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Dear
Editor:
According
to John J. Dumbrosky’s recent letter-to-the-editor, he is
“gratified” by the “high quality” opinion poll conducted by
Barry Zeplowitz & Associates, the results of which supported keeping
the Robert Moses Parkway as a “connector road from downtown Niagara
Falls all the way to Youngstown.”
Why he mentioned Youngstown is unclear, since he reveals in a
later paragraph that the Niagara Heritage Partnership proposal refers
only to the parkway between Niagara Falls and Lewiston.
Perhaps he was temporarily misled by one of the “high
quality” poll statements.
The
survey Dumbrosky admires was comprised of six statements (responders
were to agree or disagree) which were misleading in various ways,
designed to produce results favoring parkway retention.
One
example is the following: “The whole Robert Moses Parkway should be
removed to create more access for recreational uses along the gorge.”
This statement is poorly worded for two reasons: 1) for years
parkway removal opponents have promoted the false idea that the NHP
proposed removing the entire parkway from the north Grand Island Bridge
to Youngstown, New York, a distance of over 20 miles, an idea so
persistent that an opponent in a recent public meeting insisted NHP
wanted the upper river parkway removed, even when he was told
point-blank this was not the case, and 2) “recreational uses” does
not adequately present the benefits of parkway removal NHP has put
forth: the economic potential of the ecotourism market; the
revitalization of urban businesses along alternate traffic routes; the
protection of the unique gorge ecosystem; the creation of significant
new wildlife habitat.
Another
example: “Our community has many important projects that require
government funding. Spending
money to remove an existing structure like the Robert Moses Parkway is
not a good use of our tax dollars.”
The statement plays on the specter of tax dollars spent in what
seems unnecessary ways when “the community has many important projects
that require government funding.”
What it doesn’t say is that potential funding sources for
parkway removal and landscape restoration, from agencies such as the
USDA Forest Service, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the
Environmental Protection Agency, the National Park Service, Watershed
and Clean Water Stewardship Grants, and others, are funding sources
dedicated to such projects and are not available for other community
needs, no matter how important. Funds
set aside for landscape reforestation, for example, will never be used
for street paving, small business loans, or storefront facades.
Senator
George Maziarz knows this better than most.
It was, therefore, disappointing to see his newspaper comments
reinforcing the myth that all “tax payer money” is kept in one big
coffee can somewhere for general use, while he simultaneously embraced
the connection between this money and the validity of the skewed survey:
“The simple answer is that, unequivocally, the Robert Moses Parkway
should not be removed,” he said.
“The community said their tax dollars would be better used on
other infrastructure needs rather than ripping out a parkway that is in
pretty good shape.” The
survey, however, had made no mention of “other infrastructure
needs,” and “pretty good shape” certainly begs definition.
Like
Maziarz, Dumbrosky has problems with the reality of the parkway.
He says the Partnership “knit picked” his arguments of nearly
a year ago by pointing out he stated the parkway was asphalt instead of
concrete. He also said the
road was 40 feet wide. It’s
actually 50. We don’t
believe these are minor inaccuracies, but significant errors of fact. The extensive asphalt patching that misled Dumbrosky is
evidence of deteriorating concrete that will eventually need to be
replaced at enormous expense; underestimating the width by 10 feet would
add 264,000 square feet of additional parkland should the parkway be
removed, or that many square feet of cost-overrun concrete over five
miles.
The
Zeplowitz survey manipulated opinions and reinforced existing
misconceptions and then recorded them.
My criticism of this flawed instrument, calling it meaningless,
“illustrates an elitist attitude,” Dumbrosky says.
While I disagree, I’ll take back my remark.
The survey was undoubtedly replete with meaning for those who wet
a finger and hold it up to determine which side of an issue to support,
for those who want something to prop up a position they already hold,
and very meaningful to NHP, too, since it demonstrates how far opponents
of an idea will go to bolster feeble, insupportable arguments.
Dumbrosky
also asserts that organizational support for parkway removal consists of
“non-residents” who are less informed than “members of this
community.” If he’d
bothered to check the facts (the list is available on the NHP website)
he’d have found that over 40 of the 65 supporting groups are local.
He also implies all the groups are “environmental,” as if
this somehow marginalizes their support, but just 14 of the 40 plus
groups could be classified this way.
The membership of one local group, incidentally, the Niagara
Frontier Bicycle Club, is equal to the total number of respondents
questioned in the survey.
In
addition to organizational support, about 4,000 individuals have signed
petitions in favor of four-lane removal, on paper and on line, where
about half of those names are available, sometimes with comments, at
www.niagaraheritage.org. Also
on the site is “Reply to Dumbrosky,” which presents his other errors
of fact and a response to the
“make-our-parkway-like-it-is-in-Canada” refrain, which is one of the
survey options, as well. Of the 4,000 individuals in support of parkway removal, about
2,200 are local. (We
conservatively estimated the paper petitions at 1,500 local, since
petitions were circulated locally.
The online is 714 local by actual count.)
We
present this information to establish Dumbrosky’s failure to
acknowledge factual evidence, while we reject his opinion about
non-residents. We value their support and believe it is significant.
They might be more objective than some residents who have their
judgment clouded by the “vital link” theory, the notion that the
gorge parkway is the only road north, or by the idea that their commute
might be 6 minutes longer without the parkway.
Actually,
it’s the “non-residents” on whom the tourist industry depends, and
thousands of them have registered their opinions on our survey.
They are telling us what they want to see along the gorge rim.
They want all four parkway lanes gone with hiking and bicycling
trials through restored natural landscapes.
We forwarded all this information to State Parks, but they were,
in a word, nonreceptive.
We
believe we’ve responded to the substance of Dumbrosky’s arguments
with information-based counterarguments.
We’ve refrained from name calling.
We haven’t “knit-picked.”
(But to illustrate the difference, if we had, the correct word is
“nitpicked,” and NHP first advocated parkway removal in 1997, not
three years ago as Dumbrosky says.)
It
is, however, Dumbrosky’s refusal to form opinions from a collection of
facts and other information that is most counterproductive.
He seems to have the process reversed: first get the opinion and
then make up “facts” to support it.
The outcome-predictable “opinion” poll conducted by Zeplowitz
is a variation of this method. But
both are amateurs compared to State Parks, who has never, at least
regarding the parkway issue, been confronted by facts or ideas they
couldn’t ignore.
Like
the boy who found horse manure in his Christmas stocking and ran outside
looking for a pony, NHP remains optimistic that our opponents may have
made New Year’s resolutions to reconsider the issue with new and open
minds. We look forward to a
genuine dialogue in the public forum where, cooperative problem solving
has the potential to create a wondrous gorge-long landscape, unique in
all the world.
Bob
Baxter
February
2004
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