the county on record as opposing the easement purchase "as proposed."
"Those two words 'as proposed,' to me, they should be italicized, underlined, bolded," Schreier said. "The whole works. If I could work them into every single one of these, I would do it."
Schreier said the words indicated that there was room to negotiate on the piece of property and on future properties.
Still he and five other supervisors voted against even that language. The purchase "as proposed" would cast 56,000 acres of county land into an easement in perpetuity (bringing the total to 70,000 acres), swallow more than 80 percent of the town of Monico, and prohibit any development forever. Those six supervisors also voted against putting the county on record as wanting local government approvals before the state makes such land or easement purchases.
Those six supervisors were, in addition to Schreier, Linnaea Newman, Tom Kelly, Anthony Rio, Collette Sorgel, and Diana Harris.
As the debate among supervisors unfolded, supervisor and Monico town chairman Robert Briggs attempted to make the resolution even tougher, offering an amendment that would put the county on record as opposing any land or easement purchase that would boost public control of land to more than 30 percent of a town's or the county's total land area, but that measure was swept aside.
Schreier had argued that Briggs's proposal was too binding and arbitrary.
"This is saying that you want a resolution that really binds us and says over a certain percentage we're a no-go regardless of whatever the merits are of the proposal," Schreier said. "We're sending a message: 'Don't come to us anymore about this.'"
But Schreier said he didn't have a crystal ball.
"I don't know what the merits of a future proposal could be," he said. "I don't know what the 30 percent is based on. What is it based on? Is there some feasibility study that said once you get past this point it's some tipping point and suddenly we just can't provide ambulance, we can't do anything. I've got to have information."
At the other end of the spectrum, Schreier tried to weaken the resolution by removing the language that the county does not want more public land within the county without county and impacted towns' approval if federal or state funds are used to purchase easements.
Also part of that motion was a call for the state to reinstitute the severance tax it took away from local governments.
The motion was headed for defeat based on opposition to removing the language about local approval of public land or easement purchases, based on supervisors' comments, before Schreier urged his colleagues to defeat the measure. They then passed another motion by Schreier just to restore the severance tax.
Some supervisors grumbled that, because the land is privately owned, the county was attempting to impede private property rights, but county board chairman Scott Holewinski pointed out that the private land owners could still secure an easement and that the vote was about using tax dollars to do so, not prohibiting the landowners from finding some other means.
"The owners of the property today could go down and record that easement," Holewinski said. "They just can't use tax dollars or Nelson [Stewardship funds]. So what this is about is using tax dollars or borrowed money or whatever to purchase. But they could do this tomorrow if that's their wish."
Supervisor Tony Rio said the resolution was too fragmented, and indeed it was anything but clean. While the resolution opposed the purchase as proposed and staked out a claim for local input, it also offered up specific counterproposals that complicated the matter for some supervisors, including Mike Roach, who supported the resolution, and Tony Rio, who opposed it.
Specifically, the resolution called for the state to purchase an ATV-UTV trail in the Pelican River Forest and a right of way over woods roads and then deed them to the county to maintain permanently, using a roads endowment the state had planned for those roads and trails.
Roach wanted to know why that language was added by the committee adopting the resolution. Roach was part of that committee but said he missed the last meeting, when that language suddenly appeared.
"What part am I missing?" Roach asked. "Let's say I own something different than this. It's not the Pelican River Forest. Are you going to put in a resolution that I should get a easement from the DNR and the county should [maintain it]? I mean, why is that even in here?"
Rio said there were about three resolutions mingled into one.
"So I spent a bunch of years as a wordsmith and doing technical writing, and I'll tell you the words matter," Rio said. "So when I hear this talk about, 'well, it's advisory,' well advisory still matters. It's still saying those words and what the resolution says matters. And as I look at this, I see at least three different resolutions in my opinion because we have multiple topics here that are all being lumped into one resolution. I don't want to make the process more difficult, but words matter. So I go back to different resolutions that can be debated on their own merit."
Rio said it was a poorly written resolution.
"I very much appreciate the committee for working on it, but I just think that it's too convoluted," he said. "It's too fragmented."
Supervisor Jim Winkler wanted to return the resolution to committee but hardly anyone had the appetite for that. As it stood, though, Winkler mentioned his long years devoted to conservation but said conservation could occur without easements.
"It seems like we hear people say that our constituents are saying they want an easement," Winkler said. "They want clean water. They don't want mining. They want our wildlife, they want our trees. We can have all of that without having an easement. It seems like people are trying to polarize this thing if you vote against it or, if you vote for it, you're not for conservation. I'm for conservation. I'm just not for easements."
Editor's note: This debate on the county board floor involved many issues, which will be examined in depth in a future edition.
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