The Schenectady County Legislature has a new leader.
Gary Hughes, the former leader of the Democratic majority, will serve as the body’s new chairman. Hughes, who says he’s excited and optimistic about the future of Schenectady County, replaces former chair Anthony Jasenski, who served in the role for 10 years.
Hughes, of the 2nd District, was appointed by the legislature to serve as chair for the new two-year term.
WAMC's Lucas Willard caught up with Hughes this week and asked about how his responsibilities will change with the new position.
Well, our outgoing chair, Tony Jasenski, did a great job of keeping the rest of the leadership team that would be the majority leader, the vice chair, the deputy chair in the loop. But there is a tremendous amount of detail that just passes by the chairman as a matter of course in order to, you know, for the county government to function because unlike counties where there is an executive, Schenectady is one of those places that are our charter establishes that the legislature can create the position of county manager, but the chief elected in the county is really the chair of the legislature. So, it's that step from part of the leadership team to really what makes it onto the agenda, what needs to be addressed. And it's a range of issues. It's all the way from staffing at the nursing home to libraries to economic development. So, it's a lot more detail.
Are there any issues that you're really excited to jump into as the chair of the county legislature versus the majority leader?
There's two that come to mind. The first is that our outgoing chair, Tony Jasenski, is going to be chairing a new committee that I formed called Firefighting and EMS, which is short for emergency medical services. I think most people are aware of this, but I actually discovered that it is a bigger issue than you might imagine. There's a real shortage of emergency medical technicians. We don't see it as much in the district that I represent in the City of Schenectady because we have the paramedic, EMT, firefighters. But there are places in Schenectady County where the private ambulance service isn't available, there can be a real shortage of emergency medical services. We also have a couple of towns where that's done as a volunteer service similar to what you'd have with a volunteer fire department. So Tony is going to look into that and come up with some solutions that are intermunicipally based and follow along the lines of what we did with Central Dispatch and our unified radio systems to try to address that particular public safety issue. It has been his life's work. His first public service was actually as an EMT. So it's a topic he knows a lot about and wants to work on. So, I'm excited about that. And we need to make a step forward in our use of electric vehicles throughout the county and the county fleet. We have some. We probably don't have as many as we need or could use. So, I've asked our Ways and Means Committee to go back and review a turn our purchasing specifications to encourage an electric vehicle option for our fleet wherever its possible. So those are two areas that I'm pretty excited about.
So, as we're speaking, the legislative session is getting underway in Albany. Are there any issues that may be before the state legislature in the coming term that you are paying close attention to?
We monitor everything that the state does, because county government is really just an extension of what the state wants to do in terms of delivering services, or providing regulation. I like to say that if the state gets a cold and the county develops pneumonia from a fiscal side, but also the state and the county are very dependent upon one another to implement most changes that the state might be contemplating becoming issues that the county has to address. There's a real close relationship there and we pay extremely close attention to what happens in Albany.
Schenectady County was one of the locales in New York State to receive an influx of migrants that were bussed up from New York City over the summer. Is Schenectady County still in communication with New York City or has it improved is communication with New York City about possibly more migrants arriving in the future?
Well, we continue to have that dialogue primarily through the, through the city's contractor of this organization called DocGo. I have to tell you, that even some of the local officials in the communities that were really affected are saying that, looking back on it, their concerns were perhaps inflated a bit, that the actual transition has been much, much better. There's still an issue around getting work visas. And that's just a problem from the federal government on down, but the day-to-day situation has not proven to be as problematic as people expected. Kids have been welcomed into the school system, and there's some good cooperative learning going on there, so it was…it was some folks I think, who wanted to maybe create an issue where they didn't necessarily need to be an issue. But you know, it's a sensitive topic, and we're pleased we were able to work with it. But we'd appreciate some further communication before that the process continues in that way. Because, you know, it does take time for us to staff up.
In December, the county legislature approved pay raises for county lawmakers that are set to take effect in 2025. What do you think of the pay raises and why do you believe it's unnecessary thing?
Well, I supported the local law and voted for it. I think that it is very difficult for local elected officials to ever consider their salaries. It's a hot issue and it generates a certain amount of controversy. On the other side of that coin, however, you can't find really good qualified people willing to serve unless you're paying a wage that is somewhat competitive with where other county legislatures are paying or whatever, other communities are paying. And our goal here, and I think some of the discussion lost sight of the goal, the goal was to put in place a structure in which our wages or salaries would be indexed to whatever the negotiated increase in our civil service employees’ contract was. I personally find the notion that we would not be good stewards of the taxpayers’ money if we were to put our thumb on the scale at, say, of those negotiations. We would never do that. That's just the antithesis of, of how we've managed to keep the county taxes lower than they were in in 2016. We can't operate that way. And we won't operate that way. And to me, that's a little bit offensive to suggest that that situation might change. But our goal was really to ensure that there'd be an incremental increase each year. And people will know what it is because it'll be published right there in the budget. And they'll see that that small increase, 2 percent or whatever it will be from year to year, or maybe zero, maybe zero. And if we ask our unions to take a zero increase, which we have done, and may have to do again, guess what? We get a zero too. So, I see it as being fair and tying our compensation more closely with that of, of our workforce. That's my, my view. And I know not everyone agrees.
