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newyork

Jonathan Gordon

WCHVPP413B_2025-04-13-12-11-04

Welcome back to Power and Politics. It has been an active few months for State Assemblywoman Mary Jane Shimsy, the Democrat who represents the ninety-second district, which includes parts of the River towns in Westchester County, joins the show. Semboman, thanks, of course, for being here. You recently raised concerns about potential utility hikes by Con Edison. Why, why are you speaking out so strongly about this? Con Ed. Has asked for double digit rate increases for both electric and gas starting in 2026. It's 11.4% for uh Electricity and 13.3% for natural gas. Um, this goes way past the rate of inflation. Um, it's already come on the heels of some really tough electric bills that so many people in my district have received. Um, the complaints, um, range from seniors of fixed income. Single mothers, um, all the way up through middle class Westchester residents who are getting 4 digit electric bills on their houses. This is unsustainable. Nobody but the richest of the rich can afford to pay for this. To those who say this is because of CLPCA and solar and all of that, it's not. These are distribution rates, #1, and number 2. You, the ratepayers, are still subsidizing for things like the 100 ft rule, um, which allows the building of new gas lines. So This can't go on. Um, we are in the middle of a big affordability crisis in the New York metropolitan area, and, but for housing costs, This is probably the biggest affordability drain on our people. It cannot be. It has to stop. Sticking with affordability, you recently spoke out about tariffs as well and the impact on the district of Westchester and of course the state of New York. Uh, what is your biggest concern for the big federal policies, uh, local impact? This is not the way tariffs are supposed to work either. Generally tariffs are used to protect new industries, so you have new industries that are trying to get their start that are facing potentially ruinous competition from abroad and you put tariffs temporarily to make sure that those industries can get on a new footing. That's not what's going on here. So we really risk serious economic problems, and again, we're not going to be able to quantify them until we go through the whole list, but it's going to have to make our our everyday goods cost more because either we import a lot of them directly or we. Import components that go into the manufacture of those things. You recently held a press conference about the amount of salt that's being found in Westchester's drinking water. What can the state do to regulate the water that we consume? Senator Pete Harkam and I had a press event with um New York City DEP, who is responsible for the drinking water in New York City and just about all of Westchester County. Um, and the State Department of Environmental Conservation to talk about the disturbing trend that they are finding in their water quality testing, which is especially on the Westchester side of the Hudson, east of Hudson. Um, the salt levels are growing to very concerning levels. Um, Senator Harkin in particular lives in an area where there are a lot of rural communities, and there have been a number of wells in his constituency that have been closed because the level of salt just isn't safe to drink anymore. What we are seeing, beginning to see in the Croton Dam system. Is their levels um are starting to rise. And it's only a matter of decades where if we let the matter go unattended, that we are at risk of losing our a major supply of drinking water for about 8 or 9 million people. So we have to start looking at the causes and Um, salination of fresh water is becoming an issue in many parts of the world. So there's been a fair amount of scientific analysis of this. There, there is a whole laundry list of um potential causes. A preliminary study that's been done in New York State, um, has concluded that we have salinization in our area, the three biggest culprits. Are wastewater treatment plants, agriculture, and probably from what we can tell at this point, the biggest one is road salt. So there's been an increasing scientific literature on best practices, what we can do to reduce the amount, the amount of salt we put on our roads and still make them safe for the driving public, as well as substitutes. We're talking about all kinds of things like training for the people who apply. Uh, the salt or the salt solution on our roads and um. What the best medium for conveying that salt is and which ways are more effective than others. These are just two of a large number of questions that we need to have answered to bring down. The amount of salt that may be going to places like our drinking water reservoirs. We'll continue this conversation after the break. We'll be right back.

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WCHVPP413C_2025-04-13-12-11-23

Welcome back to Power and Politics. We are wrapping up our conversation with State Assemblywoman Mary Jane Shimsy. Assemblywoman, what else are you pushing to get done before the session ends later on this year? One way to help bring down the cost of our um. Of our capital construction and government in particular, is to move to something called design build. So instead of going through one. Major procurement process for design and construction management and then a second process for um the construction itself, the theory is and it seems to be borne out by the way these things go, you can get your work done more efficiently and less expensively if you build it up if you do the procurement process. At once for all stages there there are concerns that people have about the way it's been designed, built, has been conducted um in certain past projects. Um I am talking to all of the stakeholders at this point, and I am hopeful that we'll be able to get across the finish line. With a with a design build piece of legislation we are also looking to make sure that the MTA capital budget. Is completely funded. There's a lot of. Issues with the MTA system. It's gotta be one of the most extensive. Infrastructures we have anywhere. And there are places where. It's aging out. Um, We have problems ranging from crumbling train platforms, especially on the Hudson line. We also have an increased problem with flooding on the Hudson line and with sea level rise. We risk losing use of the Hudson line. And when you think about all of the housing that we're putting along there, um, that having the Hudson line. Um, be rendered unusable would be a huge economic hit for my side of the county. Once again, I'm Jonathan Gordon, and this is Power and Politics on News 12, where local elections lead to national change. More news weather and your hyperlocal headlines are coming up after the break.

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This weekend's guests include the New York State Association of County Health Officials Executive Director Sarah Ravenhall and State Assembly Member MaryJane Shimsky.

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This weekend's guests include the New York State Association of County Health Officials Executive Director Sarah Ravenhall and State Assembly Member MaryJane Shimsky.

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