To read more about Pamela Hunter’s opponent, Daniel Ciciarelli, click here. To read more of Central Current’s 2024 election coverage, learn how to register to vote and more, click here.Democrat Pamela Hunter is vying to keep her seat as the assemblywoman representing the New York State Assembly’s 128th District.The district includes portions of Syracuse, Salina, DeWitt, Onondaga and the Onondaga Nation.Hunter is the only female veteran in the state Legislature. She serves on the following committees in the Assembly: Banking (chair) Energy Veterans Insurance Female Veterans subcommittee (chair)Raised in Upstate New York, she currently resides in Syracuse and will face Republican Daniel Ciciarelli, the third ward councilor for the town of Salina.Early voting begins Oct. 26, which is also the deadline for voters to register to vote. Election Day is Nov. 5.Read more about how Hunter sees issues in Central New York below.What’s one thing you plan to do to help bring Micron to fruition?I think all of the pieces are in place currently for Micron to come here. You know, I obviously was a co-sponsor for the CHIPS Act for the state, and so that got the ball rolling in order for the feds to be able to do the CHIPS Act. We are having active conversations, because this is a concern for constituents and the folks in our area that want probably more energy, more water than originally anticipated. So that’s a concern we need to be able to mitigate and work through that. Also, the SUNY Upstate Medical Center is having significant challenges with their physical spaces. Micron coming has been indicative upon us having a burn center and all these other hospital amenities. … I’ve been actively working with Upstate and the DOH and the governor’s office, advocating that we need to make sure that we’re doing everything to give them the resources they need to either renovate, upgrade, because Micron coming here has been important, and we need to make sure that happens.What is one thing you plan to do to make Micron a boon for everyone?Just taking a step back, I appreciate the complexity and the grandness of this employer that’s coming here. I think it’s very important. I think we’ve not seen anything in a generation, and definitely for the people who are living in this moment right now — everybody’s using that ‘moment’ term — my concern as an assembly member is to do everything legislatively, whether it’s resources necessary whenever they call, to work through with them to make sure that happens. But I’m equally and maybe even more concerned that no one gets left behind, because Micron is coming. And I know we’re talking about all the new people who are potentially going to be moving here. I’m concerned about the people who live here today. So my focus is on the current people who live here today, making sure we’re uplifting the people who live here today — uplifting them out of poverty, making sure they have housing. You know, the education system needs to be elevated — so when we’re talking about young people being able to be engineers at Micron, well, they need to be able to graduate from high school and be able to read in order to be able to do that. And some of these things are not hand in hand working right now.Do you think Micron should be unionized?I think that if it’s an employer in this area, and the workers who would be working there would like for it to be unionized, then yes, it should. I think, you know, it’s not unionized in Idaho. They don’t have unions in some of the other states where they have these big plans, but we’re requiring PLAs and unions to construct it. Why would we exclude the people who work inside — not being able to let them have the same opportunity that the people constructed the building? That doesn’t seem equitable. 2024 Election Q&A: Democrat Pamela Hunter vies to hold onto NYS Assembly’s 128th District by Ahna Fleming October 17, 2024 2024 Election Q&A: Republican Daniel Ciciarelli hopes to unseat Pamela Hunter from NYS Assembly by Ahna Fleming October 17, 2024 2024 Election Q&A: Republican Tim Kelly hopes to unseat Al Stirpe from NYS Assembly by Anais Mejia October 14, 2024 2024 Election Q&A: Democrat Al Stirpe is running to serve his 9th term in the NYS Assembly by Anais Mejia October 14, 2024 NY-22: Mannion outraised Williams locally through primaries. What do experts expect October filings to show? by Patrick McCarthy October 12, 2024 Since the law was changed in 2019, Raise the Age has become a lightning rod topic. Do you think it should change? If so, what should change about it?I do not think that the law needs to be changed again. We have made, since the original passage, two amendments already. I do believe that there are things — and this is having conversations with the police chief and having conversations with judges — that there are things that the police and court system can do in order to aid in some of the reoccurring crimes that have been happening. I don’t know if they need more guidance from you know, the judge in charge of the whole court system, or we all need to sit down together, whether it’s you know, the police, the DA, the courts, to come together and having a conversation — ‘If this presents, this is what we need to do. If this presents, this is what we need to do,’ but it is very disconnected at this time. But if we’re not exhausting all of the things that are on the table that could be helpful, then we shouldn’t be repealing or changing something if we’re not doing everything necessary in order to make it successful. And hundreds of millions of dollars were set aside after we passed this bill in order to help with some of the prevention, accountability, intervention services. And I guess a question I would ask is, since all of that money goes to the county — they’re the social service entity for our area, tasked with probation, tasked with interventions with some of these not-for-profits. Have they drawn down that money that was allocated from the state? What are they doing with the money? And how accountable are these entities to partner and make sure we’re delivering what the legislation was intended to do. These young people are our future generation — locking them up and throwing away the key is not the answer. The criminal justice system is the end part of the cycle. What about education? If you have 50% absenteeism in the school, how do we expect that there’s going to be any different result except the criminal justice system? The hundreds of millions of dollars that were given to the county for support services, to help with housing, help with mental health, to help with substance abuse — if we’re not getting that money utilized, how do we expect the narrative to be any different on the back end with the criminal justice system? So there are definitely things that we need to be raising questions about, asking, you know, it’s not just the police interactions with young people, and it’s not just a law being changed. It’s all of the other parts that need to be a partner with this. And that is definitely not happening.Do you think that New York State has enough tools to boost affordable housing? And how would you add to those tools?If they had passed my “Good Cause” Eviction bill when it was first introduced in 2019, it would have given some people outside of New York City — where they have rent stabilized apartments — some kind of equitable footing, a fighting chance in order to be housing stable. That bill did not pass. It’s still not passed outside of New York City, except in four municipalities. It is being considered here. And that’s only one tool in the toolkit. But if we have the highest rent increases in the whole state, even more than Manhattan, and it’s happening right now, even capping rent right now — if you can’t afford it now, capping it at what it is right now isn’t going to be helpful. So we need to be able to build more housing. And I know the governor, not this year but last, had this huge initiative to incentivize housing, so that way municipalities would get incentives. Because we need to build more housing. We don’t need more luxury apartments. We need more middle income earner apartments and affordable units. But if we have municipalities with their local zoning that don’t want ‘those people’ — and that’s coded redlining talk and we know what that means — in their neighborhoods, that makes it very difficult. Then you keep centralizing and keep concentrating poverty in all these different places where that definitely does not need to be happening.Do you support the right to counsel in housing court?Yes.Do you support the Equal Rights Amendment?Yes.Do you support codifying abortion rights?Yes.What would you do to fight energy rate hikes affecting working families?I think I was the only elected official at the public hearing that read a statement saying that we should be doing better and should not be advocating for a rate hike. So that’s one thing that we can do, and one thing I did do. I did the same thing when National Grid asked for a rate hike the last time — it’s on record, a statement saying that we can’t afford it. People just cannot afford these rate hikes. And I understand, you know, it’s supposed to be going toward the kind of renovation and renewal that we’re doing. That is something that I’ve been pushing back on at my level, at the state, because of the (Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act), because of the climate action plans that we’re having, because we want to move towards electrification. All of these in theory sound great, and we do need to be working toward them, but it can’t be at the expense of people who can’t afford to pay higher rates for electricity. And so that really needs to be part of the conversation. You know, folks, maybe sometimes people live in an apartment in New York City where they don’t have to pay their own utilities, and don’t understand what that looks like for people, but we can’t afford it here. People can’t afford it here. There’s thousands, hundreds of thousands of people in arrears with National Grid right now, and it’s not going to get any better as we’re going into winter. This is just something we can’t afford.How will you make sure that construction on the I-81 viaduct doesn’t worsen health outcomes and living conditions for residents who live near it?We need to make sure that the (Department of Transportation) is accountable for what they say that they’re doing. This was a specific question that was brought up at a South Side conversation that I facilitated — asking about the health concerns of the people who live down there currently. The DOT says that they have an extensive monitoring mechanism in place so that they can ensure current air quality standards, taking measurements, assessing where they’re at, and if they need to make modifications for that, they are responsible for this, and we need to hold them accountable. Whether it’s saying we want weekly, monthly updates, what are the numbers? Explain to us what the numbers mean. What does it mean? What are the pollutants in the air? Tell us what it is right now. Don’t wait till after the pollutants were in the air, and then you remediated and all of a sudden, ‘Before there were pollutants and we just want you to know we took care of it.’ We need to know. Over communicate to us so we understand what’s going on, so we can make decisions for ourselves and our families. And that we can communicate that to our healthcare professional if we live in a zone and there are environmental health concerns — ‘Hey, Dr. so-and-so, I live down here in this quadrant, this is what’s happening in my environment, can you continuously screen me for bronchitis, for asthma, for lead, for any other symptoms that may arise from this type of a large-scale construction?’The post 2024 Election Q&A: Democrat Pamela Hunter vies to hold onto NYS Assembly’s 128th District appeared first on Central Current.