An Albany Common Councilor is joining the New York State Assembly to represent the 109th district.
At the start of 2021, Gabriella Romero was an attorney in the Albany County Public Defender's office. Born and raised in Albany, the Albany Law School grad decided to enter the race to fill the 6th ward Common Council seat previously held by Richard Conti. She won the election and took office in January 2022. But early in 2024, Neil Breslin, the dean of the New York state Senate, announced he would not seek a 15th term. That opened an opportunity for 109th district Assemblymember Pat Fahy to run for Breslin's seat, which led to a scramble among Democrats interested in filling Fahy's position. Among them, Romero had already built a strong reputation on the council, and her fate was sealed with the backing of the Working Families Party.
"It has been such a whirlwind over the last few months," said Romero, "whether it's meeting with future Senator Fahy, getting a grip on all the work that she's been doing, meeting with local advocacy groups and local groups in the district to really get a firm grasp on all of the amazing work that's happening in not only Albany, but really Guilderland and New Scotland, the local elected officials. Not only the work that's happening, but frankly, the intense critical, negative issues that are happening as well, that need my immediate attention."
Romero says she embraced the orientation process and that serving in the Assembly is exactly what she wanted. She's ready to pick up Fahy's constituent issues, saying she'll handle them in her own style.
"The whole entire city of Albany will be Pat Fahy and Gabriella Romero. And that's very cool, that's very special, and that's very exciting, and I think that that is a uniquely special opportunity for both of us," Romero said.
When it comes to Governor Kathy Hochul's agenda, Romero predicts shortfalls in the proposed state budget and is particularly concerned about what she calls New Yorkers' "affordability crisis" and Hochul's promised tax relief checks.
"There's a lot of holes in the budget, especially with the MTA and with some of these downstate issues that's going on right now," said Romero. "These one shot checks are just not necessarily the best use of, in my personal belief, I'm not speaking for anyone other than myself, might not just necessarily be the best use of taxpayer dollars. We could do so much more with those millions and millions of dollars that people could see real investments in them."
Romero plans to collaborate with Fahy to address district-specific issues. Having seen the city's side of the financial equation, Romero says capital city funding is her "highest and most important priority." Pointing to its abundant untaxable property, the city annually leaves a multimillion dollar hole in its budget to be filled by direct state aid.
"We're this capital city, and we're not living in abundance the way we should," said Romero. "If you look at our budgets, and if you look at our city, we're really at a point where, we're at an impasse, really like we need, we need this capital city funding and to get us beyond this point, we need it to be permanent. So I think this is our year. I think we're at a point where the governor is ready and willing and excited to invest in Albany. So I feel hopeful that maybe that this is the year to do it."
Romero says in the Assembly she'll continue to push for affordable housing and support measures addressing the housing crisis through building, tackling zoning issues and subsidizing new construction.
"I'm, kind of flabbergasted as to why, like, we're in this middle ground of people want more housing, but, but we can't, kind of build it, and we're at this impasse of like, well, 'the mayor says we can't have it because of inclusionary zoning,' but yet, nowhere else across the state that has inclusionary zoning is necessarily also saying that. So how do we actually fix this problem? Is it a state level issue? Is it like a federal issue? And I as a representative, am like, 'huh, how do I pass legislation to kind of fix it?'"
Romero says it's important for New York to quickly enact legislation in response to the incident at the Marcy Correctional Facility in Oneida County that led to the death of inmate Robert Brooks.
"Is it through more video cameras? Is it through more transparency? Do we need more constant surveillance? I'm not exactly sure. I look forward to working with my colleagues to make sure that there is an answer and that we can create legislation and pass it swiftly so that there is explicit and tangible measure that we can enact to make sure that there's something that that we can do to make sure that this doesn't happen again," Romero said.
Romero sees Democratic Party unity as a critical national, state and local issue, playing a key role in this year's Albany mayoral election with Mayor Kathy Sheehan leaving after three terms.
"We should be choosing, especially in primaries, people that can bring together as many people as possible," said Romero. "That can unify and break barriers, tenant- homeowner, you know, student-non student, break barriers across socioeconomic status and race, gender. You know, this is the type of thing that we need to really do, the work, capital W, the hard work that I think people might not have done in this past election, to truly, truly bring people together."
Romero says she'll apply all of her knowledge and experience gained as a councilor as she transitions into her new role representing the people. She urges anyone who has ever thought about running for office, to go for it.
