Barbara for AD 101 Campaign
Hi, I'm Barbara Kidney, and I'm happy and excited to inform my fellow NYS voters, and my fellow Green Party voters especially, that my name will be on the ballot this fall as a Green Party candidate for NYS Assembly District 101, a long narrow sliver of NYS stretching from the Towns of Montgomery and Crawford in Orange County in the southeast, to just south of Utica to the northwest of this sliver. Included are several towns in southwestern Ulster County, and Neversink in Sullivan County.
Whether or not you live in AD101, as a Green or as a friend of the Green Party and its great values-- this campaign is important to you!
To locate AD 101, go to this link:
https://www.latfor.state.ny.us/maps/2012a/AD_map_rep_101.pdf
For info about AD101 and other NYS Senate and Assembly Districts, go here: https://www.elections.ny.gov/district-map/district-map.html
In this post, I will tell you how you can reach me, donate to our campaign (yes, this campaign is about us, far more than it is about me-- I just volunteered to be our standard bearer, so to speak), what my major political positions are, and about my relevant background.
If you have questions or ideas to share with me, please email me at BarbaraforAD101@protonmail.com, or phone or text my campaign volunteer Andrew at 845 699 3051 to share your message or to arrange a phone conversation with me. You can check out my campaign website at BarbaraforAD101.com.
I also welcome your letters, and to make this campaign successful, we all need to pitch in with monetary contributions, so that our campaign for the NYS Assembly can purchase necessary materials (pins, lawn and highway signs, etc.), some advertising, and pay for website and donation page hosting.
Please realize, I am running for the benefit of the entire state, as well as for the benefit of Assembly District 101. I am also the only real Green Party candidate, endorsed by GPNY and Hudson Valley GP, running for state assembly in our Hudson Valley/Catskill area. So even if you cannot vote for me because you live outside AD 101, you can certainly support our campaign.
This campaign receives no funding, except for what people like you and me provide. So, monetary donations are needed.
You can donate financially with credit or debit card via https://donorbox.org/barbara-for-ad-101.
Checks are awesome, because unlike credit and debit cards, the full amount you contribute goes to our campaign, rather than losing some of it to the donor platforms and to MasterCard or Visa!
Checks should be made out to "Barbara for AD 101", and, like any letters people may care to send, should be mailed to:
Barbara for AD 101
PO Box 34
Walker Valley, NY 12588
Please be sure to include your name, address, phone number, email, and occupation and employer with your check-- this info will be kept confidential and not shared with anyone except with the Board of Elections if they should audit our campaign, and by law, I am required to collect and log this info from every donor. Please note, campaigns like this can only receive funds from US citizens aged 18 years or older, so if you are not a US citizen at least 18 years of age, please do not donate monetarily.
But, any responsible person is welcome to volunteer to help with outreach in a variety of ways. Please email, call, text, or write a letter if you are possibly interested in volunteering. We would love to hear from you!
My Main Positions - which I hope may be yours, as well!
Safe, Clean, Green, Community-Controlled Renewable Energy
made affordable for NYS citizens, including community aggregate solar and wind energy; no new toxic fuel projects; ban use of frack products state-wide; safe closures of toxic fuel plants asap and support transition to safe renewables asap; support use of electric vehicles by municipalities and by private citizens; support public transportation; and- for heaven's sake! - divest state workers' pension funds from investments in the killer toxic fuel industry and the war machine! Invest in green energy and other enterprises to promote health and well-being instead!
increase the standard deduction for state income taxes to reflect cost of living expenses (e.g. if cost of living requires $50,000, then the standard deduction should be $50,000); fairly increase state tax rates on surplus wealth progressively; end school property taxes on primary, non-luxury residences, and fund public schools via fair progressive state income taxes on surplus wealth
Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) in NYS
to end the so-called "spoiler effect" when more than two candidates run for the same office. This reform can only be accomplished in our state via the state legislature-- so vote for me! And support our campaign!
RCV is currently used in Maine, NYC, and some other US municipalities, and in Australia, New Zealand, and Northern Ireland, for some examples in other nations.
(Brief explanation of RCV: without RCV, which is how currently our state and national elections work, if 3 candidates, for example, run for the same position, the designated winner needs to receive only 34% of the total vote. That means that as much as 66% of those voting may have voted against the designated winner.
It also means that if Joe, Mo, and Curly are running, and you really want Mo, but hate Curly, you may vote for Joe, not because you want to, but because you fear that Curly, whom you despise, would benefit from your vote for Mo, who is not likely to win, according to the polls. Under RCV, voters could rank choice their selections. You could vote for Mo as your first choice, and Joe as your second, and not vote at all for Curly. If not enough other voters select Mo, your vote for Mo would be transferred to Joe, and your vote would not inadvertently benefit Curly, the candidate you despise).
Support Main Street, not Wall Street
End state tax subsidies to giant corporations that devastate our communities, environment, and climate with toxic projects resulting in often temporary and health-destroying jobs.
Instead, provide some state support to local farms and other constructive local business endeavors.
This list of positions is not comprehensive--
in a nutshell, I support political positions that support social and environmental justice-- the welfare of us the people and the other inhabitants of our planet!
These certainly include respect for human, animal, and Earth rights (when we protect our environment, we protect our own health, and our children's health); support for fair and ready access to quality healthcare; immigration reform (so that immigrants and dreamers can safely and feasibly become citizens or permanent residents without impossible challenges of hefty fees to even apply for citizenship).
Here's a photo of us of Hudson Valley Green Party at last summer's rally for rights of law-abiding, hard-working immigrants (which NYS agriculture and tourism, for some examples, rely on):
Can you see me? I'm the one behind the camera! On the right, in hat, is our campaign volunteer and HVGP treasurer, Andrew Dalton, whom you will reach if you call or text us (at 845 699 3051). To the left, is our wishing-to-remain-anonymous friend! (All but the 1st and 3rd photos in this post were taken by me)
For any questions about what you read, or didn't see here, email me! BarbaraforAD101@protonmail.com. My website is currently under construction, and I will announce its completion here.
My Background includes:
- Co-Founder, and Chair of Hudson Valley Green Party since 2017, current term expiring Jan. 2022.
- GPNY State Committee Member from Ulster County since 2018; current term expiring Fall 2022.
- Member, GPUS Women's Caucus, and GPUS Elders Caucus-in-formation (where I serve as a listserv monitor).
- Member, GPNY Working Group on Climate Action, and HVGP sponsored Peace Action Group
- Co-Founder, Hudson Valley Drone Alert project, 2013 -2015
- Member, Town of Shawangunk Environmental Management Council, 2003-2013
- Member, Occupy New Paltz and of Occupy Orange County NY;
- Co-founding Member of Occupy SoUl (Southern Ulster County) - 2011 - 2013
- Campaigned locally for the last two GP Presidential campaigns of Jill Stein, and Gubernatorial campaigns of Howie Hawkins.
- Professionally, I am a NYS licensed psychologist in private practice for over 25 years. My interest in helping people lead lives of self-defined meaning and integrity has inspired me to contribute towards improving socio-political conditions.
- Member, American Psychological Association's Division of Peace Psychology.
- Author, "Promoting Peace: Some Perspectives from Counseling Psychology" in The Psychology of Peace Promotion by multiple international scholars, published in 2019 by Springer Nature. Here's the link:
- I have led several local workshops on peace-making based on ideas from my chapter. Once it's safe for us to gather again, I'm happy to do more-- please contact me!)
Besides being a professional counseling psychologist, my past work experience includes: counseling developmentally disabled adults; casework for Elders and adults in Appalachian PA; horticultural greenhouse work
in central FL; assisting in agricultural research, and designing some of my own; academic advising at Penn State; retail; food service; and clerical for
insurance companies in NYC and Los Angeles.
I have volunteered for several peer crisis counseling centers, and for a Women's Resource Center.
I'm also a
semi-professional musician, and avid organic gardener.
My education includes: Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology
from the University at Albany, M.Ed. in Counselor
Education from Penn State, M.S. in Plant Pathology from the University of Florida, and B.S. in Biological Science, concentrating in ecology and evolution, from Cornell.
I've lived in Ulster County for the past 18 years with my beloved husband, (and cats!), and have lived in Ulster earlier as well; I've also lived in Orange County, the Capital District, the Finger Lakes area, and Manhattan. I'm a proud native New Yorker, and love our white pines (see photo above right!), but I have benefited from living in some other states as well: Pennsylvania, Florida, California, and Louisiana.
Thank you for reading this post. You can check out some of my other involvement with HVGP by reading my other posts in this blog, some published under my "nom de plume," Verde Claro, and I will post updates on our campaign for AD 101. Don't be a stranger-- feel free to email me (BarbaraforAD101@protonmail.com), and of course, please send some money to our campaign treasury, so that we can make good things happen for our state, together!
Cheers!
Barbara
