A Salute to Wayne LaMothe
The Delaware & Hudson Railroad ran through Wayne LaMothe’s front yard when he was a child growing up. He continues to love trains to this day.
The man who created the First Wilderness Heritage Corridor has retired.
If it weren't for Wayne LaMothe, this web platform wouldn't exist. Therefore, we salute him on his 42 years of service as Warren County's Planner and Director of the Department of Planning and Community Development. His colleagues honored him at a presentation August 31.
Awarded the New York Planning Federation's highest award for planning excellence earlier this year, LaMothe helped to secure more than $36 million in program funding over his career, including $9.5 million for communities in the First Wilderness.
He oversaw a successful housing rehabilitation program, led Warren County’s efforts in the distribution and implementation of American Rescue Plan Act funding, and helped lead the county’s COVID-19 pandemic data tracking.
He also spearheaded development of the county's GIS team and the use of GIS to improve the county's tax maps, and helped develop GIS into a crucial mapping and data resource for Warren County and its communities. It's with the GIS team, led by Sara Frankenfeld, that the county is moving into spatial storytelling, developing audio tours that visitors can play on their phones.
In an interview published last year, LaMothe described his creation of the First Wilderness Heritage Corridor in the late 1990s as a response to a call for proposals from the National Heritage River Program.
"The towns of Hadley and Corinth asked to be part of it, so we brought them on board," he said. "The plan was then called the Upper Hudson River Redevelopment Strategy, and that was the genesis of the First Wilderness Plan. The name stems back to the concept that the Adirondacks were the first area in the country that legislatively was deemed wilderness, to preserve wilderness."
"In 2002 we started the action plan, which identified 241 specific projects and goals," he continued. "That whole process was a lot of fun. We met with community groups, town boards, state agencies, citizens. I know I logged 182 separate meetings over the two years the plan was in development. In the years since then we’ve implemented a lot of projects."
