Upstate NY Secessionist Names Breakaway Province
“New Amsterdam” To Harken Back To “Virgin Land”
tutional amendment. New Yorkers get the opportunity to vote for a constitutional convention every 20 years and, wouldn’t you know it,
the next chance is 2017. The proposed amendment would split the state into two autonomous regions while maintaining a token state
government with no real power, sidestepping
those currently in office. The regions would
then be free to rip up existing budgets and rewrite the tax code and “regional” laws at will.
By Nathan Tempey
September 2, 2015
John Bergener, Jr. is a retired IT guy who lives in
Latham, a suburb of Albany. He’s also active
with the Upstate Conservative Coalition, and
lately he has been taking calls from reporters
thanks to his involvement with a group called
the Divide New York Caucus. The caucus doesn’t have regular meetings, and Bergener said he
The city and its suburbs pay billions more
doesn’t know how many people are involved,
to the state in tax money than they receive, so
but it is supposedly active in a third of upstate’s
this could have its advantages for downstate.
53 (according to its definition) counties. What
got the attention of
Albany’s
Times-Union,
the
Finger Lake Times,
and
Gothamist,
among others, is its
mission: to sever
New York state
above Westchester
County from the
state’s economic engine, New York City
and its suburbs.
Theirs is far
from the first such
proposal, but the
specifics are novel.
Because actual secession would require legislative and
congressional
approval, the group is
pushing for a consti-
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It’s just autonomous regions. Internally, a state
can give any powers to local government it
wishes.
But Bergener claims upstaters don’t need our
stinking money, and that upstate’s vast,
sparsely populated region dotted by post-industrial cities actually needs lower taxes, because the current system is keeping businesses
away.
What is your view on Start Up NY,
Cuomo’s plan to give tax breaks to lure businesses here? What that basically is, is a form of
crony capitalism. If you have the proper connections, you can be exempted from the property tax and the income tax. And if you don’t
have the proper connections, you can’t.
So it will help a little bit, probably. It hasn’t
yet, though. It will help a few start-ups here and
there. But the only way you can get businesses
to come in here currently is you have to exempt
them from all the taxes and regulations you
normally impose. In a densely populated area,
if you impose those regulations, there’s enough
side business that makes it worthwhile to make
a company locate. But when it’s not densely
populated, the same regulations kill you.
The campaign has drawn support from gun
rights and pro-fracking activists upstate, and a
Brooklynite is promoting his own version
through a Change.org petition (he wants to call
the new downstate region “Gotham,” which admittedly would be great for our brand).
Bergener’s fellow board members are all
also retired, giving them ample time to refine
the platform, considering such burning questions as the New York City water supply (we’d
get to continue owning it) and whether to support a dormant Long Island secession campaign
(they’re for it).
Yesterday we gave Bergener a ring to get
What has the response been like so far?
more information on the plan, and why he
thinks he can up and take the name New Am- Extremely good. We’ve got a lot of groups that
have been in support of us now, and we got insterdam from us.
This interview has been edited for length and vited to a rally in Bainbridge this Sunday that
was very successful. A lot of the people that
clarity.
were thinking of seceding to Pennsylvania deDo you mind explaining your role with
cided that our idea was more workable, bethe group Divide New York and how it opercause if you move a town from one state to
ates? Divide New York State Caucus is a New
another, you also have to get congressional apYork state political committee. We were formed
proval. Our plan doesn’t, and we have the opabout a year ago. Before that we were operating
tion of bypassing the state legislature if we have
informally. Our roots go back about seven
to.
years.
As far as the economic impact, I’ve seen
How did you get started? We were talking
the argument— Which study?
about various ways of trying to solve the lack of
The Rockefeller Institute study [that
jobs upstate. And we couldn’t find anyway to
do it without lessening the regulations the up- shows the city pays out 45 percent of the
state government imposes on us. Since they’re state’s taxes and gets just 40 percent back]
never going to change, the only option is to [pdf]. Well first of all, they’re apples and orbreak away. It never happens because you have anges.
to have Congress approve it, and Congress isn’t
How so? They’re talking about starting a
going to give the Northeast two more Senate new state.
seats in the foreseeable future.
The Rockefeller study isn’t so much
Because the Western states are so much about starting a new state as it is how tax
bigger than us, they think the states in the money is distributed within the state curNortheast are too small already, especially New rently. Well, under our plan, expensive things
England. So we looked into it further and we like pensions would stay unchanged at the todiscovered we could divide ourselves into re- ken state level, because they were an obligagions, because that’s not forming a new state. tion that both regions owe. Also, we would
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Do you have a background in politics or
release all localities from any mandate that
wasn’t approved at the regional level, which in activism that brought you to this point? I
used to be a neighborhood association presiwould allow a lot lower property taxes.
dent
years ago. But not really much of a backAs far as the study, it looks like the big
disproportionate state funding towards up- ground in politics. A little.
Are you surprised by the level of media
interest in this? I didn’t think we’d get this far
so quickly, no. It’s because the plan actually
will work. And it actually will bypass the powers that be.
state is in general purpose, which covers a lot
of stuff, including housing, courts, and economic development, and also roads. I was
wondering how the new regions plan would
cope with the loss of that. Like I said, some
costs are going to remain at the state level, so
that makes a difference. The other thing is [the
Rockefeller Institute] draws the line differently. The income we have with the line as it’s
currently positioned [at Westchester County]
would make us compatible with the economic
system in Vermont—we’d have more income
than Vermont does. And they maintain their
roads.
Is there a dominant feature of this that is
appealing to people? I know people came to
the rally with a lot of different reasons for wanting to be involved. The current system isn’t
working for upstate. In some ways it doesn’t
work for downstate, too, because a lot of major
issues are blocked by the legislature. Like I
know rent control is always modified by the
legislature based on state pressure. I’m sure
It’s a redistribution. A lot of the things that there are other cases of that.
are currently done, the unfunded mandates,
Yeah, I could rattle off a few. Have you
raise the cost of everything. It costs a lot more to heard from any politicians about this proposal?
repair a road in New York than it does in Ver- I’m not allowed to say.
mont or Pennsylvania. The excuse they always
I was wondering how you guys can claim
give is [upstaters] can’t afford to support ourNew
Amsterdam when that was the original
selves. Well the economic development part,
the reason they have to spend so much money name of the city of New York. It’s very simple:
for economic development upstate is because New Amsterdam was New York before it got
messed up. Back when it was mostly virgin
the business taxes are so high.
land.
Also, to open a business you currently have
The city or the state? Both.
to go to like six different state agencies, dependAnd what about the Native American
ing on your type of business, to get all your required permits. Then you have to do two or people who were here? Well, I would assume
three local [permits]. Whereas there’s no reason the Native American people that were here
the Commerce Department couldn’t handle all probably didn’t like colonists taking over, but
business permits and just pass them on to the that’s history.
other agencies.
So you’re not proposing an actual recreWe would also want to eliminate duplicate ation of the conditions of this area in the
elections. If you’re an upstate voter, you have to 1600s. [Soft-spoken up to this point, Bergener
vote five or six times a year. You have the pri- bursts out laughing] That’s a good one. No, of
mary election. You have the general election. course not. That’s a good joke, though. I’ll have
You have the fire district election. You have the to use that the next time I do a speech, if you
school election. And in some places, if you’re in don’t mind.
the village, you have the village election. And
You can’t rewrite history. There’s good
they’re all held at different times. And of course and bad in all history. What you try to do is
there’s the federal primary in June.
strive forward from today and improve things.
I take it you’d want to streamline that un- We feel this would improve things. It would
der the new system. Right. There’s a host of oth- make things much clearer. Theoretically there
would be fewer fights between groups, because
ers, but that’s one.
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most of the densely populated areas would really have a pitch. I’m not much of a pitch
have different needs than the sparsely popu- man. It’d be helpful if I was one.
lated areas.
What would happen to the tolls collected
A rule that works well in a densely popu- on the New York Thruway? Public authorities
lated area doesn’t always work well in a across the regional boundary would be divided
sparsely populated area. When your nearest by the appropriate region. So there would be a
neighbor is 300, 400 feet away, you care less New Amsterdam Thruway and a New York
what they do with their land than if they’re four Thruway, and each one would handle its own
tolls. If an authority is totally within a region,
feet from you.
Do you feel like the needs of places like then that region gets full control over that auBuffalo and Rochester and Syracuse and Al- thority. We made one exception for Metro Railbany would be represented in this new forma- road North [sic], we just put that at the token
tion? Yes they would. Because one of the major state level.
problems we have is most families that have
Is there any particular reason? That has to
adult children, their kids have to move out of run as one thing. You couldn’t draw a line and
state to find a good-paying job.
say, “Okay, we change engineers here.” That
If you go down in New York, in Manhattan would be insane.
area, it seems like it’s a much younger city than
Clearly this is an upstate-led movement
if you come up to Albany, or Buffalo, or Roches- thus far. I know on the license plate you guys
ter. And that’s because a good certain portion of are putting out, it calls New Amsterdam “The
the young people have had to relocate.
Best NY Region.” I was wondering if you
Probably some of them have relocated to could make the case for it being New York’s
best region. [Downstaters] could put that on
New York City. A few probably have, yeah.
their license plate, too. We could have two peoWould you describe your aims as ultiple claiming to be the best region. Or they could
mately libertarian? Our aims are to create two
just leave their license plate as New York if they
regions. I wouldn’t phrase it any other way. Evwanted to. Usually wherever you live you conery one of those words has good and bad meansider it the best. It’s subjective.
ings depending on your point of view. And our
goal is to create two autonomous regions
and hopefully
benefit both of
them.
Clearly
there
are
things about
the plan that
would benefit
the New York
City area, but
do you have a
pitch tailored
to a city audience?
You
Sure. Similarly, on one of the flyers for
wouldn’t have to send as many tax dollars upthe
rally,
it depicts a beaver and says the roots
state because we’d keep our own and be able to
shouldn’t
be feeding the tree, the tree being
attract businesses to produce our own. I don’t
New York City, and the implication being that
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New York City doesn’t create the
resources that it uses. And I was
wondering if you could explain
what’s behind that. I’m not the author of that, so I don’t know.
Do you agree with that sentiment? I like the political cartoon. It’s
a very nice artist. I really hadn’t
thought about it much. We’re a distributed organization; we all have a
common goal; and we all have different ways of getting about it. And I
can’t answer every piece of this, unfortunately.
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