Letter to the Editor: 127th Assembly District

Note: This was sent by Mark Braiman to the Editor of the Cazenovia Republican and the Manlius Eagle Bulletin.

I am writing to endorse Tim Kelly for our 127th District Assembly seat.  I circulated independent nominating petitions in April and May, trying to get myself on the ballot for this race as a third-party candidate, but only managed to collect about 300 of the 1500 signatures needed.   

Having had several opportunities this year to chat with both candidates on the ballot, I am decidedly with Tim Kelly on the most important issues—the ones where I know he could benefit our community by voting differently from the incumbent.

1. The incumbent in 2022 voted for a revised wetlands law (ENV 24-0701) that eliminated the longstanding requirement for the Department of Environmental Conservation to publish a map of NY’s wetlands, instead leaving it open to a complex new 4260-word-long definition (DEC Regulation 664).  This definition is, well, muddy, but it likely subjects up to 20% of Cazenovia Lake’s shoreline and adjacent properties to onerous regulations set to go into effect this January. These would (for example) require a permit from the DEC each time a wood campfire or charcoal cooking fire of any size is burned within 100 feet of the Caz Lake shoreline. They would also make it much more difficult for the Town of Cazenovia and Cazenovia Lake Association to continue their effective and scientifically-sound 50-year stewardship of the lake, instead turning it over to distant pseudoscientific bureaucrats.   The incumbent Assemblyman has turned down the urgent request of these local organizations, to co-sponsor a bill with State Senator Griffo to exempt Cazenovia and other similar lakes from this ambiguous and over-complex wetlands definition.  The incumbent evidently does not believe in continuing the long-established and effective local authority to combat milfoil, zebra mussels, and other invasive species to protect sound recreational uses of Caz Lake.  Tim Kelly has promised to co-sponsor the Griffo legislation if elected.

2. The incumbent supported the Democratic supermajority in the Legislature in 2022 and 2024 in gerrymandering Madison County into multiple Assembly districts—five in 2022, and four in 2024.  These are the first times since Madison County’s establishment ago 200 years ago that it has lost its undivided voice in the Assembly, in clear violation of the plain text of the New York Constitution.  As recently as the 2020 election, an undivided Madison County made up the majority population of the 121st District.  Now, Cazenovia is the sole Madison County town, barely 5% of the district population, in a predominantly Onondaga County district 127. Cazenovia’s Assembly District has been divided for the first time from Nelson and Fenner, making it harder for Cazenovia School District residents to combine and influence any Assembly member.  Worse, the incumbent supported the repetition of this Downstate-devised gerrymandering throughout Upstate, depriving dozens of small Upstate counties of an effective voice in the Assembly, and subsuming their interests to larger neighboring, and more heavily Democratic, areas.   

3. The incumbent voted for the 2023 New York State budget that included a provision, promulgated by the Downstate-dominated Climate Action Council without public hearings, to ban new natural-gas and propane hookups for homes.   Under this law, a new residential building after January 2026 would have to exceed 7 stories to connect to a natural-gas utility line or even a propane tank.  What housing in our town is likely to qualify in the next few decades?  None.  The only allowed source of new-home heat will be electric heat pumps, expensive to install and to maintain.  The amount of annual CO2 reduction that this ban can possibly produce statewide by 2040, even if all of Governor Hochul’s proposed housing units get built, would still pale in comparison to the 20 million tons a year that could be saved just by banning cruise-ship and private-jet departures from the state.  My coastal-elite friends point out to me “Oh but banning those luxury transportation methods would put a serious dent in the economy.”   But they seem to lose sight of the more widespread economic effects of the gas ban on the Upstate economy.  This law will put a complete stop to moderate-cost residential construction in Cazenovia and many other Upstate communities, making it impossible for the middle class to grow and replenish our shrinking school districts, not to mention putting tens of thousands of homebuilders out of work.  Tim Kelly has made reversal of this law a centerpiece of his campaign.   We need an Assembly representative like him, who will be a voice for our economic interests in the rough-and-tumble science-policy debates on these issues that should be occurring the Legislature.   

I was enrolled in the Democratic Party for almost 20 years after I turned 18.  I have never voted for a Republican presidential candidate, and won’t this year either. (I am an elector pledged to a national third-party Presidential candidate). I have vote for hundreds of down-ballot Democrats in my life, and only a few dozen Republicans.  But on this occasion it is necessary, in order to hold a particularly egregious Democrat regime accountable—even if it means voting out a very personable incumbent Democratic machine man. I can do so with a clear conscience because a thoughtful Republican alternative is available.

I had the good fortune to be Tim Kelly’s introductory chemistry professor nearly two decades ago when he was a Syracuse University physics major.   I have first-hand knowledge of his much deeper understanding of crucial scientific issues than the incumbent Democrat.   I know for certain that unlike that incumbent, Kelly will speak out against the Downstate machine when it works against our local interests.  This November is a golden opportunity to vote for Tim Kelly and hold the downstate Democrats accountable, for their unreasonable and extreme actions against Cazenovia’s local interests. 

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