Commentary: Put Mark Hall on the short list for next Adirondack Park Agency chair

Current APA board member, Clifton-Fine community leader known for his fairness

By Pete Nelson

With the June retirement of former Adirondack Park Agency Chair John Ernst, the park agency is looking for a new leader for its 11-member board.  The position will be filled by the state legislature’s confirmation of a nomination put forth by Gov. Kathy Hochul. This is a highly political matter (rightly so, given the critical importance of the position), and suggestions and rumors are flying to and fro.  Given my involvement in multiple areas of Adirondack activism and policy, I hear them all.  I too have a couple of names I like.  One of them is current board member Mark Hall.

As always, the variety of names in the air reflect the desires and hopeful prospects of different constituencies, with various parties offering candidates who they believe will best promote and protect their interests. This is as it should be, a demonstration of the mechanisms of a democratic republic operating in good working order.  However, as is all too often the case in Adirondack affairs, these interests are over-simplified by side-taking that divides along a canonical line: economic interests, local concerns and government versus preservation and protection of the park’s wilderness and wild character. 

Moving away from polarization

I know that side-taking is a common human tendency, and I get that interested parties understandably seek people who are “with us.”  But there are two problems with that, in my estimation. First, being “with us” implies the old pejorative saying: “If you aren’t with us, you’re against us.” That kind of polarization, with which the country is currently feverish, is not very helpful to the democratic process.  It also has absolutely nothing to do with the actual personalities and values of the vast majority of public figures I have gotten to know in the park. 

Second, as I have written many times, I have little patience with this canonical Adirondack dividing line, which experience and reason has shown me is often misplaced, and is sometimes just plain idiotic.  As a passionate defender of wilderness, I understand the vigilance and commitment required to protect a remarkably rare and diminishing global resource. Nothing I’ve ever heard in conversation with Mark Hall has given me the slightest indication that his feelings about the wild character of the Adirondacks are any different. To the contrary: he lives in one of the most remote and undeveloped areas of the park and I know he loves it with all his heart. Do we differ on specifics?  Of course.  It’d be a good thing in this country if we regained appreciation for the importance of informed, rational debate.

Mark Hall has impressive credentials in local government, economic development, revitalization, broadband infrastructure and more.  He has been a member of the Adirondack Park Local Government Review Board and served as Executive Director for the Adirondack Association of Towns and Villages.  This firmly slots him, so it seems, on the economic/local government side: I haven’t heard his name much from constituencies on the preservation side.  Of course, Mark’s impressive record with improving water quality, remediating industrial sites and removing hazardous waste make any slotting somewhat questionable.  That said, my reason for seeing him as a strong candidate involves not these credentials, but another: leadership.

Strong leadership skills

If there is a single thing that one hears from everybody about Mark Hall it is that he is a strong, fair, effective leader.  From my experience with the APA board, strong leadership, not specific positioning, is what’s most vitally needed from the chair right now.  The APA always deals with important issues, but at present its plate is especially full with matters that are absolutely critical to the future of the Adirondacks. None of them are simple and none of them are black-and-white, from OPDMDs to abandoned roads to Visitor Use Management. 

Now more than ever is the time in which the board must raise its game, asking hard questions, engaging in argument, challenging each other and the staff.  That’s the kind of rational political process that’s the medicine for rhetorical and positional politics that too frequently passes for good government. It’s the kind of atmosphere I think Mark Hall would foster and actively lead. We don’t have time for the other version, for pro forma nonsense.

In my interactions with him, Mark Hall has proven to be a straight shooter, bright, thoughtful, willing to change his mind, acutely interested in data and evidence, and downright personable.  These are the ingredients for leadership of an APA board that can really engage on the tough issues we face.  Like me, Mark is a big supporter of open processes, letting the most difficult issues be sparred over in the full light of day, not with the usual secretiveness and siloing. We have a lot of room for improvement in this area.

This column does not constitute an endorsement of Mark Hall: I have another candidate I like very much and I need to see what the governor is thinking. But I know this: Mark Hall belongs on a very short list. I’m a progressive and a wilderness advocate: he’s on mine.

Pete Nelson is a writer, researcher and teacher who has been active in Adirondack issues for many years. He is co-founder and Board Chair of Adirondack Wilderness Advocates and a co-founder of the Adirondack Diversity Initiative.  Pete served on the DEC High Peaks Advisory Group and is a member of several other state and regional committees. A member of the Adirondack Community Foundation’s Community Council, Pete teaches mathematics at North Country Community College and is an historian and Trustee of the Adirondack History Museum. When not otherwise occupied, Pete and his wife Amy are prone to disappear to their inholding located deep in the Adirondack wilderness.

Photo at top: Mark Hall, an Adirondack Park Agency commissioner, listens during a board meeting on Sept. 15, 2022 in Ray Brook. Photo by Gwendolyn Craig