Our trip to Albany to protest the cuts proposed by the Governor and ultimately adopted by the NYS Senate and Assembly blew my mind for a few basic reasons.

We left on time.

We had 73 people loaded on to two chartered, wheelchair-lift equipped buses on the road at 7:00 AM. This was exactly the time we had planned to leave. No glitches, no hitches. All of our activists were ready to go, the drivers were on time and our crew of bus loaders was incredible.

We were met by roughly 100 activists from all across the state.

As the Rochester contingent lined up inside the Empire State Plaza and marched toward the Capitol Building, we were joined by activists from Buffalo, Syracuse, NYC, Auburn, Albany, Olean, Plattsburgh, Binghamton, North Country, Westchester and others that I’m currently forgetting. It was an awesomely diverse coalition from across the state. The geographic diversity came in very handy when Kevin Cleary, Harvey Rosenthal and myself were trying to connect the media to people from their region.

We did a great job of low-intensity protesting in the Governor’s War Room.

The chanting of the 150 or so people filling the “War Room” was loud and clear. While I positioned and kept in touch with two small teams that were handing out information at the Senate and Assembly Chambers, the chants could be heard echoing up the stairs. It was great for me to watch new people move up to lead chants, including Amanda Jarrett who had literally been shaking with nervousness just two hours before leading a crowd of 150 people demanding that the Governor “Stop the cuts!”

We did an amazing job of turning up the heat in a protest at the doors to the Governor’s chambers.

After lunch had been served, eaten, and the garbage cleaned away, all our activists moved into the hallway leading to the secured doors to the Governor’s Chambers. When the cops demanded a path, we gave them a zigzag. And again, the chanting was loud, clear, strong and unending.

We got the door open and got control of the door to the Governor’s Chambers.

It’s awesome to watch a plan play out. We thought we might eventually need to have the doors open so we could get our chanting back into the chambers, so we left a small cushion so that the Troopers would feel comfortable opening the door for the bureaucrats and business people that had meetings with the Governor and the upper brass. When the Troopers opened the door for one brazen bureaucrat, Debbie Bonomo lurched her chair forward and after chaos ensued, Debbie was still propping that door open, despite the four Troopers that had tried to lift, tug, and tow Debbie off that door. That simple action is why we got our meeting with the Governor.

We met with the Governor!

After the short siege at the doors, the Governor’s staff agreed to have eight of our representatives meet with the Governor and several key staff. We selected a group that was diverse by geography and disability and went in to meet with Governor Paterson. We met with the Governor for roughly 45 minutes, an incredible amount of time considering the intensity of political action across the Capitol all day long.

In the end, we did not stop the bulk of the cuts. As frustrating as that is, I found the Governor to be frank and sincere as he explained that he agreed with us in many regards that they were not the right cuts and that the budget should be developed in a more intelligent manner that enables people with disabilities to live more independent lives. He pointed to problems with the legislature in an election year as being the driving factor for why he had to propose budget cuts with an ax, rather than a scalpel.

Governor Paterson firmly committed to working with us in developing the 2009-2010 budget. He committed to hearing our ideas on how savings can be realized by reducing or eliminating the expensive institutional services that people do not want and our state cannot afford, and replacing them with community-based services. Our job as activists will be to ensure that this does happen.

McDonalds had NO hamburgers left for dinner!

Perhaps the only thing more rare than a meeting with a Governor – a McDonalds with no burgers! After we ordered about 150 double cheeseburgers for lunch for people for all across the state, when Rochester was looking for dinner, we were told that McDonalds could not fill the order because they were out of burgers. As our ADAPTers enjoyed their chicken sandwich for dinner, they were shocked to find the true cause of this sudden swing to a more healthy meat!