Republican Allen Caruso says he's running for New York State Assembly because it's time for a change. The Saratoga Springs-based restaurateur and realtor is seeking to unseat 6-term incumbent Democrat Carrie Woerner representing the 113th District.
With early voting set to start on Saturday, Caruso spoke with Southern Adirondack Bureau Chief Aaron Shellow-Lavine.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Editor's note: This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
Caruso: Well, I think there're a couple of ways that you can address affordability and making it more affordable. When it comes to seniors, cutting property taxes and providing better incentives beyond just the star exemption that they receive.
People's homes are their sanctuaries, right? And and when you retire, you didn't retire thinking, 'am I going to be able to afford to stay in my home that you just paid a mortgage on for 30 years?'
And so I think we can look at cutting property taxes. I think another way to bring down. Let's just say one of the drivers is the cost of constructing a house, right? And that's a huge issue, and that's why you're seeing a lot of these housing prices so inflated.
And I talk to a lot of builders, and they talk about the red tape and the regulations and what they have to do right now to to build a house, and the time that that adds to building a house.
They they want kind of like a one shoe fits all, and so they come out with policies and regulations that don't necessarily apply to to different parts of the state, and this is why I think we also need to have more of these regulations and red tape need to be kind of managed at the local level, not so much at Albany because we live in a very different state.
I just went up yesterday in a helicopter, and I took a tour of the 113th district. I didn't see any skyscrapers, no parking lots, no huge shopping centers, right? But I did see a lot of economic development, a lot of growth. Global Foundries, which is great. Glens Falls Hospital, which was named one of the best hospitals in in New York.
I got to see so many different parts from agriculture and tourism and Saratoga Racetrack.
Albany needs to start listening to what the needs are of upstate New Yorkers. And so, getting back to kind of your question with construction, cutting regulations and red tape on building houses so that we can build them quicker. We could also look at providing incentives. We have Knolls Atomic Power Lab here, right? It's the second nuclear training facility for the Navy in the United States. The other one is in Charleston. We can look at programs and incentives for active duty and veterans to be able to afford to buy a house. I think also first time home buyers. Let's not forget about the first time home buyer like yourself. You were just talking about what incentives and what kind of tax benefits can we provide to first-time homebuyers to be able to afford to buy a house and start to build a family. You see a lot of apartments going up across the district, and I'm all about that. But when you have more apartments than you have homes, you start to see transient communities. You don't see people staying in their communities and investing in their communities, and so this is a real issue.
And we definitely need to look at how can we tackle this. And as someone who has been a real estate broker for 17 years, I've spent years working with local communities. I've worked with first-time homebuyers. I've worked with active duty and veterans. I've worked with seniors to downsize. It's really unfortunate to see the housing problem that we have right now. But it's definitely something we can we can address.
Shellow-Lavine: Utility prices for New Yorkers across the state are about to go up as they usually do in the winter time, as a representative at the state level, what would you want to see done to to try and ease some of that pressure on your constituents?
Caruso: I was just at a press conference with John Rich, and he was here with the USDA. He was here on the president's behalf, special envoy, and Alex Fasulo and we were just talking about energy costs and prices and New York is doing a lot to invest in what they think is is sustainable clean energy.
I think we all want you know a more sustainable future for the next generations to come, but really, it's about how how do we do that and how do we get there? And a lot of what we're seeing on our utility bills right now are the surcharges that are going towards this type of infrastructure, and I believe that we need to have a two-phase approach.
So I think that we need to repeal parts of the CLCPA Act. I think we need to look at okay, what are what are we trying to achieve? How are we going to achieve that? And is it affordable on our communities to do this in this time frame? And the answer is, it's just not. We need to look at upgrading our current power generating generators that run off of fossil fuels. A lot of people, when they hear the word fossil fuel it's a bad word. And the thing is, sure we want to get away from that, but today's power generators that New York State has one of the oldest power generating grids in in the world.
Today's technology is so much farther advanced; if the power generators actually burn a lot cleaner. And so, I think if we ease some of these mandates and some of these timelines, right, we could bring down the surcharges on our utility bills, we can ease that pressure on you know on New Yorkers. We can still achieve what we want to achieve if we push out the timelines. What's the impact? So whether it's immediate relief on our utility bills, or let's say we repeal the gas tax right at the pump. What if we give New Yorkers some assistance at the gas pump? We did it in 2022. We see it in states like Florida. Let's try to ease the pressure over here. I think affordability is not a one shoe fits all like Albany likes. That's kind of what I've talked about. Albany likes a one shoe fits all. Affordability is a multifaceted approach, and so you have to tackle it. It's not just one solution. You have to attack it. Whether it be easing mandates on power, or it's easing taxes at the gas pump, it's looking at how can we make it more affordable to build a house, whether it be cutting taxes on tips and cutting taxes on pensions or overtime. There're a lot of different ways that we can address affordability for New Yorkers.
Shellow-Lavine: Solar is, of course, much talked about in this part of the state itself. I know your opponent Carrie Woerner has proposed measures that would prioritize essentially solar development on already developed land. Is that something that you would be interested in pursuing if elected, or what else would you want to try and bring to the table when it comes to talking about where solar is going up in upstate New York?
Caruso: I think when it comes to solar solar farms or fields or when it comes to data centers, I think that we need to keep those decisions at the local level, and I think that local leaders and municipalities need to be the ones who are listening to their constituents because that is the closest form of government to the people. Are your local supervisors, your mayors, your town councils, and so I think that we need to leave these decisions to them. I don't think that this is something that Albany should be getting involved in. I really, I firmly believe in keeping more in local government. So I support whatever the people of that community.
Shellow-Lavine: Our inbox got a press release from your campaign. I believe it was last week, looking to repeal the Chinese Lunar New Year as a New York State holiday, and that was a bit of a head scratcher for some of us, at least. I would love to give you a chance to sort of outline the backing idea behind that, as far as a campaign point.
Caruso: In 2023, Kathy Hochul signed legislation making the Chinese Lunar New Year a mandatory public school holiday throughout New York State, and I believe that we need to repeal that. I don't support it. We saw what happened in Kathy Hochul's administration. I don't think that this is something that we should be continuing to praise and get behind. I'm calling on the governor to to repeal it.
