MIDDLETOWN – Some 200 people packed the Middletown Common Council chambers to support a proposal for the city to create a municipal identification card program. Many of the supporters were from the regional group Nobody Leaves Mid-Hudson.
The ID would be available to all residents, including undocumenteds, homeless and transgenders, those returning from incarceration, seniors, youths and others, but Mayor Joseph DeStefano said after the session that it would be a program not just aimed at the immigrant community.
“This is a program that many communities are doing to establish pride in the community, to offer everyone in the community the opportunity to have a residency ID, to pay in-city rates for recreational programs,” DeStefano said. “Communities use it for a variety of different things. Everything we do has a positive and a negative to each individual. Whether this is a duplication of other services, it doesn’t really matter. It is another service that we can offer.”
Alderman Jerry Kleiner, whose committee is spearheading the effort, said it has begun the process to craft legislation creating the municipal ID program.
Nobody Leaves Mid-Hudson is also hoping other cities will adopt the program including Newburgh, Poughkeepsie, Beacon and Kingston.
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