June 11th, 2010

By MATT POWERS
Dispatch Staff Writer

VERONA – New York State Assemblyman Brian Kolb, R-129, made an appeal to local voters to make urgent calls to their legislators at a “People’s Convention to Reform New York” town hall meeting on Thursday night that filled the Vernon-Verona-Sherrill Middle School gym.

“There has never been a better time for people to mobilize their anger and call legislators,” he said. “People are ready to make a stand.”

Kolb along with New York State Sen. Joseph Griffo, R-47, and Assemblyman David Townsend, R-115, were on hand to answer questions about a bill currently before the Legislature to place a referendum on the ballot for a 2012 state constitutional convention.

The proposition for a people’s convention is automatically on the ballot in New York State every 20 years. The next time it would appear on the ballot would be in 2017. A piece of legislation, “The People’s Convention to Reform New York Act,” has been introduced which, pending an up or down vote in both legislative bodies and the governor’s signature, would put the proposition onto the ballot this Fall.

Kolb started out by asking the audience, by a show of hands, if the government in Albany has been working for them. Not one person raised a hand.

He said it has been the same way at all the town halls he has led.

He said he had been searching for a way to reform Albany and a constitutional convention was the best way. “It is an opportunity for reform and it is non-partisan,” he said.

He said now is not a time to point fingers.

“We are not blaming anybody,” he said. “But this is a mechanism for change.”

He took time to explain in detail how the process would take place.

Delegates would be elected in non-partisan elections with three delegates chosen from each of the 62 senatorial districts and 15 delegates statewide for a total of 201, he said.

Candidates of a State Senate district would be required to obtain 1,000 signatures from voters of the district and candidates for statewide delegate would be required to obtain 10,000 signatures from voters, at least 100 from each of the ten congressional districts, according to Kolb’s Reform NY website.

He said the reason it is being called a “people’s convention” is that the goal is to allow the people to have the control.

Any elected officials, lobbyists, special interest representatives or party officials would be forced to resign from office if elected as delegates, according to a press release.

He said part of the problem at the last constitutional convention in 1967 was that many of the legislators, who were the problem in the first place, became delegates.

“We’re changing the rules as to who can be a delegate,” he said.

Questions were asked about the possibility of special interests stacking the delegate pool.

He said it won’t be a problem because information flows so quickly, especially on the Internet, that people will be able to identify groups trying to do that.

There were questions about how the convention’s recommendations could pass by a referendum if some of the changes suggested were unpopular with voters.

He said the changes could be presented as separate referendums so voters could vote for each individually. Any changes that the delegates made would have to be voted on by referendum at an election held not less than six weeks after the end of the convention.

More information about the proposal can be found at:

www.reformny.org