The following commentary was written by Fred LeBrun, and appeared in the Sunday Times Union on November 14th, 2004: Clifton Park will soon have its own version of an impressive open-space nature preserve, akin to Albany's magnificent Pine Bush. 

Robert Van Patten is selling the town 250 acres for the undeveloped Dwaas Kill Natural Area located in the heart of the suburb, close to the Northway at Exit 10. The property is a natural for an extensive trail system through wetlands and steep uplands and is bound to become quite popular in all seasons. A pleasant little stocked trout stream runs through the middle, meandering through delightfully mucky wetlands. There are plenty of deer and wild turkey signs, the wood thrush and other song birds are regular residents, and once inside its confines no traffic can be heard. None. The preserve, which will likely grow from this initial purchase, will be a fat chunk of the town left undisturbed, swampy warts and all, even as the face of the land around it rises and contorts almost daily from development.

The Dwaas Kill Preserve is a 10-foot-high feather in the cap of town Supervisor Phil Barrett, and shows signs of real maturity for a community that only a few years ago was renowned as a place that never met a developer it wouldn't embrace. Not anymore. The brakes are on, as they are in a number of our suburbs. Preserving is in, and that didn't happen easily or overnight. Other communities in the area would love to be in the position Clifton Park now finds itself. "It wasn't all that popular an idea when we started in 2000," admits Barrett. But a group led by Barrett and Audubon New York's Dave Miller, who lives in Clifton Park, carefully laid the groundwork for public acceptance of an open-space preservation agenda. Such an agenda naturally has to rein in some development. But the townsfolk were brought along slowly, transparently. So, when the Dwaas Kill property, which was on the state's open-space preservation list, became available, the Town Board felt comfortable in simply passing a resolution to buy it. No public referendum. No chance for naysayers or no-shows to nix it.

The contrast is obvious with Malta's failure by a hair at the polls last week to acquire a 149-acre horse farm two exits up the Northway for a pricey $6.5 million. Or Wilton's attempt at the same general idea a couple of exits farther up for $3 million in 2001. Why Clifton Park succeeded provides a textbook for the area's future in this regard, and there is most certainly a future as all the Northway corridor communities mature. Now, some of the elements of success are hard to duplicate, granted. Like having a spare $3 million in tax revenues hanging around because the county's sales tax is ridiculously flush. But educating and preparing the townspeople is really the key, then formulating a detailed plan all the stakeholders agree to, as well as carefully picking parcels or easements and always being mindful of the sound of the cash register. In addition, Clifton Park got about half the expected $700,000 purchase price from a federal grant engineered by Congressman John Sweeney. The other half will be paid for by idle tax funds. That means the Dwaas Kill Preserve will happen without costing town property owners another tax dollar, music to Clifton Parkers' ears and frankly, the key to success anywhere.