April 22, 2009Senator Darrel Aubertine903 Legislative Office BuildingAlbany, NY 12247Dear Senator Aubertine,I am in receipt of your letter, dated April 13, but hand delivered by your staff to my officea week later on the afternoon of April 20, concerning your interest in meeting to discuss
solutions to the current crisis facing New York’s dairy farmers.
First, let me say I welcome the opportunity to meet with you in a public forum to discussimmediate solutions to help farmers through this crisis, such as my proposal to create anemergency Dairy Assistance Program.But I am disappointed that you waited to address budget issues until after the adoption of the disastrous and potentially already unbalanced state budget, which, frankly, exacerbates theproblems facing our farm and non-farm economies.Regrettably, you would not take part in public, bi-partisan budget Conference Committeemeetings that we requested, and which are required by law. That would have been theappropriate venue to discuss these critical issues -- before the budget was completed.As the deciding vote in the passage of the budget that was negotiated in secret by the"three men in a room from New York City," and without any public hearings, you had a uniqueopportunity to halt the billions of dollars in destructive tax increases, higher debt and cuts toprograms on which farm families rely to support their livelihoods.Instead, you voted to support the reckless spending and tax increases
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such as those onelectric bills and health insurance, and elimination of STAR rebates that will mean higherproperty taxes
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that will make recovery more difficult, and likely, too late for many of ourhardworking farmers.At the same time, you voted against my plan, modeled on a successful program I craftedas past Chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, to use federal stimulus or UDC funds toprovide immediate aid to hard-hit dairy farmers so they could afford to purchase seed corn,equipment and supplies to keep their farms running. In all, you voted to slash funding for
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