Gov. Cuomo addresses the media at the Hotel Saranac on Sunday morning. (Enterprise photo — Griffin Kelly)

SARANAC LAKE — Gov. Andrew Cuomo stopped by the Hotel Saranac to promote tourism and congratulate 45th District Sen. Betty Little in her last year of service with the state Legislature.

Afterward, he went snowmobiling with his daughters and a few of their friends in Gabriels.

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Cuomo promoted New York’s free snowmobiling weekend March 14 and 15 for all out-of-state and Canadian riders. Normally, non-New Yorkers must be registered with the state, which costs $100, before riding on any trails.

“That’s our message today. Snowmobiling is just another great way to be here,” he said. “That’s all it is. I don’t care if you come hiking, if you come fishing, if you come bird watching. Just come and be here.”

He announced $4 million in grants will go toward snowmobile trail maintenance throughout the state in addition to a currently underway $4 million ad campaign for I Love New York.

New York has nearly 10,000 miles of snowmobile trails that are maintained and developed by more than local 200 clubs.

State Office of Parks Recreation and Historic Preservation Commissioner Erik Kulleseid said the grants for trial maintenance grants are part of a program the state runs every year.

“It’s distributed by the counties to the 230 clubs that maintain our trails,” he said. “We give it out in 45 counties to 51 different organizations, and those grants are given out as grants so the clubs can take care of this tremendous resource.”

Kulleseid said snowmobiling is a “tremendous industry” in New York, but he didn’t have any numbers on hand to support its importance.

According to 2018-19 state Snowmobile Unit Report, $5,159,630 was collected from 106,678 registrations.

Cuomo said he owes many of the successes in the North Country to state investments in tourism and economic development.

“When we started with the North Country, the unemployment rate was 10% and change,” he said. “Today, 5% and change, just about half.

“Tourism now brings in $1.2 billion to the North Country.”

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Little’s state public service began when she was elected to the 109th Assembly District in 1995. She was 55 then and will turn 80 in September 2020. She was elected to the state Senate in 2002.

Despite being on opposite sides of the aisle, Cuomo said he and Little knew how to work together for the past nine years. He mentioned today’s political climate, which is often seen as polarizing.

“We are in a crazy world of politics right now,” he said. “Everything is hyper-partisan and hyper-political and everybody’s annoyed and everybody’s pointing fingers and everything is polarized and there’s no discussion. It’s all yelling.

“Senator Little is a Republican. I’m a Democrat. That doesn’t mean we don’t want the same thing. And it doesn’t mean we don’t have the same values. And it doesn’t mean one of us is wrong or one of us is bad and one of us is good. It means we want to have a discussion and a dialog about how we achieve the things we all want to achieve. And maybe, I’m not all right all the time.”

Cuomo said he and Little have always found ways to come to agreements with each other.

“I don’t think we’ve ever had a difficult conversation in nine years,” he said.

Cuomo said he’s sad to see Little step away from the Legislature at the end of this term.

“She did beautiful work, and that’s what public service is supposed to be,” he said. “You make a sacrifice. You go work with public servants. You take time from your family. But you make your community better.”

Little then joined Cuomo at the podium, and the two hugged.