State parks commissioner accepts job
The Open Space Institute has named Erik Kulleseid, a Garrison native who is commissioner of New York State Parks, as its new president and CEO.
Kulleseid earlier spent eight years at the land conservation nonprofit, which since 1974 has preserved more than 2.4 million acres in the eastern U.S. and Canada.
He succeeds Christopher “Kim” Elliman, who retired after serving as president and CEO since 2004. Kulleseid was the deputy commissioner for open space protection at New York State Parks before being named commissioner in 2019.
With the recent resignation of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s appointee, Erik Kulleseid, as commissioner of the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, Gov. Kathy Hochul has a chance to appoint someone who can work well with well-intentioned individuals and organizations without abandoning government’s imperative to engage the public in meaningful ways, not merely as targets of clever public relations. I have written the governor, urging her as she seeks a new commissioner, to carefully consider her views about such public/private partnerships, what values should dominate, and how money can distort the complexities of land-use planning if her parks commissioner is not careful. Such partnerships work best when community involvement is embraced as desirable and useful from start to finish, and a well-conceived process invites such participation from start to finish. They work best when all parties respect the other’s expertise and listen to one another. They work best when construction costs and operating budgets and their working assumptions, if pertinent, are not only offered, but presented with enough detail so that no surprises exist. Too often public-private partnerships announce their venture with great fanfare, never telling the public that if things go south taxpayers will pick up the pieces. The new parks commissioner will have a budget in excess of $300 million, which sounds huge, but is never enough, and an important task, now more complicated as climate change wreaks havoc on our parks, rivers and railroad tracks. But the new commissioner will also inherit the controversial Hudson Highlands Fjord… Read more »