Lawmaker wants to revive ‘memorializing resolutions’

Ulster County Legislator Joseph Maloney has proposed lifting the Legislature’s 11-month-old ban on the introduction of memorializing resolutions.

“I believe in them, and I think they should be there, provided they [the issues] would impact Ulster County specifically,” said Maloney, I-Saugerties.

Memorializing resolutions carry no force of law and often call on the state or federal government to take a particular action or put the county Legislature on the record on a particular issue.

Memorializing resolutions were banned by the Ulster County Legislature in April 2017 in a largely party line vote, with all Republicans and two Democrats voting to end the practice after several lawmakers complained the resolutions were becoming too politicized and polarizing.

Legislature Chairman Ken Ronk, who initially opposed the ban, ultimately co-sponsored the measure to prohibit them, saying Democrats had made “an absolute mockery” of them, with both the number of resolutions and issues raised in them.

In 2016, 14 memorializing resolutions were introduced by legislators, including measures that opposed the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, supported state legislation that called for the immediate suspension of Common Core education standards, opposed the relicensing of the Indian Point nuclear power plant and supported state legislation known as the Gender Expression Nondiscrimination Act.

Now, with eight new members in the Legislature, Ronk said he believe’s the dynamic of the body has changed enough to lift the prohibition, though he called Maloney’s proposal “overly broad.”

“I could come up with 50

things that I think uniquely effect Ulster County that others do not,” said Ronk, R-Wallkill.

Ronk said he has been “shopping around” a proposal of his own that would allow memorializing resolutions to be considered by the Legislature if twothirds

of its 25 members sign on as sponsors.

That way, he said, the Legislature could “speak as one voice but not get into the weeds on things that are just intended to create controversy.”

Ronk has not submitted a resolution proposing that change for consideration.

The Legislature’s Laws and Rules Committee will take up Maloney’s proposal on March 19.