NYS Attorney General Cuomo visits you.
If you get a chance to see or hear New York State Attorny General Andrew Cuomo, chances are you will come away impressed. I was last night. Andrew Cuomo and his staff were in town last night for a public forum at Irondequoit High School.
The entire event was well organized, I got the impression it was a like a mobile road show, there were about thirty staff members (Lawyer types) and I’m sure a bunch of workers as well. Boxes of stuff, flags, signage all had to be trucked in. All this for a packed High School Auditorium where citizens, who had concerns, were able to get those concerns heard.
See, The New York State Attorney General is the law firm that represents the people - the people’s law firm. Cuomo said variations of that theme all night and, of course, the law firm is dependent on information from the people.
So the format was an actual forum. Those of us familiar with, not soon enough to be ex-Congressman, Randy Kuhl’s new style town hall meetings were pleasantly surprised.
This was an actual input session, The program started at 7:00, 20 odd mins of speeches from various elected officials - including the Irondequoit Town Supervisor Mary Ellen Heyman, County Exec Maggie Brooks, DA Green and School Supervisor Jeff Crane with the bulk of the time going to Attorney General Cuomo.
I’ll get some video up (probably tonight) later. The speeches were followed by break out sessions that lasted until 9 pm on Civil rights, Environmental issues, Internet Safety, Health Care, Consumer Protection and probably a few others I can’t think of off the top of my head.
In the sessions, the AGs representatives heard citizens’ inputs and responded in kind.
I was in the Environmental session and will write another post about it but it was simply fascinating listening to the various citizens or groups of concerned citizens express their issues and concerns and discover how, via the legal process, a citizen can redress issues where they believe they have no recourse-be it wind power placement in Hamlin, lead paint abatement in Rochester, Great Lakes protection or residential pesticide usage.
In the end we are, or at least are supposed to be, a nation of laws, not men, so it is good to have a lawyer on our side.
Like I said, I’ll post some video tonight and discuss in detail about the session I was in.
Here is some local news coverage - the D&C, RNews,
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