Ginger Schroder Talks Cattaraugus Constitutional County on This Week’s State of Greater Western New York Report – September 16, 2021

Ginger Schroder, serving her first term in Cattaraugus County’s 3rd Legislative District, tells the story about how a diverse group of everyday citizens concerned about the disconnect between Albany and their county joined together to come up with the idea of creating a “sanctuary” county. They approached their State and County elected officials with the idea. The State reps, while supportive of the idea, were helpless to do anything because of the Albany majority. Schroder, on the other hand, felt the County was in a position to do something about it. Her research showed the name “constitutional county” was something other counties across the county had done.

In the second half of the show, Schroder takes us on the journey that began last June and culminated with the unanimous passing of the Constitutional County Resolution (you can read it by clicking here) on August 25th, 2021. What’s most important about this process is that it involved citizen leaders as well as elected officials and it included both Republicans and Democrats in the crafting of the final resolution. It’s an inspiring story that shows how the Greater Western New York Region is defined by something other than party lines. Those interested in contacting Ginger Schroder can email her at gdschroder@cattco.org.