Seneca White Deer, Inc
4780 Deuel Road
Canandaigua, NY 14424
December 13, 2007

Re: Sessler Excavating and Wrecking Proposal

This letter to be submitted for the record for this application

Seneca County Industrial Development Agency
Seneca County Office Building
One DiPronio Drive
Waterloo, New York 13165

To: Seneca County Industrial Development Agency

Seneca White Deer Inc. (SWD) was formed in 1999 and is a 501(c) (3) not for profit corporation. Our mission is to preserve the unique natural resources and military history of the former Seneca Army Depot for all the people of the world to enjoy through the development of a conservation park. Based upon the information SWD has been able to obtain through Freedom of Information requests, SWD is offering the following comments regarding the Sessler Excavating and Wrecking application.

Seneca White Deer Inc. is in opposition to any financial incentives sought by the project’s developers as well as to the proposal in general.

Our comments follow:

  1. Neither the Seneca County IDA nor the Sessler company made public the Sessler business plan which is dramatically different from the State Environmental Quality Review Full Environmental Assessment Form (EAF). The EAF was the only document which both the public and the NYSDEC was made aware of by the IDA. The EAF said nothing about fee hunting and trapping, making 50 acres of wetlands, increasing water surface areas by 10 acres and the changing of 500 acres of land from meadows to farming activities. Any of these activities are significant and should have been more thoroughly addressed in the EAF and not held from public or DEC scrutiny.
  2. Fee hunting: The Sessler’s feel their fee hunting proposal is not different from what the military has been conducting for several decades. That is not true. For one, the annual military hunt did not require a fee to hunt the Depot. The hunt lasts 10 days, not year round. The Sessler fee structure is suggesting a fee of $600 per person for a three day hunt which is a significantly higher cost than the military hunt which is free. The Sessler proposal is also calling for hunting and trapping to be held all year long. That was never the case with the military hunt which has typically been 10 days long. The bottom line is this – whether you call it a canned hunt or a fee hunt, the deer, turkeys and other wildlife which would be hunted or trapped should not belong to a private, for profit organization. The public paid for the Depot lands and the development of the wonderful natural resources, not the Sessler's. The Sessler proposal, exploits what the Army developed and managed for decades at little cost to the Sessler’s.
  3. The IDA continues to ignore the recommendations from the Crotty Group report which was filed in February 2006. The Crotty report recommended hiring a Depot Project Coordinator, the formation of two committees: the Community Advisory Committee, and the Wildlife and Habitat Management Committee as well as performing a wildlife and habitat study so the impact of further redevelopment would be known. None of these recommendations has been implemented by the IDA.  Since the IDA hired the Crotty Group at a cost exceeding $50,000 to look at a reuse plan for the Depot and have ignored those recommendations, their credibility as a lead agency is once again questionable at best.
  4. Seneca White Deer Inc. (SWD) feels strongly that the remaining lands of the Depot  known as the conservation area rightfully belong in the public domain, not in a for profit private business. They should be protected as public lands either under the management of the NYSDEC or NYSOPRHP.
  5. The Sessler Business Plan, which was not revealed to either the public or the NYSDEC, also has its flaws. The plan calls for the leasing of 2500 acres while the EAF states 2300, a 200 acre difference. Which number is the correct number? The business plan does not include any details regarding wetland expansion, surface or water expansion. We also note that the Sessler plan plagiarizes ideas from the SWD business plan on the development of a Cold War Museum, recreation uses and a wildlife research and education center but goes into extremely little detail on how they would factor these ideas into the fee hunting program, which is their primary focus.
  6. In the Sessler business plan on page 8 and I quote, “Therefore, profit and personal income (of the Sessler team) is not our initial objective. The principals are financially secure in their personal affairs…” yet on the Sessler financial application they are requesting an exemption of $104,000 in sales tax exemption and a payment to Seneca County each year of $10,000 as PILOT even though their projected income increases by over 50% in three years! That works out to about $4 per acre in tax relief to the county while the Sessler’s receive a ten fold benefit from the IDA with the sales tax exemption. The average Seneca County fee for farm land is $14/acre which results in another significant tax relief for this proposal. The Sessler’s are also requesting that certain equipment at the Depot be sold to them at ‘nominal cost”. What ever happened to fair market value?
  7. Important Birding Area: The Seneca Army Depot has been designated as an Important Birding Area (IBA) in New York. The impact of this project and the proposed plantings have never been addressed or acknowledged in the Environmental Assessment Form, again in violation of SEQR requirements. Once again the IDA does not their job into looking at the singular and cumulative effects of each proposal.

In summary, the political entities who are involved with the overall approval process are not qualified to adequately address the effects of the Sessler proposal in a professional, objective manner. The EAF itself is flawed, poorly written and is lacking in details contained in the Sessler business plan which was never made available to either the public or to environmental agencies. The bottom line is that the lands of the former Seneca Army Depot belong to the public, not to a private, for profit organization. These facts justify that the Sessler proposal be withdrawn from any financial or project approval consideration.

Sincerely,

 

Dennis Money
Chairman, Seneca White Deer Inc
585-394-1287

XC: P. D’Amato, NYSDEC, Region 8
P. Lent, NYSDEC Region 8
D. Kozlowski, USACOE Buffalo