On the ground

From an article in today’s New York Times entitled “In House, New Class Arrives for Lessons in Lawmaking”:

At a party at a local bar on Monday night that one new staff member described as “sweaty,” current Democratic House members instructed new ones about the pecking order for the incoming class. At the top are the “dragon slayers,” the Democrats who took down especially big Republican targets like John E. Sweeney in New York, Richard W. Pombo in California and Curt Weldon in Pennsylvania. (emphais mine)

Nice to know our new Congresswoman arrives on Capitol Hill with a bit of clout!

Last night, we held our “Thank God It’s Almost Friday!” pizza party meet and greet with Susan Zimet, and a good time was had by all.

About twenty of us got together at Gavin’s Pizzeria, which isn’t enough people to make campaign organizers happy but, in a place like Sidney, it’s a pretty good crowd.

And Susan was impressive, as she always is, with her command of a range of issues. We discussed education, energy, flood relief, property taxes and more. We even spent a few minutes talking about laundry.

That’s one of the things that’s really cool about Susan — she has been in politics for a long time but she is still a very real person, who makes real connections with folks. That makes her just the kind of Senator we need in Albany, somebody who is connected with the people instead of somebody we only hear from when it’s around election time.

Our committee met in Sidney last night and, with less than 50 days until Election Day, of course our focus was on our local candidates.

There will be exciting times in Sidney, as we’re expecting meet and greet visits from both Kirsten Gillibrand and Susan Zimet in the coming weeks. Events will range from a pizza party to a session with high school seniors studying American government, and from media ops to a town hall meeting with local small business owners.

Sadly, while they are dealing with infrastructure issues, not much happening at the local government level to get Sidney’s economy back on its feet after June’s flooding. Looks like Sidney Dems will need to light some fires under some folks to keep our town from dying a slow and painful death.

The Sidney Democratic Committee had a short meeting this week and spent most of it discussing the upcoming visit by Scott Trees, who is running for NY Assemblyman for the 127th District.

Scott is going to be walking his District — yes, you heard that right — beginning in Afton on Sunday and ending in Gellatin on August 30th. According to his campaign, that’s over 160 miles!

He arrives in Sidney on Monday, August 14th, to mix and mingle with village residents. He will also be doing an interview by Rob Ray for WCDO-FM radio that afternoon at 1:30 p.m. Then, on Tuesday, on to Unadilla to meet a group for lunch at Unadilla House before marching in the parade at the County Fair in Walton.

Gotta admire his stamina.

He has another radio appearance next week, on August 16th by Gary Wirkham for WDOS-FM, Oneonta. And he has a meet-up scheduled for later in the month with Kelly Keck, who is running for NY Assembly in the 107th District … but I’ll let the Stamford Committee tell you about that.

Sidney looks forward to meeting and greeting Scott as he begins his walk.

Due to the flooding and subsequent cleanup, the Sidney/Masonville Committee meeting that was scheduled for July 17th has been cancelled. We’ll let everybody know when the August meeting will be when we’ve decided on a date.

UPDATE: The Sidney/Masonville Committee will meet on August 9th, at the Civic Center in Sidney at 7:00 p.m. Hope to see you there!