By Matthew Avitabile
Delgado Involved in Schoharie County Events ALBANY / SCHOHARIE — The Lieutenant Governor of New York State is coming to Schoharie County on May 11 to honor our business community and the local Democrats working in the redistricted Congressional District 21. Antonio Delgado has long been interested in helping our rural communities; during his two terms in the U.S. Congress, he served on the Congressional Committee on Agriculture, the Committee on Small Business, and the Committee on Infrastructure and Transit. Back in 2018, Delgado was an inspiring young man from Schenectady running for Congress to represent Schoharie County as part of then-District 19. He had been quite successful in his studies at Notre Dame-Bishop Gibbons High School, Colgate University, Queens College Oxford England as a Rhodes Scholar, and Harvard Law School. He chose to use his breadth of understanding and experience for the common good. This is a core Democratic value, to widen the playing field and include everyone who wants to play as long as they play in good faith by the same rules. His strategy relied upon education, science, respect for the laws of the land, a healthy dose of optimism and deep compassion to solve problems, to reach out, including phone-based town halls during the early COVID days. The Schoharie County Democratic Committee (SCDC) worked hard knocking on doors and organizing town halls to help him in the 2018 election cycle, in which he defeated the incumbent, John Faso, by over 7,000 votes. The SCDC worked with him again in 2020 when he defeated candidate Kyle Van Der Water by nearly 40,000 votes. As indicated in the successful margin of that 2020 contest, people of all party affiliations in the district supported him in his second campaign based on evidence that he actively represented our interests in the confounding halls of the US Congress. He even brought a satellite Congressional Hearing out to our area in order to get first hand testimony on the record, from folks in Schoharie County among others, about how rural broadband could positively impact our rural development whether in farming, business, education or health care. He recognized the issues inherent in recruiting top quality job candidates to an area where there was spotty cell service and slow internet, and how that impacts on the quality of education and health care, even leading to population loss. He pushed the cause because rural communities matter. Delgado’s appearance at the Chamber of Commerce annual celebration is rooted in this consistent level of commitment to our growth and community well-being. His attendance among the Democrats of Schoharie County demonstrates that he hasn’t forgotten all those volunteers working for Democratic values who knocked on doors and gave people information about early voting. On May 11th our Lieutenant Governor will come to celebrate a strong start to 2023 as featured speaker at the Annual Dinner of the Schoharie County Chamber of Commerce and later that evening at the FDR Banquet of the Schoharie County Democratic Committee. It is no question that many of us have missed seeing him at town halls all over our area, but these events offer opportunities to once again be inspired by that young man from Schenectady. Thank you Antonio Delgado, for keeping your promises, and keeping our rural counties top of mind in your state-wide policy role. FOR THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE EVENT: For more information and to purchase tickets online, visit https://schohariechamber.com/annual-dinner/ FOR THE SCHOHARIE COUNTY DEMOCRATS EVENT: For more information and to purchase tickets online, visit schohariedemocrats.org/
