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 Trail and its exclusionary “process.” To date — more than three years in — there has been one highly scripted public meeting, several show-and-tells, a fancy website and lots of ads. But no preliminary construction or maintenance budgets have been shared and only recently did HHFT announce it will not be raising an endowment, but the contract that allows them to commercialize Dockside or Little Stony Point in order to “raise revenues for maintenance” still stands. Why? Furthermore, the local community has had to use the Freedom of Information law to learn about the most basic elements of their plan to “build the epicenter of tourism in the Hudson Valley.”
Yes, private funds can help, but when such funds obfuscate reality and impede involvement it will be the governor and her staff who will end up taking the justifiable heat. Process matters, and a good process helps move things ahead expeditiously; a bad process robs the public of its voice, its ideas and, yes, its help.
I wish the governor good luck with her search for a talented person who cares deeply about open space for everyone, not just the elite, and understands how government has — or should have — the interest and responsibility to ensure fair and open processes and, hence, a result that many can embrace.