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>???????? ????? ????????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

# # #

The first in our series of meetings, called Conversations On … , went off without a hitch yesterday and an informative time was had by all.

The Sidney Democratic Committee played host to Leon Kalmus, former District 4 representative to the Otsego County Board of Representatives and, while he objects to the term, he really is an expert on town power.

More specifically, he is an expert on the history of town power, the legislation that allows it and a lot of the mechanics involved in launching a municipal power company anywhere in the state.

We were pleased to see a decent number of people joined us for the meeting, very interested citizens who asked really good questions. Sidney Mayor Jim Warren, who received a personal invitation from the Committee, joined us for the conversation. Recently elected Otsego County legislator Rich Murphy was also a member of the audience.

From what we learned, it seems that the option of municipal power is one that is worth exploring further. The town of Sidney (and, for that matter, Delaware County) has that option because it is written into the laws of the state. We could either buy from NYSEG or we could get into generating our own power and even building our own transmission and delivery infrastructure, if we wanted to. And, the best part about it, doing so really would lower the cost of electricity for the homes and businesses in our community.

We hope this is a conversation that will continue in the months ahead. That, after all, was the point of the exercise.

The Sidney Democratic Committee met last night in the Board Room at the Civic Center and first on the agenda was Richard Rich, one of three very strong Democratic candidates for Supreme Court Justice in the 6th Judicial District of New York.

Rich generously spent time discussing not only his own candidacy but that of all three Democrats on the ticket. A spirited question and answer session followed, and the conversation ranged from the various sorts of cases usually heard by the State Supreme Court to constitutional questions about the Bush Administration’s detention and torture of foreign nationals on foreign soil.

Following Mr. Rich’s presentation, the meeting continued with a recap of last month’s County Committee reorganization meeting, and voter outreach and candidate recruitment in Sidney. As a first step, the committee started planning a pre-holiday party in mid-November for Sidney Democrats (probably to be held at the Sidney Memorial Library).

We also made plans to start a rotating schedule to attend and monitor Town Board meetings to stay on top of what is happening with town government (particularly since the local press is strangely silent on the subject), and to work on filling the four remaining vacant seats on the Committee.

In all, a longer-than-average but very successful meeting.

The next meeting of the Sidney Committee will be held on November 14th at 7 p.m. in the Board Room of the Sidney Civic Center.

The Sidney/Masonville Committees met yesterday and the main topic of the meeting was petitioning. We collected about half of the petitions we were circulating, which are ready to be filed, and made arrangements for the rest of them to be ready by the filing deadline.

We were also able to discuss the results of the recent invitation we made to Sidney Democrats to stay in touch with us via are recently launched web site. Results there so far are low-key but still key, including a connection with a valuable potential resource for our upcoming discussions on town power for Sidney.

Our outreach efforts are taking some time to get underway, but they’re coming …

Sidney’s next Committee meeting will take place on August 8th at 7 p.m. in the Sidney Civic Center Board Room.

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?