Filed Under: Environmental Issues | Long Island | Nassau

Register to Vote

Start out by exercising your right to vote. Every vote counts, including yours. It is easy to register to vote; just call the Nassau County Board of Elections (http://www.co.nassau.ny.us/boe/ or (516) 571-2411) and they will send you a form to fill out. You can also register to vote when you renew your driver’s license.

Vote!
Enroll in a Party

Reduce frustration and increase your clout by enrolling in a political party. This is the only way you will be able to vote in primary elections or sign candidate petitions for these parties. You will then have a say in which candidates will represent your political party in the general election.

Primaries

When there is more than one candidate from the same party running for the same office, a primary election is held the September before the November elections. For village elections in March, primaries are usually in January. Contact the county Board of Elections for details.

Petitions

In order for an individual to run for any office, a specified number of signatures (depending on the office) from the applicant’s party members are required. You may sign a petition only if you are enrolled in the applicant’s party or if the applicant is running independently of a party.

Cultivate Environmentally- Friendly Elected Officials

Many environmental issues are decided at the local and state level, so it is important to cultivate environmental leadership in your town, county, and state government. You can encourage incumbents and new candidates to take initiative on environmental issues by sponsoring a bill in the legislature, introducing a local ordinance, or working with environmental groups to develop a common vision for environmental protection in their district.

One of the best ways to ensure that your elected supervisor, mayor, or county and state legislators keep their campaign promises and continue to protect your quality of life is to make your voice heard through visits and letters. Your elected representatives need to hear your comments and suggestions about issues in their district – not only to help them gauge the success of their initiatives but to guide them in appropriating new funds and in initiating new legislation that reflects the needs of your community.

Find out what committees your legislators serve on and track their activity. Let them know that you are watching and tell them how to vote.

The New York League of Conservation Voters (NYLCV) is the non-partisan political arm of the environmental community in New York State. The League endorses political candidates running for state and local office, and publishes these endorsements both in its newsletter, EcoPolitics, and on its website. These endorsements help voters to choose candidates who demonstrate leadership on the environmental issues in their districts. Get Involved!

Attend Public Meetings

Your Town Board, Planning, Zoning, and CAC – Regular attendance at local meetings is the best way to become informed about how local government is protecting your community’s environment. Become familiar with the players in your town and village. See who else is attending meetings and find out their perspective on the environmental aspects of local issues.

Public Hearings – Before an environmental law or local ordinance is passed by the appropriate legislative body, whether it be the U.S. Congress, the NYS Legislature, or the village board of trustees, there is a required public comment period and public hearing. Any environmental project, such as HOV lane widening or development in sensitive wetlands, that requires an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and/or special permits also calls for public comment. Informational meetings, scoping meetings, and permit hearings also offer the public additional opportunities to participate. The governmental agency or board in charge of the project review, such as the NYSDEC or a local planning board, is responsible for posting notice of upcoming informational meetings and public hearings via local cable television, radio, community bulletin boards, local libraries, and community newspapers.

Public Comment – Depending on the type of meetings, there is a specific procedure for submitting a written and/or spoken statement (testimony). Instructions usually accompany the meeting notice. You may also just want to listen to the testimony of other parties to hear their perspective on the issue. (For a Guide to Permit Hearings, call your NYCDEC Regional Office.)

In addition to members of the press, you will find many of the involved parties of a particular project at public meetings: local and state officials, planning and environmental consulting firms, representatives from local environmental groups and agencies, and local citizens opposed to or in favor of the project. Whether you plan to make a statement or not, attendance at these meetings is important not only to learn the details of a proposed project, but to let the involved parties know that you are following their actions.

Subscribe to Local Newspapers

As well as being a good source for notice of community Local News Sources meetings, local newspapers often run stories and opinion columns focusing on local public officials, government decisions, and environmental issues specific to your county, town, or village that you will not find in major regional or city newspapers.

Write a Letter to the Editor or an Op-Ed Article

These are important vehicles for publishing the perspectives of individuals and organizations that are not reported in news articles. They are an opportunity to share your argument with others and increase support for your cause.

Here are some tips on getting your letter or article published:

·Be rational and succinct. You do not want the newspaper staff editing your article and removing some of your best points in the process.

·Responses to stories published in the paper have a better chance of being published than pieces that are unrelated to previous news.

·If you are an individual or representative of a group that is directly affected by a proposed project or other pressing issue, the editors will be more interested in your viewpoint.

Serve on a Local Board

Members of all Planning, Zoning, and Architectural Review Boards and CACs are appointed by the town or village board. County, town and village governments often also appoint advisory boards on local environmental issues, such as solid waste, recycling, and wetlands. Some towns or villages have a nominating committee that interviews interested citizens and makes recommendations to the governing board to fill vacancies. If you would like to serve on a board, you should inquire at your town or village hall to find out about your local appointment process and contact the appropriate people.

Run for a Local Office

Many environmental activists have turned a career in activism into a local political career. There is no better way to effect good environmental policy than to become an environmental leader in your village or district. Running for local offices, however, does take much time, energy and many resources, including skilled individuals and funding for a campaign. It is not feasible for everyone.

Ballot Access – Once you have decided to run for any elected office, you will need to satisfy ballot requirements. In New York State, most candidates get on the ballot by filing a petition containing a specified number of signatures. The required amount varies depending on the office that is sought and whether the candidate is seeking a party nomination or a spot on the ballot as an independent.

Run an Environmentally-Friendly Campaign

The two most important characteristics of an environmentally-friendly campaign are an environmental platform that reflects the needs of the community and its residents and environmentally sensitive decisions along the campaign trail, such as choice of paper for brochures, recycling practices in the campaign office, and use of public transportation where possible.

Citizen Access to Information

Many of the processes of state and local government in New York have been reshaped because of the desire of the public to become more involved. Public concern over the conduct of public officials in the post-Watergate period generated new interest in open government. This interest gave rise to a number of “sunshine” laws and policies governing access to information, open meetings, and regulations of lobbyists. Here are three that offer New Yorkers a more important voice in shaping government decisions an opportunity to strengthen effective environmental policies.

The Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) was enacted in 1974 to assure public access to government records. The law requires that state and local agencies, public corporations, and legislative bodies make almost all of their records available to the public. It also states that any paper filed or used in local government may be inspected and copied by any citizen. Only confidential matters, such as medical histories, are exempted.

Any individual may ask for public documents via a "FOIL" letter. Simply address the letter to the agency's "Records Access Officer" and cite the Freedom of Information Law as support for your request. Note that the response may include a charge for copying, and requests can take anywhere from four to twelve weeks to be filled.

The NYS Open Meetings Law, which took effect in 1977, assures that public business is publicly conducted. Under the law, all boards, councils, commissions, advisory groups and local legislative bodes must open their meetings to the public. Executive sessions maybe called on a publicly taken majority vote, but only to consider special matters such as litigation, land acquisition, and matters involve privacy issues of individuals.

The 1978 Lobbying Act ensures public disclosure of information about lobbying activities. It requires any lobbyist or organization that plans to spend more than $1000 toward lobbying to register annually and to file quarterly itemized reports of expenditures. A lobbyist is anyone, other than a member of the legislative body making the decision, who seeks to influence the course of legislation. Lobbyists perform a useful function in supplying legislators with information and technical advice and alerting them to the wishes of certain groups.

Join and Support Environmental Organizations

In addition to serving on local boards and attending public meetings, local environmental and citizen groups can be your best resource for finding out about the important environmental issues in your particular town or village. Some groups are formed ad hoc around a specific issue or area of concern, and some are local chapters of national organizations. Since it is the purpose of these groups to mobilize citizens for action, they are good resources for finding out the latest information on a crisis issue, reporting on votes affecting a critical resource, evaluating the performance of elected officials, and encouraging citizen participation. A sampling of national, state, and local environmental citizen groups is listed in the directory.