Recent conferees at the Rockefeller Institute ("Are 56,326 words just too much?" Nov. 30) thought the state constitution is too long, citing as example Article 14 protecting our "Forever Wild" Forest Preserve.
That article also individually lists all of the constitutional amendments for removing land from Forest Preserve status to serve various other needs.
Conferees said an amendment to Article 14 should be proposed to create a "land bank" from which Forest Preserve land can be allocated administratively to address individual "municipal needs," thus eliminating the rigorous amendment process and taking up space in the list of amendments in Article 14.
The new land bank would be modeled on the existing 400-acre so-called "highway safety land bank," created by an earlier Article 14 amendment.
This is a poor idea, notwithstanding the probable good intentions of its proponents.
First, it is quite unnecessary. Municipal needs amendments to Article 14 are inevitably brief in words and few in number. Since 1894, many amendments have been proposed but only 22 have been approved. Of those, only six — all the sole of brevity — address municipal needs. Surely this record suggests no urgent reason for taking Forest Preserve to create a new land bank.
Second, the abuse of the Forest Preserve from its inception in 1885 led directly to the creation of Article 14 in an attempt to close all loopholes for such abuse. The last thing the framers thought was that future state officials and others would find a way, through creation of land banks, to circumvent their intentions.
Abuse of Article 14, New York's most sacred conservation principle, by cynical, uncaring and unknowing state officials — not all, certainly, but some — continues apace to this day.
In fact, such abuse is worse today than ever. No good reason exists to play games with Article 14.
CHARLES C. MORRISON
Retired director,
natural resources planning, state Department
of Environmental
Conservation
Saratoga Springs