To read more about John Lemondes’ opponent, Ian Phillips, click here. To read more of Central Current’s 2024 election coverage, learn how to register to vote and more, click here.John Lemondes Jr., the Republican incumbent representing New York’s 126th Assembly District, is seeking re-election in a district that includes parts of Onondaga and Cayuga counties, with Auburn as a central hub.Lemondes, 59, took office in 2021. He spent time as a United States Army colonel and a local farmer. He is facing Democratic challenger Ian Phillips. As Lemondes campaigns for re-election, he plans to address issues that affect agriculture, small businesses and public safety.Early voting begins Oct. 26, which is also the deadline for voters to register to vote. Election Day is Nov. 5.Editor’s note: Lemondes’ responses were recorded during a phone interview with Central Current and have been edited for brevity and clarity.What’s one thing you plan to do if elected to help bring Micron to fruition?It’s funny you say that. We were just at an economic development hearing yesterday in Albany. One of the things that I was gathering information on was the peripheral supply chain and how we could leverage that to bring more businesses in. I especially want to increase the defense businesses. Central New York, Elmira, Rochester and Buffalo historically had much larger defense footprints than they do now. This is another way of expanding more business back here to New York state, and specifically to Central New York. I don’t mean by reducing the amount of commercial business, I mean expanding the defense footprint as well as the commercial one. I’ve spent a lot of time in the military as a program manager.and almost five years in the defense industry here locally. I may be the only one in the New York state legislature that has direct industry, military and government experience in that niche, and I plan to help bring more of that business in. What’s one thing you plan to do to make Micron a boon for everyone?This is a really, really deep question. The bottom line is Central New York is not prepared for the infrastructure challenges that come with Micron. We need more police officers, firefighters, schools … That’s the type of infrastructure we need more of. Here’s a direct answer to your question: we need to help resource those infrastructure needs.Should Micron be unionized?I’m going to leave that to them. I’m not a huge fan of (project labor agreements), because they raise costs considerably. As a taxpayer and as a consumer, you wouldn’t buy a $10 gallon of milk if there’s a $3 gallon next to it. If your child’s school needs a new roof and it costs $1 million with nonunion contractors but $2 million with unionized contractors, who’s paying for that? It’s always nice to say ‘yes’ to unions in all circumstances, but when it raises the cost — and that cost is coming from taxpayer dollars or direct consumer dollars — that’s a much harder question to answer. Since the law was changed in 2019, Raise the Age has become a lightning rod topic. Do you think it should change? What should change about it?It’s not just Raise the Age; it’s the entire spectrum of law enforcement and the public safety and security aspects of laws that were changed by the left in this state. So you’ve got (the Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confienment Act), Raise the Age and bail reform. Specifically with Raise the Age, it absolutely needs to change. It incentivizes criminality, allowing gangs to recruit younger kids to commit more violence without prosecution or any accountability at all. This is what makes neighborhoods, cities, towns, villages and streets more dangerous. We live in the most dangerous New York state that we’ve ever lived in right now because judges can’t hold criminals accountable for their crimes, and the judicial discretion piece is huge. The discovery requirements have also become so difficult for prosecuting district attorneys. Don’t forget a lot of the district attorneys, especially those on the left, are choosing to turn a blind eye to crime and not prosecute. The left says crime is decreasing, so we can close more prisons, but crime isn’t decreasing because it’s not being prosecuted. It’s making our communities more dangerous. It’s a lie. There are thousands of cases where things have gone horribly wrong here since these laws were changed. Do you think New York State has enough tools to boost affordable housing? How would you add to those tools?I am one to believe that anything you put your mind to can be solved, if you truly want to solve the problem. We gave more money to illegal aliens, illegal migrants in last year’s budget than we did to the disabled, our military veterans and the elderly combined. That’s an egregious statement on behalf of the governor and the one party rule left that says our elderly, veterans and disabled people don’t matter. Despite their rhetoric to the contrary, it all comes down to whether they put their money where their mouth is. They put more on illegal migrants than anywhere else. So I don’t believe that those people should be here, and the people in Central New York that I represent don’t think that we are a borderless society.Going back to COVID, we mandated that children wear masks and stay home and out of schools — with all the emotional and soci0developmental problems that caused  — and yet we are allowing unvetted, untested disease to walk across our border carrying weapons, carrying drugs every day by the thousands. Then there’s the issue of plus or minus 300,000 children that are unaccounted for, many of whom are suspected to be trafficked into the sex trade. These are horrendous, horrendous things. We have a lot of priorities here, and one of them is to get our border shut down because New York is a border state. In a perfect world, we should have enough affordable housing to meet our needs, but it all comes down to resources. With one party rule the governor controls the budget (and) I believe she has the ability to solve that problem should she choose. Do you support the right to counsel in housing court?Do you mean the right to free representation for people that are being evicted? I don’t think anyone should be denied representation, but I don’t know what the cost of that is offhand. The landlord-tenant laws are so skewed to disadvantage property owners, that it’s causing problems everywhere. Property owners can’t evict tenants who are damaging their property, yet they’re held responsible for code violations caused by those tenants. This is a problem. The whole orientation on landlord tenant law needs to be thrown out. This is one of the things that is tying up housing. It’s raising rents significantly and properties are coming offline, because there’s no recourse for the property owner.It can take years to get a bad tenant out of your property, and all the laws protect the tenant, no matter how bad they’re treating the property or what they’re doing in the property. This is right here at home all over New York. Elderly people who rely on rental income are selling and moving out because the risk is too high. The risk is so one sided against the property owner, it puts them in a no-win position no matter what. There are horror stories about this all over the state.   Do you support the Equal Rights Amendment? Do you support codifying abortion rights?Let me handle that backwards. Abortion has already been codified in New York state. In fact, in the last legislative session, abortion rights were expanded to protect out-of-state individuals coming to New York for abortion services. As for Proposition 1, no, there’s so many things in there so I want to pick one of the aspects out. I will never agree with biological men playing on women’s sports teams or being in women’s locker rooms and bathrooms. There have already been instances of rape because of this. To me, this is insanity, this is absolute insanity. The fact that Proposition 1 is bundled with so many things should be an indicator of how bad some of these things are.What would you do to fight energy rate hikes affecting working families?This is one of my favorite topics. We’ve been fighting the impact of the CLCPA (Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act) on energy rates. The renewable energy mandates are being funded through higher utility rates by taxpayers like you, me, your parents, my sisters, their families, everybody that’s paying for utilities is helping pay for this. I call it the ‘fantasy document,’ and it’s collapsing under its own weight. Since Kamala Harris was designated as the presidential candidate for the Democratic Party, they have left the green movement behind. They know they are scaring people, they know that people are tired of paying. We pay some of the highest utility rates in the country, and people have had enough. This is egregious.When you confront the left about this, the left turns away and pretends this isn’t true. This renewable energy thing, it will bankrupt our schools, especially Upstate school districts. The maintenance bays for electric buses aren’t big enough, and the lifts can’t support them. The electrification mandate doesn’t pay attention to the laws of physics, science, math or economics, it’s a fantasy. Rates have to come down. There’s nothing wrong with paying a little bit for infrastructure improvement, but putting a mandate that doesn’t work for three quarters of the state on all of its citizens is problematic. People are leaving New York because of this, contributing to our highest out migration rate for three years in a row.How will you make sure that taking construction on the I-81 viaduct doesn’t worsen health outcomes for residents that live near it? Talking about physical accidents, some of the onramps and off ramps are really dangerous and need to be fixed. I’m not a doctor, so I don’t know what concentrations of emissions are needed to hurt people, but I represent the outlying areas. What this is doing to my district is diverting traffic to other roads that aren’t designed for that volume of traffic, and if those added emissions are high enough to impact health, I don’t know. From a physical aspect, this is dangerous. I just know that from a public safety standpoint, we have to do more to bring things like this to people’s attention so that nobody gets hurt. The post 2024 election Q&A: John Lemondes looks to hold off Dem challenger in NYS Assembly’s 126th District appeared first on Central Current.