Across the U.S., we live in an era when school board meetings often erupt into battlegrounds, where church congregations unravel over flashpoint issues of race and gender.
But a few weeks ago, when a conservative town councilman named Gerry Delaney spoke at a public meeting about environmental issues in New York's Adirondack Park, he sounded a very different tone.
"There's different interests between the environmental groups and local government, but we all have a job to do and we all have to live together," said Delaney. "When there's a flood, a fire, a bad accident, we come together."
The audience in Elizabethtown, New York, which included local residents, environmental activists and government regulators, applauded.
What makes this peaceable moment remarkable is that it's increasingly common here. Once, New York's sprawling 6-million acre state-managed Adirondack Park was a battleground.
Warring interests squared off across familiar fault lines: urban versus rural and development versus the environment, people looking for compromise versus people itching for a fight.
But while much of the U.S. has grown more fractious and divided, communities and interest groups in this conservative-tilting region of small towns have found a way to build bridges.
Elsewhere, Mann notes that Republican Elise Stefanik, the congresswoman given to conspiracy theories, represents the district in the U.S. Congress. He also credits former governor George Pataki, also a Republican, with the collaborative problem-solving vibe dominating the region now, where Pataki lives in the town of Essex.
1 comment:
Conservatives value things like tradition, religion, the nuclear family, and small government. Most would probably argue that conservatives prefer small government and more restrictive governmental spending. However, one thing that surprised me as someone who went to school in Ithaca, NY (the surrounding areas lean right) is that surprisingly conservatives do value the environment and feel attached to nature. When looking at The Public Trust Doctrine, for example, in my property class last spring, I was surprised to learn that Montana, New Hampshire, Maine, and California have some of the most restrictive public trust laws (i.e., most strict environmental laws). I am always surprised to learn that more rural and red-leading states do value the environment. When I was in college, I worked in an invasive species conservation laboratory that was mostly funded by right-leaning hunter lobbyist groups. While these days some issues seem very black-and-white, I am happy that environmental laws are more complicated and are valued on either side of the political spectrum. But that still means we need to act!
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