Republican New York state Senator Betty Little, who has been in the state legislature since 1995, is in her final months in Albany. Little, of northern New York’s 45th district, is retiring from the Senate after nine terms. But there is plenty of work to do before lawmakers leave in June, including the state budget due in just over three weeks. Little spoke with WAMC’s North Country Bureau Chief Pat Bradley about some of her remaining priorities.
“Well, I would like to see better coverage on our roads and highways. It'll pretty much have cell coverage in every little hamlet and town. But the distance between towns is sometimes 18, 20, 30 miles and there's no coverage. And so I think it's our health safety in and our economy too. We're also, you know, at the new Welcome Center just south of Exit 18 there are no paper brochures. There's a lot of video and website and you know, their website name and all that so people can look them up and find out where they're going and make reservations. Not if they don't have their cell phones working. So it's part of our tourism and it's part of attracting people to our communities to come and live here. I think the North Country what they need the most is more year round residents that would populate our schools. We need more people being able to work remotely from here. And we have a neighbor that just moved in from New Mexico and she works in New York City but she only has to go there maybe once a month she said. Everything else is from home. So more of that is I think going to help us increase our population and attract younger people who will populate our schools with children.”
New York state Senator Betty Little speaking with WAMC’s Pat Bradley.
