Hi everyone,
I know all of you already know we passed the Save the Hudson bill but I wanted to extend my thanks to everyone, particularly those who volunteered their time to make calls, send mass texts, come to lobby days, pack meetings, show up to rallies, table to build up the bill and meet with legislators to ensure we got the bill through relevant committees and over the finish line.
Along with the petitions and many resolutions we’ve garnered to bolster our case for this bill, dozens of volunteers, including several from the Stop Holtec coalition, made nearly 15,000 calls to Food & Water Watch NY supporters on this bill over the past 10 weeks and generated hundreds of calls to key elected officials to pressure leadership to get this bill passed. Others did several rounds of phone banking through our state legislature to build up co-sponsorship, gain intel on where the bill was at and develop legislative champions in our Assembly.
When it came time to up the pressure on Speaker Heastie, you all mobilized and made over 500 calls to him, urging him to bring the bill to the floor.
When we got word of opposition mounting towards the end of the legislative session and needed to build cover for our Assembly champion Dana Levenberg, you all spread the word and in less than 2 days, we were able to match the opposition with a cover rally in Ossining outside of Dana’s office, showing her we’ve got her back.
Some days we were in Albany in small groups, figuring out how to overcome obstacles to move the bill forward. Then, a little prior to the Senate bill passage, we bussed up from NYC & Westchester to Albany, made noise alongside with Senators and Assemblymembers to raise the profile of this bill and lobbied legislators to get the job done.
None of this would have happened without the incredible amount of volunteerism and passion from all of you to ensure our Hudson River is protected. Obviously there is more to figure out on the policy and legal fronts, but I think our people-powered movement to protect the River will prevail if we can keep up this momentum.
I’m sure there are some questions on what’s next now that this bill is passed. The bill was never a guaranteed silver bullet but getting to this point certainly gives us more leverage over Governor Hochul and, I think, puts us on a path to victory regardless if she vetoes or signs the bill.
I’ll be taking today and tomorrow to chill out, decompress a little. In the meantime, here are some easy next steps for folks as we now turn up the heat on Governor Hochul:
- Call Gov. Hochul at 866-696-8249 and urge her to sign the Save the Hudson Bill. We just broke 1,000 calls to the Governor but will need to really up those calls now that the bill is heading to her.
- Sign the petition to Hochul to sign the bill
- Come to a meeting on next steps for organizing with FWW on Tuesday 7PM
Again, a huge thank you and congratulations to all of you. I know this listserv doesn’t include all the activists in this fight so feel free to share this message with others.
In sol,
Santosh
P.S. I’m sure media hits went around in some of these emails but here are some press hits from our little presser the day of the vote and in response to the Assembly passage: Spectrum News, NY State of Politics. Politico, AP News, Bloomberg News
Santosh Nandabalan
(he, him, his)
Senior Organizer
Food & Water Watch and Food & Water Action
O (347) 774-4597
C (203) 606-8551
Fight like you live here.
