To the Editor:

In regards to the an item in North Country This Week, I would like to reply. The article states The Friends of Higley State Park are inviting people to come to the park and to get the park ready for winter activities, there is no fee, it is off season.

Why is the park only charging fees for summer recreationists? Also, members of two private colleges will be there. A sign was erected this year; a new park shelter is to be built at this park in the future.

NYS parks exist 12 months of the year, but only the campers using the park in the summer have to pay a fee.

I am permanently disabled. My pass, along with the passes of thousands of other disabled people, was cancelled in May 2010 because of a fiscal crisis, as reported by the NYS Parks Office.

They refuse to let permanently disabled people use the parks at a reduced fee, but other people can use these same parks for free.

I have been a landowner for 39 years, paid $35,000 for a camper and truck to tow it with. These purchases put money in the local economy and about $2,500 to the state for sales taxes. Plus, I paid about $6,000 to New York State in park fees over the past few years with a pass at a reduced rate because I am permanently disabled.

The Thousand Islands Regional Office reports they only had a 50 percent weekly capacity, yet they still refuse to let permanently disabled people into a park with a pass unless you are blind, deaf, a double amputee or have a military disability. If a person cannot walk at all without a walker, they are considered permanently disabled by other offices of New York State but not by the NYS Parks Office.

Still others use the park for free. The regional office reported hundreds of thousands of dollars spent this year, including $100,000 on one playground at a park. The state parks are open about three months a year, while teachers that teach about ten months a year are being laid off by the hundreds, yet they keep spending, and still refuse a reduced rate pass.

It appears the state parks are now becoming for the healthy and wealthy.

I have been in contact with Sen. Ritchie’s office and have been advised she is trying to resolve this problem, when they meet again in January.

After contacting several representatives in this district, she is the only one that is helping the people she represents.

Perhaps other representatives should follow in her footsteps. Not just campaign promises.

Gerald A. Peterson

Canton