{"id":4555,"date":"2011-08-02T10:38:01","date_gmt":"2011-08-02T14:38:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=4555"},"modified":"2011-08-08T13:27:24","modified_gmt":"2011-08-08T17:27:24","slug":"should-seasonals-shape-north-country-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2011\/08\/02\/should-seasonals-shape-north-country-elections\/","title":{"rendered":"Should “seasonals” shape North Country elections?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Watertown Daily Times<\/a> is reporting today that a growing number of seasonal — i.e. “summer” — residents are signing up to vote in Cape Vincent, along the St. Lawrence River.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been coming here all my life but it never really crossed my mind to vote in Cape Vincent,\u201d said Art J. Shultz, a seasonal resident who lives on the corner of Mud Bay.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The part-time residents look likely to heavily impact the Republican primary, and could then shape a heated debate over industrial wind farm development.<\/p>\n

This tension is nothing new.\u00a0 By some accounts, shifting voting patterns by part-time residents has reshaped politics across the region, including the hotly-contested 20th congressional district that stretches from the Hudson Valley to Saranac Lake.<\/p>\n

And it’s not just big-ticket decisions like wind farms that could be affected.<\/p>\n

Often, these days, seasonal residents pay the lion’s share of local taxes, but they wield a tiny chunk of the voting power.\u00a0 If that changed substantially, it could affect spending priorities on everything from schools to new capital projects.<\/p>\n

In theory, this kind of voting could have a huge impact, especially in parts of the North Country like Hamilton County, where the “local” population is dwarfed in summer by a huge influx of part-timers, many with generational ties to the area.<\/p>\n

But there are plenty of communities — from Keene Valley to Westport to Cape Vincent — where a committed group of seasonal residents could really throw their weight around.<\/p>\n

So what do you think?\u00a0 Is this a good thing, a case of taxpayers finally getting some representation?\u00a0 Or could growing clout by “outsiders” skew the planning and priorities of struggling small towns?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Watertown Daily Times is reporting today that a growing number of seasonal — i.e. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[20],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4555"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4555"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4556,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4555\/revisions\/4556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}