Dave Mason and Jim Herman have received a lot of commendations for their Adirondack Futures project. It’s high time, the Adirondack Futures project tells us, for a grassroots, bottom-up, inclusive planning process that is professionally facilitated to shape a plan for a new and positive direction for the Adirondack Park.

Mason and Herman have met with several hundred people about the future of the Adirondacks and created a handful of scenarios for what the future may hold 25 years down the road in 2038. They have presented these plans to government at all levels and many groups throughout the Adirondacks. They are now actively implementing this work through a half dozen work teams. » Continue Reading.

Regular Dispatch readers know that I have been short on patience with the usual reflexive side-taking that seems to be a permanent feature of any discussion over the Adirondacks.  On one side you get cartoonish renditions of radical environmentalists and/or government regulators.  On the other side you get caricatures of rapacious developers and selfish residents.  In the middle?  A militarized zone of nasty vitriol, propaganda, lawsuits and a dismaying lack of reason.

Based on some recent posts and associated comments over the last few weeks this automatic side-taking is alive and well even at the Almanack.  For a good example read this recent column on demographics by Peter Bauer, then read the comments and you’ll get a pretty good idea. » Continue Reading.