Legislative Update:
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be rescheduled.
The rest of the day went well, however, and feedback was positive from most of my
encounters.
I had a short chat in the hallway with Assemblyman Bill Parment,
sponsor of the
helmet amendment in that house. The Assemblyman is a staunch supporter, and all around good
guy who will faithfully re-introduce the bill as long as
we ask him to. Today I also learned of the passing of
Assemblyman Kenneth Zebrowski from Rockland County who was a
friend and supporter. Last session I approached the office
of the sponsor of bill # A11482, which would have prohibited children
under 12 from riding as passengers, and expressed our opposition. Thus
far the bill has not re-surfaced this session.
There seems to
be a proliferation of bills relating to traffic deaths and serious injuries, vehicular
manslaughter, aggressive driving, etc I can't help but
wonder if some of these are offshoots of the Yield-Right-Of-Way bill that
we passed last year. Changes continue in committee
assignments and key positions as personnel
leave the Assembly,
and I don't think we've seen the last of them yet. Two new Assembly Members are due
to be announced soon and it looks like Assemblyman Grannis will be head
of DEC very shortly, leaving another vacancy. It will probably
be several weeks before Mr. Zebrowski's seat is filled.
When I left the Legislative
Office Building this afternoon, the story was "there will not be an on-time budget" (of
course, this could change in the blink of an eye). Plan B is for
legislators to return from the holiday break early, on April 11th instead of
the 16th, hopefully settling the issue so other business can be
addressed by the time I return on the 17th. I will have a welcome 3-week break
until then, so there will be no regular reports on the next 2 Tuesdays.