A fight to the finish
Almost two years ago, a legislative coup in Lewis County ended up with the dismissal (well, actually it was an intentional contract lapse) of County Manager Joe Baruth. While the actual death blow was dealt in a Republican caucus not open to the press or public, parsing statements of support for Baruth after the vote could only lead one to believe that Montague Legislator Rick Lucas was, if not the instigator of the action, an avid supporter.
There is no doubt that Joe Baruth was a force to be reckoned with. He frequently brought legislators on board with decisions when they were all but made, which galled the elected officials, and he helped the county make the (right) decision to leave the court complex downtown instead of taking it to outer Stowe Street – assistance that some legislators considered bordering on insubordinate. Outside observers seemed to think, rather, that Baruth was saving them from themselves.
In January 2008, Baruth’s enemies gathered enough strength to oust him, and they all doubtless figured that, since Joe was then 75, he’d just fade away.
Ha! He faded away like a lake-effect blizzard; he’s now running against Lucas for his legislative seat and he has come out with both barrels ablaze. His latest broadside was on a topic that probably presents Lucas’s greatest vulnerability, the ATV trail system. Despite rulings by the county ethics board that Lucas should not vote on ATV related actions nor try to influence them in debate, he has continued to participate at full voice in the creation of the ATV trails system. Even people who are in favor of ATV trails are wondering whether Lucas, the owner of the Montague Inn and one of the Lewis County businessmen that stands the most to gain from a trails system, should be acting so forcefully to feather his own economic nest.
Baruth, who understands things, has started the attack with the observation that the county’s decision to take a trail fee from riders on the newly approved trail system probably will expose it, and the private landowners who are also offering their property for riding, to greater liability. His reasoning: the state’s General Obligations Law, which protects municipalities from tort actions for most public land use, stands silent in that protection when fees are charged. The state Legislature probably determined that anyone who charges a fee for their land use should probably also be held liable for tortious actions like poor maintenance or willful neglect. Sort of makes sense, actually.
As with most of Lewis County legislators’ reactions to negative comments about its trail system, this criticism has been tossed off as anti-trail negativism. However, even the Legislature’s bought and paid for attorney warned them about this, once, before he was apparently told to stop talking about THAT. As a result, it will be a significant lawsuit against the county or a landowner or, most likely, both, that will answer this issue.
Baruth’s raising of the General Obligations Law issue is brilliant – he can attack Lucas for what is, and what Lucas has done, without actually coming out against the concept of a county trails system. Lucas could actually be beaten on the trails issue by someone equally dedicated to having the system in place; all Baruth has to do is convince everyone the current system is flawed, and he can help fix it.
Rick Lucas’s position is vulnerable, and in the past, that wouldn’t have much mattered because no one savvy enough to exploit that vulnerability has run against a seated legislator. Now, however, it’s a new day. You can’t help but wonder whether, some time around Nov. 5, Rick Lucas won’t be kicking himself for being so eager to fire County Manager Joe Baruth.
