For nearly five years, Unconventional Concepts, Inc. has fought through the Adirondack Park Agency's regulatory process over a proposed private research and testing project in Essex County.

I support UCI, but this petition is no longer about one permit.

The UCI case has exposed a much larger question: What protection does an ordinary citizen, property owner, researcher, farmer, or business have when a powerful state administrative agency is accused of exceeding reasonable constitutional and procedural limits?

Right now, county governments are too often expected to stand on the sidelines while residents fight state agencies individually, at enormous financial and legal cost.

That needs to change.

We call upon the Oneida County Board of Legislators, county legislatures throughout the Adirondack region, and other willing New York counties to establish an independent county and inter-county oversight framework for state administrative actions affecting their residents.

The purpose should be straightforward: protect due process, property rights, equal treatment under law, transparent government, and the constitutional rights of citizens dealing with powerful state agencies.

We ask participating county legislatures to:

Establish an independent oversight board capable of reviewing credible complaints of state administrative overreach affecting county residents, property owners, and businesses.
Hold public hearings and create an evidentiary record when residents allege that a state agency has abused its authority, denied meaningful due process, imposed unreasonable regulatory delay, or acted without clear and consistently applied standards.
Coordinate between counties when the same state agency or regulatory structure affects residents across county boundaries.
Support appropriate litigation, legislative reform, amicus participation, and other lawful challenges necessary to determine the constitutional boundaries between state administrative power and local self-government.
Use the UCI case as an immediate case study for examining whether New York's present system provides adequate protection when an applicant alleges years of regulatory delay, shifting requirements, and denial of constitutional rights.
This is deliberately bigger than Unconventional Concepts.

Today it may be an unconventional defense research company. Tomorrow it may be a farmer, manufacturer, small business, landowner, energy project, engineer, or ordinary family confronting a state bureaucracy with resources far greater than their own.

Government agencies must be subject to the Constitution too.

County legislators are elected to represent the people who live in their counties. They should have a meaningful mechanism to investigate, document, challenge, and respond when those citizens believe state administrative power has crossed constitutional boundaries.

If New York State believes counties have no authority to establish such protections, then that disagreement should not remain an abstract political argument. The constitutional boundaries should be tested through the lawful judicial process.

I stand with Unconventional Concepts.

I stand with property owners and businesses that deserve due process.

And I support the creation of independent local oversight capable of challenging state administrative overreach wherever it occurs.

Sign this petition and demand that our county legislatures act.

The complete UCI record, constitutional arguments, public filings, official responses, and campaign materials are available at IStandWithUCI.com.