By Thaddeus Flint
There was plenty of consensus on the problems of New York State, but less agreement on what to do to fix those problems at an October 17 debate by candidates for the 107th Assembly District.
Republican incumbent Jake Ashby of Castleton, and Democratic challenger, Tistrya Houghtling of New Lebanon, faced each other—and the public—at the Brunswick Community Center in a debate sponsored by The Eastwick Press. The panelists were Eastwick Press’ Doug La Rocque and Alex Brooks, and Nicholas Buonanno of the The Record.
“It’s broken,” seemed to be the refrain of the night. Water, healthcare, jobs, roads, taxes, drugs, farming, immigration, guns, ethics, internet—and even the Governor—New York State has it all and most of it is damaged in some or many ways. You don’t usually come across Republicans and Democrats seeing eye to eye, but on this night the words “I agree with my opponent” were repeated often throughout the ninety minute debate.
Water is especially important to residents of the Eastwick area. With three towns—Hoosick Falls, Petersburgh, and Nassau—currently dealing with the problems of dangerous chemicals appearing in drinking sources, voters there will surely be looking for a candidate most likely to help them out of these troubled waters.
Houghtling said she wanted more testing done, especially in more rural areas of the 107th District which runs from the top of Columbia County north to lower Washington County. Polluters need to be held accountable, she said. And some politicians as well. They came and did a photo-op and then went away and the “funding didn’t come and the long term solutions didn’t come,” said Houghtling.
Ashby pointed out that plenty of those politicians, including Governor Andrew Cuomo, at those photo-ops were Democrats. And as a Republican minority in a Democratic majority Assembly, Ashby said, it’s difficult to get legislation passed that might work towards water solutions because those same Democrats are blocking the way. “It’s an embarrassment,” said Ashby. And while the Republicans have controlled the Senate for decades, at the end there is Cuomo who, Ashby said, has legislation on his desk—the Water Quality Improvement Project—and “he still hasn’t signed it.”
What could be seen as a follow-up question by a member of the audience—what the candidates feel about the State ban on fracking—did bring some divisiveness to the surface. Asbhy said he feels local communities should have the right to decide the issue. But Houghtling disagreed, saying that because the chemicals used in fracking don’t just stay within one community’s boundaries, and the issue is “too important” to let the decision be made at the local level. She also feels that greater effort should be put into local “green” sources of energy.
When it came to the economic development, Houghtling also wanted to keep the jobs, and the money, in New York. As the population ages, there is a “real need” for an industry to try to keep seniors in their communities and their homes, she said. Houghtling also backs the idea of New York State produced goods to be the first choice for government funded institutions as long as the price is within reason.
Ashby said he was working to attract new big firms, such as Amazon which is currently eyeing a Schodack site, and promoting the ones already here, such a Regeneron in Rensselaer, so they don’t move away. The Assemblyman also lashed out at Governor Cuomo’s idea of economic development, citing what he called a “$15 million movie theatre in Syracuse” as an example of Cuomo’s ineptness when it came to spending State money and getting a reward back. The movie theater in Syracuse—it’s actually a film studio called the Central New York Film Hub–really seemed to irritate Asbhy because he brought it up and railed against it twice. But what taxpayer wouldn’t be irritated? It cost millions and was promised to bring in millions more, as well as over 300 jobs. Only two jobs were created, and the whole place was sold for $1 last June to Onondaga County, noted Ashby, twice.
How about Marijuana jobs? Houghtling said she was for making marijuana legal, which brought about a happy “Yay!” from one audience member. She cited economic benefits from legalization now being seen in Colorado, noting that the Empire State has a population three-times the size of it. Houghtling also touted her experience of dealing with marijuana crimes—she worked at the Town of New Lebanon Courts before taking her current positon as the Town Clerk—and said it was nothing more than a “waste of resources” citing and bringing people to court for something that’s “pretty much already legal.” All that money could be better used to fight and treat opioid addiction instead, she added.
Ashby, who didn’t disagree that the opioid problem is very real and does need more funding to fight—was however against marijuana being allowed as a recreation drug. The Assemblyman said reports out of some Colorado municipalities have shown the existence of very real downsides and the costs that go with them. He does support medical marijuana.
The big problem with medical marijuana is that it is has the word “medical” attached to it, so as most New Yorkers know, it will cost too much. Both candidates agree that healthcare—on a national as well as State level—is obviously broken. How to fix it though? Houghtling advocated going to a single-payer system as a means of getting everyone covered at affordable rates. Ashby said that going to single-payer would see everyone’s taxes going up by $18,000. The problem is there are plenty of statistics out there, and with so many of them agenda-financed, deciding which of them is accurate is nearly impossible. A recent Rand study did find that if the State went single-payer, it would need $139 billion more in additional taxes to pay for it. But not everyone’s taxes would go up the same, since the idea is to let the rich pay more. That might sound like fun to the not-so-rich, but some predict the rich—being rich—will just move to a cheaper State, leaving everyone left with an even larger tax burden. Houghtling said other countries are doing it and it works. One question might be: But how much more do they pay in taxes? One might question that question with another: How much is your life worth? Houghtling said that the US already pays the highest amount in the world for health care and yet the country’s life expectancy ranks 24th in the world. Where she got that cheery number from is unknown because a 2016 World Health Organization report puts the US even worse off, ranked at 39th, two places below China and just above Poland. Canada, for perspective, is at 7th.
The US isn’t all that highly rated for internet speeds either. Some residents of the 107th Assembly District might not know this because they are lucky to get any internet at all and don’t have hours to waste looking up facts they already know to be true. Both candidates agreed something has to be done, with Ashby saying that if small businesses are nurtured instead of being taxed to death, the demand will cause the infrastructure to improve. Houghtling disagreed. “Expand the internet first and the businesses will come,” she said. As Town Clerk she had people thinking about moving to the area stop by the Town Hall and ask what’s the internet like. She tells them and “then they check New Lebanon off the list.” Neither candidate mentioned Governor Cuomo’s Broadband For All initiative which is supposed to be up and running by the end of this year, providing high speed internet to 99.9% of New Yorkers. Maybe because nobody in this area seems to believe a word of it.
The last question of the night from the audience was about guns and it was odd that it took that long. Ashby, who was an Army Captain with two tours of combat duty, is against the Safe Act, which he says took place in the “middle of the night” without due process and violates the rights of Americans. He said it should be repealed. Houghtling agreed the Safe Act was the wrong way to go about things, but still feels that something needs to be done to keep guns out of the wrong hands. However, to make it clear she is not a threat to voter’s with firearms, she pointed out her house is well stocked with “over twenty guns.”