During the 2022 redistricting saga, when the Special Master appointed by the New York State Supreme Court, Dr. Jonathan Cervas, drafted an initial remedial map that almost evenly divided Saratoga County between the 20th Congressional District currently represented by Paul Tonko (D - Capital Region) and the 21st Congressional District currently represented by Elise Stefanik (R — North Country, it sparked public outrage. In the end, Dr. Cervas, honored the wishes of the public by placing Saratoga County in its entirety in the 20th Congresional District represented by Tonko. Unfortunately, the recent map proposed by the New York State Legislature did not follow suit and failed to honor our requests.
And the stakes for residents of northern Saratoga County communities, such as Saratoga Springs, Wilton, Northumberland, Moreau and South Glens Falls now are very high. There currently is a proposal for a massive fertilizer plant that will burn sewage waste from multiple different northeastern states in South Glens Falls in the Moreau Industrial Park. On many other occasions where this practice has been tried on a much smaller scale, such as in rural Maine, it failed, and ruined many of the surrounding soils and farmland with PFOA/PFAS contamination.
The problem? Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, was previously represented Moreau and South Glens Falls before 2022 has direct connections to the proposed biochar facility. According to opensecrets.org, D.A. Collins Construction Co., which owns the site in the Moreau Industrial Park where Saratoga Biochar Solutions is planing to operate, is Stefanik’s second largest contributor over her entire political career. Under the new proposed lines from the legislature, Stefanik would get Moreau and most of northern Saratoga County back from Tonko. With the potential quality of life and the public health of the residents of this region now potentially in jeopardy, it is now more important than ever that we have a neutral congressperson representing the site of this proposed facility.
This is as a letter that I wrote to my local State Assemblywoman Carrie Woerner (D - Saratoga County):
Dear Assemblymember Woerner,
I am writing to express my concerns regarding the new congressional map that was recently proposed by the New York State Legislature.
During the previous decade, Saratoga County was almost evenly divided between the 20th Congressional District currently repented by Paul Tonko and the 21st Congressional District currently represented by Elise Stefanik. We had very weak federal representation during this time period because Saratoga County did not have enough population in either district to yield any substantial influence. The City of Saratoga Springs, where I reside, was severed from almost all of the surrounding communities, which essentially gave our community almost no voice on the federal level. Unfortunately, this new proposal from the legislature restored this deficiency by dividing the City of Saratoga Springs and the southern half of the Town of Wilton from the surrounding area. And now with the ongoing proposal for Saratoga Biochar Solutions to construct a fertilizer plant that will burn sewage waste sludge from throughout the Northeast in Moreau, which could pose a threat to our quality of life and our public health, it is perhaps now more important than ever that Saratoga County and the communities that will primarily be effected (Moreau, Wilton, Saratoga Springs, southern portions of Warren County) be unified.
During public testimony that occurred throughout 2021 and 2022, the residents of Saratoga County overwhelmingly expressed their support for placing the entire county in a congressional district that is oriented towards the Capital Region. After the Saratoga County League of Women Voters conducted a series of virtual meetings on redistricting in 2021, its president, Barbara Thomas, concluded in a letter to the redistricting commission, “I feel very strongly that our entire County should be included in a Congressional District that attaches to at least one of the other Capital District counties (Albany, Rensselaer or Schenectady). She continued, “What is not appropriate is that Saratoga County be included in a “North Country” Congressional District… We are oriented toward the Capital District, and a large segment of our workforce works in state government and other Capital District companies.”
In 2022, when a Special Master, Dr. Jonathan Cervas, was appointed by the New York State Supreme Court to draw new lines after the original lines were invalidated, the initial proposal from Dr. Cervas to divide Saratoga County between the 20th and 21st Congressional Districts sparked strong public opposition. When Cervas issued a revised map, the only modification he made was to place the northern half of Saratoga County into the 20th Congressional District by removing most of rural Rensselaer County, which has less with the urban Capital Region. So why has the New York State Legislature instead reversed the map, by removing suburbs and exurbs north of Saratoga Springs to instead place rural communities east of Troy, such as Hoosick Falls into the 20th District?
It is my hope that the legislature can remedy the proposed map and come up with a solution that does not dilute our federal representation in both Saratoga County and the Saratoga Springs regions. As your constituent, I support either the restoration of the district that was created by Dr. Cervas or the remedial map that was proposed by the legislature in 2022 which included most of Saratoga County and the Glens Falls region to the north.
Thank You,
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Either the existing map created by Dr. Cervas or the 2022 remedial map drafted by the New York State Legislature (which mostly maintains Saratoga County in its entirety) would be preferable to the current proposal.