By: Keith S. Shikowitz, Investigative Reporter
Again, along with the economic taxes, New York is one of the highest tax states in the union. New York and California keep battling. You try to see who’s the highest tax state part of the reason people are fleeing states like New York, Illinois, California, Michigan and others. What are you going to do to help bring down the tax burden on the average New York citizen?
“I mean, I mean, I think, I think it’s circular again, I think there’s a narrative of people fleeing and while some folks might be seeking warmer climates, this continues to be a good place where I want to raise my family, and a lot of folks are raising their family. So, I think that, you know, again, it’s encouraging businesses to bring in more rateables, but at the same time, not wasting government funds. If we can consolidate things like we’ve done at the town level and look to bring that to a statewide you know, level, you know, I’d be happy to be willing to consolidate where we can.”
“But, you know, I want to root out government waste again, you know, you can’t have the round peg in a square hole or square peg in a round hole process of government because what works in, you know, say that, you know, city of Buffalo, New York, what it may be that doesn’t necessarily transfer to Rockland. So I think, I think those common sense type of main street, you know, concepts are something I had to bring to the assembly.
But it still doesn’t tell me how you plan to, what exactly is in your mind to say, ok, taxes, income taxes as well. I mean, one of the, one of the reasons if, if, if we’ve been successful on the federal level of, reinstating the SALT (State And Local Tax) deduction, it would help every homeowner in, in Clarkstown in the Rockland County. That’s, that’s thousands and thousands of dollars. So that’s a start.
Yeah, so, ok, the safety is a major issue across the country, but especially in New York, you’ve got criminals in New York City robbed seven banks and was let out each time and the seventh time he got arrested, as he walked into the station, he thanked the Democrats for passing and no bail law which allowed him to rob seven banks.
And there was the governor who put some band aids on it and people said band aids are still not working. What do you, how do you feel about the No bail laws and what can you do to help the safety of the people in, New York?
“Well, I mean, starting, starting at the top Rockland County, I think is either the second or the third safest county in the country. So the narrative that Rockland County is not safe and has crime is not necessarily accurate.”
“I’m just saying like, as a narrative as a narrative, Rockland County is a safe community.” Clarkstown has the best police force. The counties in the other towns in, in Rockland have the best police forces around. So that narrative is not necessarily true for Rockland that said as it was passed, initially, I would have been against the bail reform. I feel like you need to have discretion on behalf of the judges in order to ensure that folks who get arrested for crimes, bail is put on them. Then, you know, when it started, the conversation on bail reform or cashless bail is more so, with that, you know, the guy with the pack of gum shouldn’t get let out, you know, shouldn’t be kept in, in, in, in jail because he couldn’t, you know, make bail.”
“And that of course, makes sense, but certainly down the line when they took some discretion away from the judges, judges know, judges know the recidivist criminals, they know the violent offenders. And I think that they need to be given more discretion back. And so it was passed, it was revised a bit to fix some of the problems. But I still think there’s other problems that need to be addressed in it because we don’t want violent criminals out if they’ve been picked up, pending charges or other charges. Sometimes as you say, the, the repeat offender will get picked up on something minor while they solidify the case on something more major.”