There's a fair amount of activism in my area, you see when they decided to label it the Adirondack Park and demo a slew of houses to make a highway folks got mad, and have only gotten madder watching the state ignore special park laws which they now have to follow when building or modifying their own property.
You guys should have started catching stray New Yorkers and holding them in deep animal pits as hostages until the City relented and paid you a fair price. Short of that I really don't know how to get a New Yorker's attention.
It's always been tough up there.