“Yesterday’s nor’easter hit the North Country much harder than was originally predicted. As the storm’s path shifted, I reached out to Governor Cuomo’s office to ask why our community’s nonessential public employees were not included in the declaration allowing these workers in other parts of the state to go home. By late Tuesday afternoon, the governor amended the original declaration to include North Country workers. It’s still unclear why this decision was not made sooner.

“And as we dealt with snow showers and snow drifts this morning, many residents reached out to my office to ask why nonessential workers were not given the day off since the state of emergency was still in place. Even county government was shut down today as the weather conditions posed dangerous risks to motorists. I’ll continue to try and get answers from the governor’s office as to why our state workers were not given the day off and instead were forced to risk their safety trying to get into work.”