ACR Op-Ed Piece In The NYTimes

ausable skier wrote

The banking crisis was caused by Clintion and the Dems led by Barney Frank (doesn't get any more liberal than him)  who used Franny and Fredie to give loans to low income folks (who vote for the dems because they get hand outs from them) who put little money down and had no ability to repay.  The house of cards then came falling down when shock of shocks they defaulted on their loans.

Yes ... that was the sole reason for the banking crisis ... Bill Clinton, Barney Frank, democrats and poor people.

Harvey44 wrote

Curious - can the parties appeal the APA's decision?

Yes

Yes.  Any party has 60 days to appeal an APA decision.  

Yes, that was def said w/ copious amounts of sarcasm!  

Draft Order and permits located here:

http://apa.ny.gov/Mailing/2012/01/fullAgency.htm

Need to restate my position on this.  I'm against having environmental fringe groups dominate the discussion and stall out legit business interests trying to develop the local economies of the ADK's.  These guys stalled this project for over 6 years now.  If it were not for these bozo's the APA would have ruled on this back in 2006 or 7.  Their MO is drag every type of development thru every legal or not so legal stall tatic to delay the project driving the businesses costs up.

If you actually live in the ADK park you feel as if you are like the american colonists  pre rev war- you have little say over your own community because the APA is ruled by a bunch of non local liberals.

Now I am all for getting BT back up and operating fully.  The economic particulars of this development do have me concerned.  My oposition is really against the Adk counsel or what ever the eco-nuts are calling themselves.  I'm not pro or con on this particular development - I have no interest financial or otherwise in that except i want to ski at BT

on the other stuff that this thread got into - were there folks on wall street that made the banking crisis worse - absolutely! The foundation of it was the Barney Frank changes to banking regulations and Franny / Fredie that started the whole mess rolling down hill.

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/11/what-caused-the-financial-crisis-the-big-lie-goes-viral/

ausable skier wrote

Need to restate my position on this.  I'm against having environmental fringe groups dominate the discussion and stall out legit business interests trying to develop the local economies of the ADK's.  These guys stalled this project for over 6 years now.  If it were not for these bozo's the APA would have ruled on this back in 2006 or 7.  Their MO is drag every type of development thru every legal or not so legal stall tatic to delay the project driving the businesses costs up.

If you actually live in the ADK park you feel as if you are like the american colonists  pre rev war- you have little say over your own community because the APA is ruled by a bunch of non local liberals.

I agree with you.  However, I don't see the Tupper development as a viable investment.  Look at Gore Mountain.  It's a mature and well developed mountain as far as the skiing goes.  Sure, the amenities are lacking.  But the skiing is amazing.  That said, very few people are buying into the local real estate (although I have).  While the town is moving ahead slowly, its only with baby steps at most.  I can't imagine the Tupper development taking off.  Who would go there?? It's not close to any major city and is has no direct highway access.  Are you kidding me?  Gore is only 45 minutes from Saratoga (a monied enclave) and 1.5 hours from Albany (a highly populated city).  Despite this, Gore and North Creek seem incapable of capitalizing on their catchment areas.  How is Big Tupper going to survive?  

With regards to the mortgage crisis, +1 to Benny.

ausable skier wrote

on the other stuff that this thread got into - were there folks on wall street that made the banking crisis worse - absolutely! The foundation of it was the Barney Frank changes to banking regulations and Franny / Fredie that started the whole mess rolling down hill.

You seem intent on only pointing the figure of blame at the government when Clinton was President, and at Barney Frank. To be sure, the policies they advocated, specifically encouraging Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac to make more funds available to lower income and higher risk borrowers, as well as requiring lenders to expand operations into CRA regions, you overlook the reality that while the crisis was unfolding, George Bush was in the White House and republicans were in control of Congress.

When William Donaldson, then Chairman of the SEC, sought greater regulation of the hedge funds that were buying these crap loans, he was rebuffed by Congress and the White House. This coincided with the meteoric rise of the origination of interest only loans, option ARM's, piggy-backed first and second mortgages to avoid private mortgage insurance, etc.

I work in the mortgage business ... in 2003, we (my co-workers and myself) essentially predicted that things were going to blow up big-time. If we could see it, where were the government regulators? They were there ... watching, but simply looked the other way because too much money was being made!

Then, there's the fraud part of the equation. The thousands and thousands of failed loans in places like Las Vegas, Arizona, many parts of Florida and California were not being made to "low income" families. They were being made to real estate speculators looking to "flip" properties and make profits. The fraud in this segment of the industry was staggering. Everyone looked the other way ... why, because too much money was at stake, and fat cats like Angelo Mozilo had too much influence in government. This part of the crisis had nothing to do with Clinton era policies, whether you're willing accept that or not.

To attribute a failure of this magnitude to one person or policy is naive and conveniently simplistic. There was plenty of blame to go around. Using your approach, would it be fair to say that the disaster that is the public education system in this country can be entirely attributed to George Bush's "No Child Left Behind" Act? That would be convenient, but not very realistic.

Truce - I didn't start this banking tangent to the thread but i mistakenly fed the fire

This thread should be about 2 things

1) is the Tupper development a good thing economically - I'm on the fence about that - Tupper badly needs econ dev and jobs but this proposal seems to have some big flaws in it

2) that groups such as this that are funded from outside the ADK's are stalling legit development in the park - there mission statement is to stall or stop any and all development.  If you live here its like you have little say in what can get developed and how the economy can grow.

Re: # 1 I hope ACR is an economic transformational type of project not only for TL but for the entire Park.

re: #2 The ACR project sponsors made a number of choices that resulted in months adding up to years of delay.  At one point a whole year went bye w/out any action on their part.  Granted the floor fell out the real estate market and all...  

# 3   We're overlooking the lake. This ACR developement will have some lakefront and marina etc so there's a plus for buyers...four season use.

In a sense, it could be a great location for skiers. Just 30? mins to WF, 40 mins to Gore, 50 mins to Hickory and Big Tupper out your back door. Not a bad set up.

ausable skier wrote

Truce - I didn't start this banking tangent to the thread

Actually... you did.  Scotty Jack suggested that the financial collapse might have something to do with the viability of this project (which, agree with that or not, was not a tangential comment) and then you launched in to some ridiculous screed about how the banking crisis was the fault of Bill Clinton and Barney Frank.  Own your foolishness.

ausable skier wrote

1) is the Tupper development a good thing economically - I'm on the fence about that - Tupper badly needs econ dev and jobs but this proposal seems to have some big flaws in it

Yeah...pretty much what everyone else has been saying on this thread.  Better late to the party, I guess, than to miss it all together.

ausable skier wrote

2) that groups such as this that are funded from outside the ADK's are stalling legit development in the park -

Whatever dude.  There you go again.  That's a conclusion.  Do you have any facts or data to back it up?  Your first example of this you've pretty much admitted "has some big flaws" so that's not the "legit development" that you speak of.  Do you have any examples of "legit development" that has been blocked by groups such as this?  And I don't want hear some anecdote about a guy you know who couldn't put an addition on his camp or some other unverifiable story.  Point to a project, if you can, with real data that we can review that proves the conclusion that you just stated.  I'm not saying you can't do it - but you certainly haven't done it yet.  And now you seem to be in full retreat.  Come on!  Man up!  You started this.  What do you got?

Noah John wrote

Come on!  Man up!  You started this.  What do you got?

ausable skier wrote

 Spew

Snowballs - BT is a solid 1 hour drive to WF.  You have to go thru Tupper, SL and LP towns which slows you down considerably

Noah - an example of eco-nut groups slowing down development is right in front of you.  It took WF several extra years to complete the Lookout Mt addition because they were forced to complete a multi-year study on the Bricknells woodthrush also known as that Fricking Bird.  This study's findings forced WF to only work on trails and lifts after a certain date (August 1 i think i recall it was) because we wouldn't want to distrube the bird.  That drove the costs of the project up by several hundreds of thousands of $.  The Eco-nuts are thus the reason for Hoyt's not having snowmaking because the project came in over budget and there was not any money left for snowmaking pipe.  All becuase of a bird.

Thats what i got

So there, you asked, and Aussie gave you the bird.

The Bicknell survey was three years.  Year prior to construction, one year during and one year post.  It was conducted by Wildlife Conservation Society using a lot of volunteers.  The total cost may have paid for 100 linear feet of snow making pipe.  

Construction was only limited to after August above 2500 feet.

Having to blast through a huge ledge along the Wilmington trail dramatically impacted overall Lookout Mtn costs.  This also caused the unfortunate event of gabillion tons of shot rock being dumped skiers left into Sugar Valley Glades.  The entire skiers left below Hickok Hill was suppose to be glade skiing.  Now we are stuck w/ the narrow entrance on top, a new this season entrance across from Lookout Below and the low angle bottom entrance.  Moving glades to this area of the mtn was suppose to be a net gain of over 50 acres of tree skiing.  

I for one do not think trail development which incorporates conservation of critical environmental Habitat for a species of special concern constitutes "eco-nuts." Either did Gov Pataki!

The bird study cost $45k of NYS taxpayers money.  It was in the launch package that Orda put out for Lockout.  

The extra year it took for construction due to the bird limimtations caused orda to order pipe for snowmaking a year later than planned and budgeted.  That was the year that steel and copper commodities prices skyrocketed so they could not afford to order as much pipe.  Fricking Birds!!!!!!!!!!!!!  There is plenty of other mountains in the ADK's for that bird to nest in so the Eco-nuts cost the taxpayers big bucks and cost WF skiers snowmaking on Hoyts.

Snowballs wrote

So there, you asked, and Aussie gave you the bird.

+1

I'm very confident that local buisnesses in Winkytown have recouped that 45K during late spring and early summer as a result of the media attention related to the fact that the Bicknell thrives on WF.  Birders were and still are flocking (pun intended) to W-town for the chance to see this bird.  They stay in town and spend money during a shoulder season.  So  outside of doing the right thing, the Bickenll issue has actually contributed to the local economy.

I don't know about you but I've have some of my best runs ever @ WF on Hoyt's High w/out snowmaking!