To the Editor

I’m writing to encourage support for a legislator who is really helping all the citizens of her district. I am proudly supporting Senator Patty Ritchie for re-election and encourage your readers to do so, too.

I am Board Treasurer of the Ogdensburg Bridge and Port Authority and have a story to relate about how Senator Ritchie went to bat for us in a very important project.

As the first United States port in the St.Lawrence Seaway, we have been striving for years to expand and improve our port for the betterment of all citizens in our area.

This year, we were able to obtain funding to build a new port access road which makes the port much more efficient and moves the traffic out of the city very quickly, keeping large vehicles off busy city streets.

We approached the project with the knowledge that we had already secured a large windmill project for the port which was going to provide a large number of jobs for the area longshoremen and many other supporting occupations.

However, to our surprise, when the bids came in we found that our funding was not going to allow us to complete this project without our filling a very large unfunded gap.

Calls went out to our various elected officials to see if any of them could assist us in filling the gap. Senator Ritchie responded quickly and very effectively, securing the funding needed to make the project work.

And the rest is now history. The new port access road was built in Ogdensburg. We were able to receive by ship and move out by truck a large number of windmill parts to two different windmill projects in New York and Vermont.

Very significant wages were paid to longshoremen, truck drivers, construction workers, security workers and cargo escorts to name a few.

The multiplier effect of introducing this new money into our community has been significant and has greatly helped many of our local businesses.

All of this was possible because Senator Ritchie heard us and made it happen for us. Our port continues to grow and is now a much more efficient facility. Thank you Senator Ritchie.

Donald J. Hooper

Ogdensburg Bridge and Port Authority