“How you treat animals, tells me everything I need to know about you.”

“How hard you fight to keep dogs on chains, tells me even more about you.”

The very first Public Safety meeting I attended, Mark Henry pounded his fist on the table and got in my face in order to intimidate me and make me go away. The entire time we have been fighting for a Dog Tethering Law, he has done everything he can to stop us.

1. According to the Legislative Rules of Order, each public speaker is allowed “up to 5 minutes to speak.” Whenever we attended legislature meetings we had our time severely limited. We had people show up with speeches they spent a lot of time writing and mid-way through their speech Mark Henry would cut them off. The State’s Meeting Laws say that if you allow public speaking in a meeting, you must allow for both positive and negative comments. With Mark Henry, if he just doesn’t like what you have to say, he’ll stop you, and not let you finish speaking.
2. Back in August of 2024 about 15 of us showed up to the monthly (public) Public Safety Committee meeting. We waited an hour in the waiting room to be seen. When it was our turn Mark Henry and Calvin Castine refused to allow us in the meeting. He sent another legislator out to talk us out of going into the meeting. After the fact, they of course denied doing this only saying that we could have gone in if we wanted to. (This was a violation of the NY State Open Meeting laws.) No we couldn’t have gone in to the meeting. That was made very clear to us. We waited an hour to be seen for nothing.
3. During our Resolution vote back in October 2024, Mark Henry pushed the resolution vote when two legislators were absent. We were therefore denied a public hearing. June 6, 2025 he voted against allowing the county a public hearing a second time.
4. In January 2025 Mark Henry amended the Legislative Rules of Order so that posters are no longer allowed in the legislative chambers. He made the change after we brought posters of chained dogs into a meeting.
5. When Legislator Wendell Hughes was elected Mayor of Plattsburgh, Mark Henry gave his vacant seat on the Public Safety Committee to a Republican. This meant there are now (3) Republicans and only (1) Democrat on the Public Safety Committee. This means Mark Henry can control what passes at the Committee level.
6. Mark Henry banned the entire county from addressing the legislature on the Dog Tethering Law. We are not allowed to speak on this issue in any regular session legislature meeting. This means he has banned thousands and thousands of supporters from speaking on this issue.
7. In the Spring of 2025, Mark Henry violated the State’s Open Meeting Laws yet again when he did not allow members of our group to even speak on an “unrelated topic” in three separate legislature regular session meetings. He had just banned the entire county from speaking on the Dog Tethering Law, and then would not allow us to speak on an “unrelated topic” either. After, he denied that he violated the open meeting laws, even though it’s all on record and in the meeting minutes. When we filed a complaint with the Clinton County Board of Ethics, Judge McGill did absolutely nothing. One legislator indicated that if they stand up to Mark Henry he can make sure the resolutions they support do not pass. This means that as the Chairman, Mark Henry controls everything that passes at the Clinton County Legislature. He is untouchable. Any complaint you file against him, or any news station you notify, nobody will do anything to Mark Henry.

Unfortunately Mark Henry is not up for election until 2027.

Mark Henry phone: (518) 578-4359 E-mail: mark.henry@clintoncountyny.gov