CHENANGO COUNTY – Assemblyman Clifford Crouch (R-Bainbridge) is reaching out to taxpayers for feedback regarding controversial ideas in the state legislature that could someday split New York into two separate states.

Crouch released a public survey on a Facebook platform last week seeking comments about

Upstate and New York City/Long Island becoming two states. The question’s also posed in his 2017 end of session update newsletter.

The question has received a fair amount of pushback from both sides. In 2015, upstate groups favoring succession rallied in Bainbridge on a manifesto supportive of gun rights and hydraulic fracturing. At the core of their frustration was the NY Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement (SAFE) Act of 2013, and a ban on hydraulic fracturing in New York.

All things considered, the question of succession isn’t black and white, according to some Chenango County leaders. Chenango County Board of Supervisors Chairman Lawrence Wilcox said there’s good and bad on both sides, and that policy makers have to weigh options when it comes to succession.

“I can’t say I haven’t said it would be a good idea,” Wilcox said, citing differing opinions of policy between the two regions. “We in Upstate New York support a lot of things that are different from downstate; but I think that we need to look at how affluence is apportioned, too.”

Wilcox said the money of big downstate industries has a conclusive impact on the dealings of upstate, which he says is no different than any state with a large population disparity between rural and metropolitan regions.

In short, the idea of creating two separate states may never be more than that – an idea, he said.