Much of Southern Ulster County is assured of having a new representative, come January in the State Senate, as district lines have been re-drawn.
The southern half of Ulster, as well large portions of Dutchess and all of Green and Columbia Counties are now a part of the new 41st Senate District, Redistricting will pit two incumbents. Michelle Hinchey (D-Saugerties) and Sue Serino (R-Hyde Park), against each other in November.
Hinchey currently represents the 46th Senate district that includes the Town of Lloyd. The Towns of Marlborough and Plattekill are currently part of the 39th Senate District represented by James T. Skoufis (D-Cornwall). Redistricting confines the 39th district to Orange County, meaning Plattekill and Marlborough will lose Skoufis in January.
The current 41st Senate District, represented by Serino, encompasses most of Dutchess and parts of Putnam County. It does not cross the river. The new 41st district includes all of Columbia and Greene Counties, the towns of Marlborough, Plattekill, Lloyd, Esopus, Rosendale, New Paltz, Kingston, Ulster, Saugerties, Woodstock, Hurley, Shandaken and the City of Kingston in Ulster County and the towns of Amenia, Clinton, Dover, Hyde Park, Milan, North East, Pine Plains, Pleasant Valley, Red Hook, Rhinebeck, Stanford, and Washington in Dutchess County.
Hinchey, last week, announced that she will campaign for the new 41st Senate seat, challenging Serino.
“Upstate New York has faced decades of underinvestment. It’s why I ran for office in 2020 — to fight for the needs of the community that raised me by finally investing in our aging infrastructure, supporting our family farms, funding education, ending the housing crisis, and battling the opioid epidemic that is ravaging our towns and cities. It’s been a privilege to work on behalf of upstate residents, and I’m proud to reaffirm my commitment to this work by running for re-election in the newly created SD-41,” said Hinchey. “In just the last 16 months, we’ve delivered record funding to our upstate communities and elevated the needs that have been left on the table for far too long. I’m incredibly honored to have such robust and early support from true community leaders across Columbia, Dutchess, Greene and Ulster Counties, and I thank them for standing with us in our continued fight for upstate equity.”
In her campaign announcement, Hinchey said she had received the support from a host of Ulster representatives, including Congressman – and soon-to-be Lt Governor Antonio Delgado, Ulster County Executive Pat Ryan, Sheriff Juan Figueroa and County Legislator Tracy Bartels.
Hinchey is chair of the senate’s agriculture committee and a member of the alcohol and substance abuse, energy and telecommunications, local government, commerce, economic development and small business and the environmental conservation committees as well as the joint senate task force on opioids, addiction and overdose prevention.
Serino, a Dutchess County native, began waiting tables at an early age and eventually started her own childcare business. She began working in the real estate industry in 1996 and opened her own office in the City of Poughkeepsie shortly thereafter. In 2003, she moved her office to Hyde Park to accommodate her growing team of 26 sales associates.
Sue was elected to the Hyde Park Town Board in 2010 and then to the Dutchess County Legislature in 2011. In 2014, she unseated incumbent Senator Terry Gipson and has retained the seat in subsequent elections. In the senate, she is the ranking member of the committee on aging, and also a member of the insurance, cultural affairs, social services and transportation committees, the joint senate task force on opioids, addiction and overdose prevention and the legislative women’s caucus.
According to her website, she is “a vocal advocate for hardworking taxpayers and consistently resisted efforts to raise taxes and fees at the local level.”