BY: Keith S. Shikowitz, Investigative Reporter
I’m with Tom Lapolla who is running for the 99th Assembly District, covering Stony Point and mostly Orange County.
Lapolla was born in the Bronx and is a retired New York City fireman having served 38 years achieving the rank of Battalion Chief who always paid attention to the political world but never considered running for office and has been a little more active in politics over the last two years. With his wife Mary he lived in Harriman, and then we got our second home in 1988 in the Village of Monroe, the town of Monroe and have been there for 36 years and raised their three children. He has three grandchildren and a fourth on the way.
He decided to run for office because he paid attention to local state and federal, not necessarily and probably more focused on the federal. “But following my earlier departure from the fire department, you know, I was, there was obviously there was a COVID vaccine mandate and I did not participate in it I chose to retire earlier than expected. I had that capability but there’s still cops finding teachers that still have yet to be returned to work because of that mandate.”
Part of my efforts took me up to Albany a lot more and not only paid attention to medical freedom issues but other issues that impacted parental rights, as well as everyday issues, crime, even the economy.
We have a lot of issues affecting New York State and the country, but we’ll focus on the economy, immigration, no bail laws and school funding. Let’s look at the economy. The economy’s been a wreck the past few years. High taxes, people living paycheck to paycheck credit card debt is over $1 trillion throughout the country. People’s cards are maxed. They are using them for basic necessities. What plans do you have to help with the economy and help the average New York citizen?
“I am not an economist. I do know high taxes and overregulation are not conducive to keeping people in this state. People are more apt to seek out low tax rate states and businesses as well. If we continue to overtax the citizens of the state and the businesses, we will see more businesses and citizens leaving as well, seeking out the states that have cheaper taxes and a better, and a lower cost of living.”
What do we need to do to help the infrastructure in this area, never mind just the whole state?
“Less regulation. I mean, we’re adopting this green climate plan which is going to force businesses to pay for things that they probably wouldn’t be paying in other states. I mean, the green climate plan that the state has, is not a conducive tip, good business practices. No one’s against taxing reasonable taxes, make it lower, lower taxes, less regulation. By regulation, I don’t mean common sense regulation, building code or regular. I’m talking bureaucratic regulation where bureaucrats are making decisions, not elected officials.”
But what, and what do you see certain roads that really need? I mean, I mean, roads and bridges and things like that.
“I don’t have a list of all the bridges. I did read an article not too long ago that many bridges are in dire need of repair. And, and you don’t have to be an expert in studying the road map of New York State. You just have to take a ride.” Lapolla commented.
Let’s talk about businesses, bringing them into New York. There’s over 7000 regulations on the books in New York governing businesses and the business can’t breathe with that much regulation. And that’s probably, that’s why a lot of businesses leaving New York causes too much regulation. How do you plan to help bring down the amount of regulations that we have?
Lapolla has experience in dealing with regulations because in his career, as a new member of the New York City Fire Department, he helped write building codes. He developed building codes which was done through the legislative process. It was done by a group of stakeholders where everyone had some vested interest in ensuring that the industry that he worked on that the regulations that came out of this product would be benefit all every stakeholder. Everyone reviewed. There was legal review and then there was legislative review and then there was public review and then eventually it was brought to the mayor for signature or not. And that building code will become law.
And I would suggest and I’m not an expert on it because I’m not that familiar with all of the 7000 regulations you just referred to. But if they, if they’ve been implemented by professional civil servant bureaucrats without any legislative oversight, then, then that’s the problem right there. They’re looking after their own jobs.
When Trump came into office, in 2017, for every regulation they put in, they got rid of two.