URGENT: The NY Senate introduced another bill today. It would block incorporations indefinitely. We need your help.

The Senate is trying to suppress our right to a vote, again.

Today, State Senator James Gaughran, Chair of the New York State Local Government Committee, introduced a bill that would place a two-year moratorium on all village incorporations, effective immediately. This bill (S06473) is live in the NYS Senate and could be voted on as early as this Monday.

The Edgemont community has worked toward an incorporation vote for three years, including signing multiple petitions and litigating against a Town Supervisor who has taken illegal actions to block our voting rights and made his anti-incorporation bias very clear. Our very own State Assemblyman, Tom Abinanti, has previously introduced legislation that he himself admitted was designed to delay a vote.

Now, we face the prospect of new state legislation that extends the local efforts of Supervisor Feiner and Assemblyman Abinanti to prevent any unincorporated residents from ever exercising our constitutional right to determine our preferred form of self-governance. The new bill would freeze incorporations pending studies (with unspecified funding) that would last for at least two years and yield unknown criteria for ultimately forming a village.  It would also apply retroactively to petitions that have already been filed, like ours.

This legislation can't pass without the support of our State Senator and Senate Majority Leader, Andrea Stewart-Cousins. Ms. Stewart-Cousins has always listened to reason. We trust that she won't suspend our longstanding voting rights--or derail three years of Edgemont’s efforts to hold a referendum, forcing us to wait at least two more years even to submit a new petition--just because some people may not like the outcome.

Please call. It takes two minutes. 

Your calls slowed the very recent Skoufis bill. Now, just as before (and the Abinanti bill before that, and the Home Rule bill before that), this bill is scheduled to move extremely rapidly.

We need you to call ASAP—today if at all possible—to tell Senator Stewart-Cousins and Senator Gaughran that legislators aren’t elected to change the laws on elections or voting rights where they don’t want the decision in the hands of the voters. A call is most effective, but emails are also helpful.

Senator Stewart-Cousins
Albany Office: (518) 455-2585
District Office: (914) 423-4031
scousins@nysenate.gov  

Senator Gaughran
(518) 455-3250
gaughran@nysenate.gov

Please click here to send emails to Senators Stewart-Cousins and Senator Gaughran (sample language is included).

The EIC.