(Note from WB: Look out! Real estate tax to fund The Nature Conservancy?)

(Note: This 'opinion' looks far more like a sales pitch for more straws to be added to the camel's back, while ever more deeply feathering TNC's nest and those of its apparently 'bought-and-paid-for' politician buddies.)

October 9, 2003

http://www.newsday.com

To submit a Letter to the Editor: letters@newsday.com

In the late 1990s, builders and realtors painted a nightmare scenario: A real-estate transfer tax to fund land preservation would decimate the building industry.

Well, the East End towns have been collecting that tax since 1999, 'saving' thousands of acres of land, and the forecasts of doom have not come true.

But the same groups are predicting the same disaster if the people of Brookhaven vote on November 4 to adopt the community preservation fund tax.

Critics were wrong then; they're still wrong.

One developer even called the proposed 2-percent tax "a terrorist act," which was not just wrong, but [also] breathtakingly insensitive to the families of those killed on 9/11.

Rhetoric aside, the reality is this: The Nature Conservancy says the tax has produced $140 million on the East End and 'saved' 7,500 acres.

That open space adds value to residential property, which individual realtors have acknowledged, though the major organizations of both realtors and developers oppose the referendum.

The tax, paid by the buyer, exempts the first $250,000 of the price of a home.

Critics call it a "Welcome, suckers" levy.

But The Nature Conservancy says the town and county have spent $170 million to 'preserve' Brookhaven land.

New town residents will reap the value-enhancing benefits of that open space from Day 1, without having paid for it [so TNC says...].

So it seems fair to ask them to contribute once [only once?] to future preservation.

Sen. Kenneth LaValle (R-Port Jefferson) and Assemblyman Steve Englebright (D-Setauket) made the referendum possible with state legislation.

Supervisor John Jay LaValle -- along with the town board -- merits praise for his strong support of the tax, despite the opposition of builders and developers, who usually contribute lavishly to his Republican Party.

'Preservationists' say the town has done a good job of choosing land to buy with its previous $10-million and $20-million bond issues, and is likely to do as well with the $300 million that this tax could raise.

So Brookhaven voters should vote yes on this proposition.

http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vpcpf093487701oct09,0,580553.story?

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