Statement From Bath Village Mayor Michael Sweet

"I have been Mayor since 2020 and served on our Village Board of Trustees for six years before serving as mayor. Over the course of that time, our Village has repeatedly been left little other option other than to create policies designed to protect our community from the easterly policy storms originating from New York City, Albany as the seat of state government, and Washington, D.C.

"Many of the policy decisions that create hardships for our community stem from a blatant disregard for the rule of law and lack of adherence to the Constitutional guarantee under Article IV, section 2 to a republican form of government requiring that the law promulgated by an elected legislature to be enforced by executive officials so authorized. Small communities like ours know too well how peoples’ lives, families, relationships, wealth, and properties are devasted by institutional failure—failure that once seemed a result of negligence, incompetence, apathy, or error—but which we now see weaved into the fabric of our governance.

"The crisis that now looms before us results primarily from the failure of the governments of the United States of America, New York State, and New York City to enforce existing laws and hold people accountable for the violations of that law within their respective jurisdiction. The number of people who cross the border illegally every day exceeds the population of the largest city in our largely rural county, and far exceeds the population of our Village. The President and Federal Government have failed to uphold any semblance of a competent and orderly system of immigration enforcement—and such policies have only been exacerbated by express subterfuge by political subdivisions like New York City, which have declared themselves to be sanctuary cities, undercutting the orderly processes of immigration.

"New York City is in the midst of a crisis largely of its own making because they scorned the plight of distant border states when their governors petitioned Federal intervention for order and instead have recklessly harbored 30,000 illegal immigrants into their own city with impunity. Their self-inflicted crisis should not become ours. The City of New York has much greater capacity to come to terms with the serious ramifications of its own policies than the rest of the State.  Thirty thousand illegal immigrants are a lot of people, but it is only approximately 1/3 of 1 percent of New York City’s population (8.5 million). It is five to six times our population.

"Yet our Governor, by executive order, has recently indicated that the City’s problems could become our problem and that illegal immigrants may be relocated to small rural jurisdictions like ours. And so we now find ourselves on the brink of being inserted into an entirely predictable humanitarian crisis spawned from contempt for our Federal laws and system of government together with poor policy—all while we are already dealing with humanitarian crises of our own. We are reeling from deaths and overdoses from illegal drugs that are illegally streaming across our border. Our citizens are victims of repeated crimes against their person property from offenders who are arrested only to be put right back on the street due to “bail reform” reformed by Albany. And we daily witness other symptoms of a society that fosters anarchy and chaos rather than lawful order.

"Our local social services and police departments are already stretched thin and scarcely meeting needs for local public safety. We do not have the capacity to lodge illegal immigrants and/or unprocessed asylum seekers who entered this country outside of lawful ports of entry and who remain wards of the Federal government even though such individuals have been thoughtlessly released into the general population.

"Our policy in the Village of Bath will be to uphold the rule of law. To the fullest extent we are able to, we will meet buses illegally transporting unprocessed foreign individual in violation of Federal law with police escorts out of the Village with a final stop in Albany.  If illegal immigrants are trafficked to and released into our Village, we will--to the fullest extent we are able—secure and hold for referral to the authorized Federal agency every person associated with the human trafficking, regardless of their title or position, accountable, including but not limited to the crimes enumerated in 8 USC 1324. This may include, but is not limited to: (a) the bus drivers and employees of transporting entities; (b) bus lines; (c) and other municipalities, persons, and entities responsible for bringing to the Village of Bath and harboring illegal immigrants."

 

State Police Memorial Day Weekend Patrols

There will be extra State Police patrols to stop drunk, impaired, and reckless driving throughout this Memorial Day weekend.  This starts tomorrow and runs through Tuesday, May 30th.  Also, Governor Kathy Hochul today announced that temporary lane closures for road and bridge construction projects on New York State highways will be suspended from 6 a.m. on Friday, May 26, to 6 a.m. on Tuesday, May 30, to ease travel throughout the Memorial Day holiday weekend. 

 

Schumer Statement On Upcoming Dairy Farmer Issue 

U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer says, the Dairy Margin Coverage Program ends in September.  The Dairy Margin Coverage Program is a federal program which gives monthly price support payments to dairy farmers. Schumer says, if the program is not renewed, it’ll cause severe supply chain disruptions and make the price of milk go up.  Schumer is trying to protect the Dairy Margin Coverage Program. 

 

End Of Covid Vax, For Health Care Worker Is In The Works

The State Health Department is working to repeal the COVID-19 Healthcare Worker Vaccine Requirement.  The health dept in Albany is waiting on approval on this, from the state’s public health and health planning council.  However, the state health dept says, that medical facilities across the state, can keep going with vaccine requirements if they want to.