Binghamton Mayor Ryan Working Hard on City’s Top Priority

Binghamton, NY’s anti-drilling mayor, Matt Ryan, is hard at work on the city’s top priority. There’s the mundane “usual stuff” a mayor does. You know, trying to attract new business to the area, generate jobs, lower taxes, ensure the city attracts more welfare recipients…all of the things you would expect from a hard-working mayor like Matt. But then there’s the “top priority” really really important stuff that takes up the majority of this great man’s time. Like organizing anti-fracking concerts featuring singers you’ve never heard of. Yessiree, that’s good ole Matt hard at work, doing the people’s business:

Singer and songwriter Natalie Merchant has scheduled a concert next month at The Forum [in Binghamton] to aid a local organization opposed to hydraulic fracturing in New York State.

Merchant, originally from Jamestown, will be the main act at an event starting at 7 p.m. March 10 at the downtown facility, which will include The Horse Flies and Sandra Steingraber of the Department of Environmental Studies and Sciences at Ithaca College.

Organizers, including Binghamton Mayor Matthew T. Ryan, announced the concert Tuesday and described the event as a "benefit concert to promote clean waterways."

Ryan said the concert will raise awareness about the community’s top priority to "protect health, safety and vitality."

Tickets are priced between $30 and $70.*

*Ithaca Journal (Feb 3, 2012) – Natalie Merchant to perform at anti-fracking concert