Legislative Update: June 13, 2006

By: Prospector

Today I was joined in Albany by Chris Farrington, Legislative Coordinator from our North Ulster Chapter. Chris is a pretty sharp guy and made some good contributions to our conversations. We had a total of 4 appointments, 2 in the Senate and 2 in the Assembly and all were fairly routine.

One, with new Assemblyman Mike Cole's office was very encouraging. Assemblyman Cole just arrived in Albany last week as a midterm replacement for the Late Sandra Lee Wirth. He was previously a Town Supervisor and has worked with and supported our Buff/Erie Chapter in the past. I anticipate 100% support from him in the Assembly.

None of our bills were on committee agendas today, so we checked in with Senator Robach's office who promised to put his 2 bills on the priority list to be moved.

Now for the bad news; we confirmed what had been hinted at last week, the Yield-Right-of- Way bill, A4914B, has once again been held up by the Speaker's Office. I spoke to Assembly- man Lentol, Chairman of Codes and he told me he had tried to get it on his agenda, but the Speaker's Counsel are "looking at it", which essentially means they're keeping it off the Codes agenda. He stated that we needed to get the sponsor to call the Speaker.

We went to Assemblyman Canestrari's office and left the message that they had to act on behalf of this bill. We also spoke to several of our friends and asked them to investigate the cause of the problem. We now await answers. This is once again a cloak-and-dagger operation; nameless persons have unspecified objections and the bill stops dead in its tracks.

Next Tuesday is the last for regular session, but it looks as though we'll spend another Summer seeking explanations for the blockage of this much-needed bill. Yes, I'm p...ed. I will report any information I receive.