On the ground

>???????? ????? ????????MEDIA ADVISORY * *

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: CONTACT: Rachel McEneny

May 29, 2008 518-581-8247

Rep. Gillibrand to Hold Neighborhood Office Hours in Masonville and Sidney

Hudson, NY - Today, local Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand announced that her staff will hold Neighborhood Office Hours on Thursday, June 12th at the Masonville Federated Church located on Route 206 and the Sidney Municipal Center located at 21 Liberty Street.

These satellite Congressional offices will have staff on hand to hear concerns and to help constituents with any problems they may be having with federal agencies – such as veterans benefits, Social Security checks or other federal issues.

“I realize that with busy work schedules and soaring gas prices, it is often difficult for my constituents to travel to a district office, so I’ve decided to take my office out into the communities I serve, to hear your needs so I can better represent the families of the 20th district” said Congresswoman Gillibrand.

Congresswoman Gillibrand, a member of both the Armed Services and Agriculture Committees, encourages local residents to come out to meet her staff and share their priorities for Congress, opinions on important issues and requests for help with federal agencies.

WHO: Congresswoman Gillibrand

WHAT: Neighborhood Office Hours to help local residents with problems with federal agencies

WHEN: Thursday, June 12th

Masonville: 10:00am-1:00pm

Sidney: 2:00pm-6:00pm

WHERE: Masonville Federated Church

State Route 206

Masonville, NY 13804

Sidney Municipal Center

21 Liberty Street

Sidney, NY 13838

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The Town of Masonville Democratic Committee will be holding a reorganization meeting at the Masonville Town Sheds on Thursday, October 25th at 7p.m. This will be an historic meeting! Invitees include the newly elected Delaware County Chairwoman; Cynthia Lockrow and other Delaware County Democratic Town Committee Chairmen and Women. There are 19 Towns in Delaware County represented by the Democratic Party and the Town of Masonville Democrats have been silent for too long! Please come and join us there, or be square without a voice or a vote. For more information please call (607) 265-3565.

Sidney and Masonville held their monthly joint committee meeting this week and got quite a lot done.

We’re still talking about outreach to get our local Democrats kicking and to bring a full slate of candidates to give Sidney voters a bit more in the way of choice come November. In Sidney, there are three seats on the Town Board up for election, including Town Supervisor, and we’d like to field candidates for all those spots.

We’re working up a mailing to town Democrats, too, and hope to have a monthly newsletter up and running for them very soon.

We’re also putting together our energy presentation. We’ve found likely presenters on wind, solar and even hydro, along with a willing hand at the library to help us with location and logistics.

We do good work, if I do say so myself. But, then, we’re Democrats. What else would you expect?

There was a joint meeting of the Sidney and Masonville town committees last week at the Civic Center in Sidney to continue our discussions of growing the Democratic party in this part of Delaware County. The meeting was co-chaired by Dawn Rivers Baker (Sidney chair) and Ruth van Putten (Masonville chair).

We’re developing a two-pronged outreach strategy here. First, we plan to use voter lists to reach out to local Democrats, collect email addresses and start publishing a monthly newsletter to keep them up to date on our activities. We’re also making plans to host public events such as a showing of Bought and Sold (film on voting machine issues) and a series of discussion on various options to bring locally owned renewable energy to the area. Committee members are to keep their ears to the ground to see what other issues are on the minds of our neighbors here in Sidney.

We also discussed upcoming local elections and reviewed some of the prominent local Democrats who can be approached about running. We have several potential candidates we can approach for the various office that will be up for grabs later this year. We will also continue to develop the resources we can make available to support our local candidates.

The next Sidney/Masonville meeting is scheduled for April 11, 2007.