Getting to knowRep. Bill Owens, whose district now will include Glens Falls area By Gordon WoodworthChronicle News Editor “I would describe myself as a moderate or a centrist, but mostly I describe myself as someone who is looking to secure the facts on every issue and apply common sense,” Congressman Bill Owens of Platts-burgh tells The Chronicle. We sought out the Congressman for an interview this week after Warren, Washing-ton and northern Saratoga Coun-ties were added to his district under lines new-ly redrawn after the 2010 census resulted in New York State losing two of its con-gressional seats. The new dis-trict, the 21st, spans 16,500 square miles, from Stillwater in Saratoga County north to the Canadian border. Mr. Owens, a Democrat, spoke to The Chronicle by phone Monday morning. At one point he paused the conversation to board a Lake Champlain ferry on his way to catch a flight to Washington, D.C., from Burlington, Vt. Mr. Owens, 63, won his seat in Congress in 2009 in a hotly contested special elec-tion to succeed Republican John McHugh, who resigned to become Secretary of the Navy. Mr. Owens won re-election in 2010. He said he was born in Brooklyn, grew up on Long Island and graduated from Manhattan College and Fordham Law School before joining the U.S. Air Force. “I moved to the North Country when I was stationed at Plattsburgh Air Force Base in 1977,” he said. He served as a Captain in the Judge Ad-vocate General Corps in active duty from

1975 to 1979, and was in the Air Force Re-serve from 1971-75 and 1979-82. Rep. Owens became a managing partner at the Plattsburgh law firm of Stafford, Ow-ens, Piller, Murnane & Trombley. It was the law firm of Republican Ron Stafford, the State Senator for 37 years who died in 2005. “Ron was what I think is classically re-ferred to as a Rockefeller Republican, and a guy who looked at issues from the per-spective of his constituents rather than, if you will, from a party or ideological posi-

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Lenten Reflection Jesus used Holy Thursday as a teaching moment, showing us the value of humility and service by washing the feet of the Apostles. He respected His Father through the observance of Passover in the Jewish tradition. Most important of all, however, was the gift that He gave to all of us by the institution of Eucharist. Join Jesus, Mary and the apostles as the story of Good Friday unfolds. Embrace His passion and death as the true path to salvation. We endure the trials of our own lives with the hope that things will end well. Jesus put Himself in the hands of God, and so must we. The Easter Vigil is the encapsulation of all that we are as Catholics. Our story is told, the sacraments of initiation are celebrated with new believers and we share in the joy of the empty tomb. We celebrate our ransom from death in the Risen Christ.Please join with the community during this spiritual season and allow it to reinvigorate the faith that lives in your heart.

Holy Week Schedule April 5 - 8Holy Thursday (combined liturgy): 6:30 P.M. at St. Joseph’s Church

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Easter Sunday: 8:00 A.M. and 11:00 A.M. at St. Mary’s/St. Paul’s and 9:30 A.M. at St. Joseph’s

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What Owens knows of Glens Falls; his views of Chris Gibson, Pres. Obama

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The Chronicle - March 29, 2012

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Bill Owens, 63, is a Brooklyn native who came to Plattsburgh during his service in the Air Force and stayed, practicing law in Repub-lican State Senator Ron Stafford’s law firm. He praises the late Mr. Stafford “as a Rock-efeller Republican, and a guy who looked at issues from the perspective of his constitu-ents rather than, if you will, from a party or ideological position.”

An Indepen-dent until he ran as Democrat in 2009; won narrowly in split races.

More for Mr. OwensFrom facing pageto mind right away. Rush Holt, from New Jersey. He’s a scientist by education and work experience. He focuses on the facts, and I think that’s extremely important. I have great respect for Rich Hanna from the Utica area. I think he brings a lot of common sense to the process.” And I certainly like Chris Gibson, for all the reasons I indicated before. Chronicle: What do you think of President Obama?

Owens: I think, given the hand he was dealt in 2009 when he came into office, I think he’s done a good job. Obviously there’s lots of room for improvement. There’s many policy areas I don’t agree with him on. Chronicle: Like what? Owens: Gun control comes right to mind. We have a very strong interest in guns up here in the North Country and the use of firearms for hunting and target shooting. That’s an area he and I disagree on…I have an ‘A’ rating from the NRA [Na-tional Rifle Association]. We also have some differences of opinion on issues related to regulation. I think he may have a stronger hand on that. I think that we need to be doing things that are very, very pragmatic in the regulatory area. — Gordon Woodworth

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Getting to knowRep. Bill Owens, whose district now will include Glens Falls areaFrom page 3tion, which is largely how I view my role as well,” says Mr. Owens. He said he spent 16 years in the law firm. Mr. Owens said he was a registered in-dependent from 1971 until 2009 when he made his run for Congress as a Democrat. In both his 2009 and 2010 races, Mr. Owens won narrowly amid a Republican-Conservative split. In 2009, he defeated Conservative Doug Hoffman by less than 4,000 votes, after Re-publican nominee Dede Scozzafava with-drew from the race shortly before the vote. In 2010, Mr. Owens was re-elected by an even slimmer 2,000 votes, over Republican Matt Doheny, as Conservative Mr. Hoffman drew more than 10,000 votes. This year, Mr. Doheny is running again, and already has the backing of Republican committees in Warren, Washington and Essex Counties, the statewide Conserva-tive and Independence parties and the Warren County Conservative Committee. (Mr. Hoffman briefly considered running for Teresa Sayward’s Assembly seat, but withdrew last week.) The new 21st Congressional District will include all of Warren, Washington, Essex, Hamilton, Fulton, Clinton, Franklin, St. Lawrence, Jefferson and Lewis Counties, and part of northern Herkimer County. It also includes the Saratoga County towns of Moreau, Corinth, Wilton, Northum-berland, Hadley, Day, Edinburg, Galway, Greenfield, Providence, Saratoga and the northern part of Stillwater. (Rep. Chris Gibson, whose congressio-nal district currently includes the Glens Falls region, will seek re-election in the new 19th district that lost its northern part and was expanded to the south, in Colum-bia, Greene, Ulster and Sullivan Counties.) Mr. Owens serves on the Agriculture, Armed Services and Small Business com-mittees in the House of Representatives. He and his wife, Jane, have three chil-dren and four grandchildren.

Excerpts from the interview Chronicle: What’s your reaction to the new district configuration? Owens: We were clearly sorry to lose the people we had gotten to know over on the western side…but at the same time I think we have an opportunity to meet 225,000 to 250,000 new friends. We’re looking for-ward to that…Many of the folks on the new side of the district are participants in what I would call the Montreal-to-New York City trade corridor, which includes Plattsburgh and Glens Falls and Saratoga and down to the Albany area. We also have a tremendous amount of agriculture in these communities. We were recently fortunate enough to host the Northeast Ag Committee hearing in Sa-ranac Lake about three weeks ago. As a member of the Agriculture committee, I’ve worked hard on a significant number of is-sues that directly impact my constituents.

Chronicle: What do you bring to the table as a Congressman? Owens: Well, I think the first thing is common sense. I look at this entire expe-rience as one that requires you to apply common sense to difficult problems. You need to understand the facts and not get lost in ideology before you have a grasp of the facts. I bring a long history of economic devel-opment in my community. I worked in the economic development area for more than 20 years before coming to Congress. There was a group of us that got together in the mid-1980s, before NAFTA [North American Free Trade Agreement]…and we began to go to Montreal to solicit businesses to come to our communities. And it turned out to be very successful. And I’m trying to encour-age all of the communities in either the old 23rd or the new 21st to do the same thing. Chronicle: Did you vote for Obama-care? Owens: I did. Chronicle: Why? Owens: Well, this is a little bit complex, but I come to this process with a 27-year history of health-care experience. I repre-sented a couple of hospitals and many oth-er providers. I had seen the dysfunction in the health-care industry, and my belief is that this was a good first step, not a perfect piece of legislation, but a good first step to get us to do two things: reducing costs and improving health-care outcomes. Chronicle: What makes you a good Con-gressman? Owens: The first thing is that I listen to my constituents, and I stay very engaged with them and think it’s very important to be hearing things on the ground. I’ll give you a great example of that: As you know, throughout the eastern side of the district, we have a lot of apple orchards. I was ap-proached three years ago by one of our orchard owners who said that there was an inspection that was required of apples leaving the country that was costing him a couple of hundreds bucks an inspection. We attempted to get that changed admin-istratively and we couldn’t do it, so we just introduced a piece of legislation in the House on that. That’s a good example of listening to people’s concerns about regu-lations and look to try and have the regula-tions make sense…I study the issues and look for the facts before making a decision. Chronicle: What is your #1 issue right now? Owens: Right now, I think the #1 issue remains jobs and the economy. There is absolutely no doubt about that. That con-tinues to be the top concern of people when we have town hall meetings. Chronicle: What is the #1 thing you want people down here to know about you? Owens: I want people to understand that I am somebody who is going to listen to their concerns. That I am going to look to make sure that I understand the facts on the issues and that I’m going to apply common sense in my voting. Chronicle: What is your #1 accom-plishment since joining Congress? Owens: The application of common sense to complex problems I think is very important. I think our work on regula-tory issues where we have been successful in turning back regulations in the manu-facturing industry, in the dairy industry, those are areas where I think we have been quite successful and have shown people we want to apply common sense.

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We ask Rep. Owens: What do you know about Glens Falls-Lake George region? The Chronicle asked more questions of Congressman Bill Owens, the Platts-burgh Democrat whose district has been expanded to include Warren, Washington and most of Saratoga Counties: Chronicle: What do you know about the Glens Falls area and Warren and Wash-ington Counties? Owens: Well, be-cause my law practice spent a lot of time going back and forth to those communities, I did a number of transactions down there. Obviously I’ve been down to Lake George to recreate. My wife has spent a fair amount of time shopping in those areas in those commu-nities. We’ve traveled through many of those communities in terms of going on hikes and things of that nature years ago. We have had a tremendous amount of interac-tion with people in many of those commu-nities. I represented a number of the paper companies in the Adirondacks and you have several of those in the Glens Falls area and in Ticonderoga. Chronicle: Finch Paper? Owens: I did some work indirectly for them. I represented the Empire State For-est Products Association and was actively engaged with some regulatory issues with the APA that benefitted Finch, Pruyn and a number of other companies. I’ve had lots of meetings as a result with people from those communities, know their concerns. I’ve had meetings with apple orchard folks in the course of my career because they have a common interest with people in the northern parts of the district. I’m well aware of the business climate. I am also quite focused on this corridor issue which greatly impacts all of us. That is a tremendous source of business and also a tremendous source of tourism. Driv-ing on the Northway, you see Quebec plates in front of you and beside you. Those folks are coming to our community to shop, they are coming to start businesses, and that’s what we want to encourage. Chronicle: When was the last time you were down here? Owens: The last time was probably about three months ago. Chronicle: What brought you here? Owens: Actually, we went down to do some shopping at the outlet malls between Lake George and Glens Falls. Chronicle: What do you think of Chris Gibson? Owens: Great guy. He and I have worked together on a vast number of projects for our mutual constituents. We worked very hard together on issues related to [Hurri-cane] Irene. I worked closely with him on the Ag committee. He was one of the co-hosts of the Ag committee hearing, even though it was held in my district. He is someone I can work with, and have worked with very successfully. Chris is somebody who served in the military for more than 25 years. He is, I think, a person of high integrity and again,

is willing to put aside partisan politics to help our mutual constituents, and I think that is very important. Chronicle: What President in his-tory do you most admire and why? Owens: I think I would have to say George Washington, because he had a vi-sion and he also had a tremendous sense of understanding where the country need-ed to be as opposed to where he wanted to be. He decided not to run for a third term when there was really no impediment to that. He made decisions, I think, for the best interest of the country, and obviously put his own life on the line. Chronicle: What House member cur-rently serving do you admire? Owens: That is a difficult question. There are three or four people that come

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Shops LG out-lets; praises Chris Gibson & Pres. Obama