The Common Ground Alliance Has Concluded


For 18 years, the Common Ground Alliance brought people together across the Adirondack Park to listen, build trust and work toward shared goals.


CGA began at a time when tensions across the Park were especially high. It helped create stronger relationships between local governments, environmental organizations, businesses, nonprofits, state leaders and community advocates. Over time, collaboration became a more common and expected part of how the region approaches its challenges.


The Adirondack Park is not perfect and the work is not finished, but it is a fundamentally different place than it was when the Alliance began in 2008.


We are concluding the Common Ground Alliance because it was never meant to exist simply for its own sake. Its purpose was to help build a culture of cooperation, listening and good-faith problem-solving. We believe that work has taken root and that new efforts should now have the opportunity to respond to the challenges ahead.


We are deeply grateful to the thousands of people who participated and to the core team members who shaped the Alliance over the years.

If Common Ground inspired you, carry it forward. Bring people together. Ask questions. Listen carefully. Build what the Adirondacks need next. Find ways to incorporate CGA’s core principles into the work you’re doing every day.


CGA’s Core Principles

  1. The environment and the economy can co-exist. A healthy Park needs both to thrive, and too many fights have been a result of acting like we have to choose.
  2. This is everybody's park. Whether you visit in the summer, moved here five years ago or grew up here, the Park affects your life and your voice has value in this space. 
  3. Look for opportunities to compromise or agree. There's no shortage of old arguments in the Adirondacks. We were never here to solve those. We were here to find the issues nobody's actually fighting about and get moving on them together.
  4. Nobody's vote counts more than anybody else's. It didn’t matter if you were a town supervisor, a nonprofit leader, or a family that's run the same retail store for three generations, everyone spoke as an equal.
  5. Say what you think, but disagree respectfully. Real disagreement, voiced aloud and with respect for others hearing it, is more useful than false harmony and backchanneling.
  6. Keep the process out in the open. How we landed on priorities, and how the Blueprint got written and demonstrated should not be a mystery to the people it affects.
  7. Share an agenda. When Common Ground Alliance advocates went to Albany, they went with one set of asks demonstrating the collective region’s highest and more collaborative priorities. 
  8. It takes years, not one forum. Housing, broadband, EMS shortage, nobody solved that in an afternoon, it took (and still takes) years and years. It’s worth it. 
  9. The greatest legacy we could leave is a region that no longer needs this alliance. For that, we are proud. For everyone who helped make it possible, we are profoundly grateful. For those who will carry on this work forward in different, new and better ways, we will be cheering you on.



Quotes from Past Core Team Members

We asked past core team members to share their thoughts, history or favorite ideas from CGA. Below are their unedited responses. If you were a past core team member and would like to add one to the list, please email it to jack@placidpr.com

 

After a particularly contentious Adirondack Park Agency meeting Lani Ulrich, an APA Commissioner approached JR Risley, Town of Inlet Supervisor, and Brian Houseal, Director of the Adirondack Council, and asked “Do you ever speak with each other?” We answered yes, but by the time the issues got to an APA meeting, lawyers were talking to lawyers and there wasn’t an opportunity for dialogue. Within a week Lani asked if JR and I would be willing to meet at the Hemmer Cottage in Old Forge, NY. What was supposed to be a one-hour meeting turned into six hours as we wrestled over terms such as ‘air pollution’' (Are you against snow mobiles?) versus acid rain (a regional environmental threat). When JR and Brian asked Lani what she thought might be the objective of the meeting, she drew a Venn diagram with three circles, Community, Economy, and Environment.’ If we could find solutions that met all three criteria, we would be successful. There was one rule guiding principle, ‘Come to

the table with solutions, not problems.’ There were many, many more meetings, formation of a core group without hierarchy, consensual decision-making, slow and steady creation of trust and confidence, and guess what? It worked!! Congratulations CGA! Your example lives well beyond the Adirondacks!

Brian L. Houseal
Brunswick Maine 2026


Changemaking is a relay, with many different legs to run. Passing the baton means new leaders and new strategies will emerge ready for what's next. I'm grateful for my five years supporting CGA, and for the dozens of CGA Core Team leaders who carried it before us.

Sawyer Bailey

 

CGA has put into practice the time-tested advice that we have two ears and one mouth for a reason. It will pass that value on to all of us to use the first before the second and be fully engaged listeners.  Thanks to all the Core team and participants for their hard work over the past 18 years.

Jim Townsend

 

“The Adirondack Park is unique in its character as a living park, full of preserved forests, communities, and private working landscapes.   With that comes the challenge of how it all fits together and the hard work of  blending  these qualities to  complement rather than compete with one another.  The Common Ground Alliance created a safe space for honest discussion that wrestled with how such a blend of interests could coexist, and build off each other.  The need to find common ground in a park as diverse as the Adirondacks won’t end.   While this era of CGA work pauses, its work has demonstrated a means to do that.”

Bob Stegemann

 

“Now more than ever, collaboration and communication -- even when difficult -- is essential in ensuring a strong future for our region. I am confident new strategies will continue to emerge to achieve these ends, and that each will carry the lessons and influence of the consequential work of CGA forward for years to come.”

Zach Hobbs

 

"Although a relative newcomer to the CGA planning team, I jumped in whole-heartedly because of how much the mission resonated with me, and the connection and passion of the core team. We were fortunate to work to emulate those founders and early core team members with their guidance. At the same time, as my reach across the Adirondacks expanded, I saw just how much CGA had influenced so many other groups across the Park. It is now time to let these groups carry the CGA message of cooperation, inclusiveness, and passion for the Adirondacks. We wish them all much continued success."

Scott Ireland

 

"CGA has inspired and informed how I address difficult issues and I see this imprint on many leaders and organizations in the Park.  I'm grateful to the visionary people who came together to create the Common Ground Alliance."

Joe Pete Wilson

 

“As a core member of the Common Ground Alliance, we celebrate its conclusion as the culmination of a remarkable legacy of collaboration and shared purpose. I am and will forever remain grateful for the experience and privilege of being part of its mission and for its success in uniting diverse voices and building enduring partnerships. Collectively, CGA has built a lasting foundation for vibrant communities and thoughtful stewardship of the Adirondack Park for generations to come.”

Assemblyman Matthew Simpson

 

“The CGA has served its purpose. Like succession in nature things come and go. But the landscape changes because of its presence between the coming and the going. The social and cultural landscape in the Adirondacks is different than it was 18 years ago. And I would say it’s all the better for the role the CGA played and bringing people together and having meaningful discussions.”

Craig Leggett

 

“It was a privilege to be part of CGA for almost two decades, and now I’m excited to see other organizations pick up the mantle of civil discourse followed by action.”

Ross Whaley

 

"CGA has made a lasting difference for the Park. By proving that building relationships between differing opinions leads to the successful implementation of shared goals, we are a better Park today. The trail CGA forged will undoubtedly lead to bluer skies ahead.  Thank you CGA." 

James McKenna, CEO, Uihlein Foundation

 

“I was a fan and supporter of the Common Ground Alliance for years before I became more deeply involved, because it represented, to me, the best way to meaningfully contribute to the conversations and issues shaping the future of these mountains we call home. While the world, and the composition of the state legislature, have both changed substantially over the past decade, the idea of prefacing our collective approach to big, thorny issues on areas of existing agreement and mutual respect is more timely than ever. The end of the Common Ground Alliance cannot, and should not, represent the end of our search for common ground – for many years the approach worked, it brought down the temperature in the room, and it highlighted the enduring importance of good-faith give-and-take.”

Matt Scollin

 

"As longtime supporters and participants, we're proud of CGA's legacy of communicating across differences. As the region's community foundation, we're committed to carrying that collaborative spirit forward to address shared challenges."

Kim Trombly Director of Community Impact, Adirondack Community Foundation