With less than a day before New York’s legislative session begins, Democratic Assemblywoman Carrie Woerner is setting her priorities for the next year.
You know, what I'm really going to be listening for is some systemic change to address affordability, and some some inquiry into, why is housing so expensive? Why is health insurance so expensive? Why is the price of energy and home heating so expensive? Why? Why does it cost so much to buy food to really look at what are the policy origins of the increase in pricing that we're seeing? You know, some of it, obviously, is some, you know, residual supply chain issues. Some of it is rising labor costs. But there's, there is probably more than that. And, and I don't, I'm, I don't think that just providing a $300 or $500 one time check is the way to deal with affordability. It is. It really is going to take us looking hard at at what in the what is driving up the cost of business in New York that is being passed on to consumers in terms of higher prices. And so I'm really looking for her to show some leadership on that.
What are going to be some of your legislative priorities, you know, once you guys hit the ground running?
Yeah, so, you know, I am really, I'm really thinking about, how do we, you know, what is, how do we get more starter homes? How do we increase attainability of homes for first time home buyers, as well as for downsizing seniors in our community? Because I think about the continuum of housing options, and because we don't have the ability for young people to make that switch from being a renter to being an owner. I think that that that creates a shortage in the rental market, which is which is helping to drive up the cost of rent. So I want to see us looking at housing and what can we do in terms of infrastructure costs, in terms of making sure that there's an adequate workforce to make sure that that we're we have enough people to do these jobs, and therefore we're not, we're not dealing with higher costs of labor because of a workforce shortage. So I want to really dig in and work on some of that in terms of energy costs, I think that we have to do a better job of balancing our desire to shift to alternative energy sources with the cost to consumers and and we have to, we have to really think about how to manage this process in a way that doesn't make energy doesn't drive energy costs higher for consumers. Because right now, I think what's happening is the that the energy companies, with all the upgrades they have to make to the grid to accommodate a wealth of distributed energy sources, it is creating, it's adding a lot of cost. Likewise, because we don't, because the technology for battery for utility scale, battery storage is not yet been developed and commercialized. We have, we we have a reliance on more expensive back. We have to have basically duplicate power. We have to have, not just the renewable power, but we have to have that same capacity in other forms of generation, so that if the sun isn't shining or the wind isn't blowing, we can still heat our houses and power our businesses. So it's, I think, being more thoughtful about this transition and factoring in both reliability, availability as well as consumer cost, is something we have to factor in. But one of the things I really want to be clear on is I don't think the answer to these questions is, let's just subsidize the cost for certain groups of consumers. That's not the answer. That's a that's a shortcut. But the real answer has to be, let's think about how to do this in a way that takes. To account the cost to consumers and design solutions that will provide for renewable, non fossil based fuel that is reliable and available when it's needed at a cost the consumers can afford. That that that's the that's the problem statement, and we need to find a solution that meets that problem statement. And I feel that that we've been up to this point, not really taking reliability and consumer cost into account in the in the solutioning to how do we, how do we drive towards a transition to zero emissions. I know we need to do that.
As far as affordable housing and getting more housing options on the market, Saratoga Springs was recently able to pass, finally, after many years, their own local short term rental legislation at the state level, Governor Hochul has, you know, has said she would sign on and approve the statewide regulations with, you know, now this new chapter, yes, coming to amend it. Are you concerned at all about what that what that chapter might include?
I have sort of a rough outline of it that I've been told I've not seen it, but I think it provides, instead of the it quite simply, instead of the state housing the short term rental registry database, each county will have the ability to opt in to create their own version of it. And and while I think, personally it would be, it would be less expensive overall, and more more manageable if there was a centralized database, you know, from Saratoga County's perspective and from the Association of County's perspective, I think, I think the county's happy to to have control so and they can opt in or opt out if they if they don't, if they choose to. So I feel like it's, it isn't everything that we wanted, but it, it is a workable solution. And I think it gets to, it gets to the ultimate goal, which was to have a source of information about what is happening in the short term rental market. You know, what is the what is where are they? How intensely are they used? How are you know? How do we, and excuse me, to give us enough information, or to give the communities enough information to be able to decide how they want to, if they want to, and how they want to regulate the licensing of short term rentals. So it's, you know, like I said, not everything we wanted, but I think it's a good first step, and it'll get us mostly what we need.
following the closure of great meadow and the terrible and tragic killing of Robert Brooks, the state of New York's prisons is sort of in this weird conversation, especially, you know, given your the conversations that have happened within your district, starting with great meadow right, following the discussions that I that you've been having with locals there. I mean, where, where does that lie? What are those conversations, where'd we leave the local community off?
So I think we're, we're clearly looking for a couple of things, one for the state to provide some financial assistance to Washington County to make up for the loss of economic activity that the closure of the prison represents, while we are looking for the second piece of that, which is to try and figure out relatively quickly, how can that site be redeveloped? What can it be redeveloped as there's there was some, there was an article in the paper, and not too many months ago, about a real success that they've had down in Orange County, redeveloping one of the closed prisons down there. So I think we're gonna, we're gonna look at that as a just as a source of inspiration on what did it take to to make that happen. And then, and then lastly, there's this, these great meadow, it turns out, is in a forest preserve County. And so we need, just like with McGregor, we need some legislation to be passed and then a constitutional amendment to get that facility out of the forest preserve so that it can be redeveloped. So, you know, those are the sort of three things at the moment I'm really, I really think are top of mind for for dealing with the closure of Great Meadow.
Robert Brooks was, you know, beaten by correctional officers at Mercy Correctional Facility. The governor responded. The AGs office has now passed the prosecution off. What do you think needs to happen at the state level?
I visit prisons just about every year, and and I, as I walk in the front door, I say to myself, the state has an obligation to ensure that everybody who walks in the front door, whether they are walking in for a period of incarceration or they're walking in for a day's work, leaves that building with their health and well being and able to live their best life. And what I have observed in the prisons, and what I have seen in the statistics about violence in the prisons, what I have heard from constituents, what I have heard from officers who are constituents, and certainly, what we have seen in the news this last week tells me that the violence in our correctional facilities is out of control. You know, it is especially egregious when agents of the state are the actors in the violence that is. That is especially egregious, and I hope that the Attorney General, or now the the District Attorney in Oneida County, fully pursues justice for Mr. Brooks. But to see this as an isolated incident would be to completely ignore the reality of what's happening inside our corrections facilities. That when you look at the when you look at the trend lines, which are which are so sanitized, but when you look at the trend lines on three different they have three different lines. One is, you know, inmates or incarcerated individuals who assault other incarcerated individuals. One is corrections officers who use excessive use of force on incarcerated individuals, and one is incarcerated individuals who assault officers. All three of those lines, the angle on the line, the trend line, is going up at a scary level. We have to look. At not just the personnel failures that created a culture that allowed what happened to Mr. Brooks to happen, but also the policy failures that are creating in our prisons an opportunity for so much violence. And I hope that with my colleagues in the legislature that we can begin to address the policy failures, and I hope that the governor and her Commissioner will address the personnel failures.
Looking at healthcare, healthcare access with some of the more rural parts of your district—what needs to happen in the coming year? What do you want to be able to achieve, be able to say that you've achieved?
Yeah. So I continue to be focused on the issues of nursing care, nursing home, nursing home care, access to in home nursing care, as well as access to dental care in in underserved areas. So while the while the access to health care and the cost of health care is a big, broad issue, and there are many, many areas that people are focusing on, and I support almost all of those. For me, the piece that I'm really driving on is nursing homes helping our our nursing homes be financially stable, looking for ways to leverage existing resources in the community to better serve in home care, particularly for newly discharged from the hospital patients and then, and then dental care. So those are, those are my health care priorities. As I said, there's a lot of there's a lot of ways in which our health care system needs to be improved. And I am, I'm I am working with my colleagues who are driving those areas to make sure that that we get some of these things, these critical areas, addressed.