Election 2024 - Radio Catskill

Lou Ingrassia NYS Assembly District 100, Candidate Interview

Lou Ingrassia, a Republican candidate for the New York Assembly in the 100th District, has served as the Commissioner of the Town of Wallkill Department of Public Works since 2013. Raised on his family’s farm on Ingrassia Road, where he continues to live with his wife Jackie, Ingrassia also holds positions on the Orange County Water Authority and the Wallkill Emergency Management divisions. He will face Democrat Paula Kay in the election on November 5, 2024.

Broadcast on:: 18 Sep 2024
Audio Format:: other

We're joined by Lew and Grazia, a candidate for New York Assembly for the 100th District. And Grazia is a town of Wall Kill's DPW Commissioner, Department of Public Works. He's been in that office since 2013. And he grew up on his family's farm on and Grazia Road in Wall Kill, where he still lives with his wife Jackie and serves on the Orange County Water Authority and Wall Kill Emergency Management Division. Welcome to the program and welcome to our studios, Lew. Well, good afternoon. And thank you for having me. It's my first time here. It's a pretty amazing studio and pretty amazing place they have here, Radio Catskill. And yeah, I'm very very happy to be here. And this has really energized me to be able to hopefully someday help you in my current role and hopefully my new role. But yeah, but thanks for having me. Thank you very much. And we're going to talk about what your thoughts are, what your plans are for getting in that new role and what you want to do if you get there. But first, you know, I shared just a sliver of your background there. Can you tell us a little bit more for the listener about your background and what inspired you to run for the assembly? I can absolutely. So number one, I come from a lifelong career in public service. I come from a family that's been involved in public service. Myself, I joined the local fire department when I was 16 years old in Howells, the Howells Fire Company. I'm still an active firefighter there 42 years later. I'm an elected fire commissioner in the Howells Fire District. I've done that for the past 23 years. And I was chief at a fire district for five years. So my community service is based on the fire department originally, and then fast forward through my professional career in the town of Waukill. I began there in 1986 as a labor in the water and sewer department. I worked my way through the ranks. I'm a New York State licensed water plan operator and New York State licensed wastewater treatment plan operator. So infrastructure is my background. Through that process, I got involved in a lot of community events, community groups, things like that. And then ultimately, with my experience in both DPW and emergency services, about 15 years ago, I was named the co-director of the Office of Emergency Management in the town of Waukill, as well as the DPW commissioner. So we're a lot of hats. But at the end of the day, one of my biggest goals is just to help people. I've spent my entire adult life helping people, spent my entire adult life doing that and the majority of it on a volunteer basis, which I've really, really appreciated. And it's really taken me to next levels in my career, of course. And I want to continue that in the New York State Assembly, my career at the town of Waukill is wrapping up. I've got 38 years at the town. So I'll be retiring at the end of this year. And when the seat came open at the 100th district, when Aileen Gunther announced in February that she would not be running, I said, you know what, this is an opportunity. I'm going to take the opportunity. I've spent a lot of time in Albany, lobbying specifically for water sewer emergency services. So I know my way around Albany. I was just in the chamber, you know, several months ago, lobbying for chips money for highway funds. We were there doing stuff for water and sewer. We were there. Also, one of the other things that's very close to me is the Hudson Valley Honor Flight and serving our veterans. I certainly currently serve as the chairman of the board of the Hudson Valley Honor Flight. And we were actually on the floor of the assembly back in May with all of the honor flight hub leaders from around the state. So I know my way around the halls. I really do. And I feel that I have a lot to offer. I feel I have a lot of subject matter expertise. When it comes to a lot of the issues that face our district, that being infrastructure, that being health care, that being housing, and the town of Waukill, we've done a pretty amazing job creating what we call the medical corridor. We've done a pretty amazing job controlling our planning and zoning and doing smart planning and smart zoning. And I've been involved with that intricately for the past, you know, dozen to 15 years. So I think I have a lot of real world experience that I can bring to the table. And I want to take that to Albany. And I want to be able to serve the constituents of the 100th district with the skill set that I have. And that's that's my goal. So now looking at this district and entering this race for you, what are the top line most pressing issues facing the 100th assembly district? Well, the 100th assembly district is a pretty interesting district with the redistricting that they've done. So in Orange County, you have the city of Middletown and the town of Waukill. So you have two densely populated areas in the city of Middletown, four square miles, 37,000 people, town of Waukill, 64 square miles, another 31 or 32,000 people. So in the Orange County side of the district, you're looking right around 70,000 people, Sullivan County, much more expands, much more diverse. The district includes all of Sullivan, except for the towns have never seen Rockland and Fremont, those were taken out in the redistricting. And in that large, much larger geographic area, you have about the same amount of people that you're going to represent. So all that being said, most imperative to me number one is helping people. And I think that's what the job of the assembly is. The assembly is referred to as the people's house in New York state legislature. However, we've kind of gone off the rails. We've gone off the rails a little bit with a one majority rule. There right now there's a super majority in the New York state assembly. Whereas the Republican conservative individuals that are elected in the assembly really don't even have a voice at the table. They negotiate in hallways and negotiate in stairwells. And in order to curb that and in order to break that super majority, we need to get some more Republican conservatives into Albany and basically foster better discussion on our top priorities, the migrant crisis, the amount of money that we're throwing at the migrant crisis. Public safety, public safety is paramount. Number one, crime is going off the rails. The no cash bail. When we went into the bail reform issues, things like that, the safe act when it comes to owning firearms, the whole act when it comes to staffing our prisons. We're looking at the well, we are we're the impending closure of the Sullivan correctional facility in Woodburn. Now I've already had, you know, through this process, well, we need to elect someone who's in the majority because the majority is better going to take care of us. Well, they just closed a prison or they're going to close a prison on November 6 in Sullivan County in Woodburn in a district that's been controlled by a Democrat for 22 years. So if that's not a sign that the Democratic majority and or a super majority is not a good thing, I don't know what else is. Housing affordability is a major concern across New York state, but especially here in our region. How would you address the housing crisis? We've had very good success in a town of Walkill with some public private partnerships for housing. We have developers that have developed in both Walkill and in Sullivan County and in Orange County, I should say. And what I would like to do is I would like to foster that collaboration. We have workforce housing, we have senior housing, we have facilities that have been built to allow people to get back on their feet, put them back in, give them a sense of respect when they're paying a rent that's affordable. And I think there are definitely opportunities for that across the district. We've seen at work in Orange County, Walkill specifically, and I think I can certainly bring that conversation and bring that success into the Sullivan County part of the region. And economic growth and job creation. Those are concerns in our area. Do you have any plans for either of those issues? Absolutely. Absolutely. We've and again, my history with the town of Walkill working collaboratively with the planning board, the zoning board, bringing in new business economic development. Those are all things that are in my wheelhouse. And what we need to do is we just need to find out what services or what services are out there, what services are needed, what jobs growth. There are good jobs that we can come to this area. Again, public partner, public private partner relationships. That's really what's going to steer this. When we have a new business that's looking to come to town, nine times out of 10, we'll work with the local IDA or we'll give them an incentive to come to town. One of the things I would like to investigate and I would like to make it one of my priorities is to take existing businesses. How do we how do we help our independent businesses grow? How do we help them grow further? I've heard it a lot. I have a business in town. I've been here for 20 years. And my taxes keep going up, up and up. Someone new comes to town, makes a promise for 10 years and you give them a huge tax abatement. That is a problem. We need to better look at our locally owned individual businesses that are taking care of our local people that are giving them good jobs so they can take care of their families and less possibly incentivize staying in business. Let's incentivize being in business or in a community for 10, 15, 20 years. And I think that's definitely a collaboration that we can work on. I think there's resources at the state level to help and sustain that. And again, with some type of public private partnership, I think we can foster that we can move forward and we can create good paying jobs in our community that offers health insurance that allows us to stay here, allows our children to stay here, allows our grandchildren to stay here, and allows them to sustain in the livelihood that we've all enjoyed and just move that further forward. You know, we've got the in Sullivan County, there's a Sullivan County partnership for economic development. There's also, as you said, the the local IDA. So do you do you see like a change being being needed at that level to change how businesses are being supported, as you were just saying? I don't think I don't think we need to change at that level. I think what we need was we just need to foster conversation. I think that's what we need to do. And everyone that's involved with the Sullivan County IDA, the Sullivan County Partnership, the Orange County Partnership, everyone's goals are the same. It's just a matter of how we get there. They have great people on all of their boards across the district. And I've worked very closely with the Orange County Group. I look forward to working very closely with the Sullivan County Group because we have had great successes and that success can be spread amongst the district. And that's real world experience again that I have that I can bring to the table that once again makes me feel, of course, that I'm the best candidate for the position. Now, one of the biggest industry is the biggest employer in our area in Sullivan County anyway, you know, is tourism, basically. And a lot of that hinges on just all the natural resources that we have. So the environment is a key issue for many folks and has an impact on other things like economic issues. What's your approach to environmental concerns in our area? Once again, what I've done my whole life, water and sewer infrastructure, all development, all tourism, all things like that are driven by infrastructure and the infrastructure to sustain it. Overbuilding happens when we don't have proper infrastructure in place. Smart collaborative infrastructure planning infrastructure design infrastructure implementation where it should be and where it shouldn't be. Those are definitely topics that are on top of my list. Those are definitely topics I have a lot of real world experience with. When it comes to tourism, tourism in Sullivan County specifically is literally what keeps the county afloat. We have an amazing abundance of natural resources, beautiful places in Sullivan County where tourism flourishes. And what we need to do is we need to work again collectively to allow that tourism to flourish, allow the folks that provide that tourism to be able to do it, not to over regulate them, not to put too many constraints on them, but at the same time protecting our environment, protecting our natural resources and continue to make this one of the nicest places in all of the Hudson Valley, all of New York State and all of the country to live to work and to recreate in. And we know that we have people that come from all over literally the country and the world to Sullivan County for various tourism. And I would certainly work hard to keep that number one going and number two to keep that improving. Now, we've got a section here on public safety, which you gave a pretty good overview on in the beginning and saying, you know, that you're in your words, crime is off the rails. So you're concerned about crime, concerned about, you know, the corrections facilities closing. But you also mentioned bail reform. And I want to give you a moment to talk more in depth on that issue in New York State. It's been a contentious topic in New York State for years now. What's your stance on the current law? What do you think needs to be done if anything? We definitely need to reinvestigate the laws that were put in place in 2019, the no cash bail, the bail reform, as it quote unquote, is that definitely needs to be looked at. If anyone says that they don't see a problem, a spike, more crime, worst crime, they're there, definitely, I don't know where they're living. They're not living here. What happens is we have literally taken Mr. Manners and felonies and turned them into a parking ticket. You're arrested. You literally are back out on the street before the police officer has his report done or her report done. That needs to stop that needs to be taken care of. One of the biggest things we talk about all the time when we talk about public safety, and we talk about the ability to be able to live work and recreate safely. If we're not safe in our communities, if we're not safe, walking down Broadway and Monticello, if we're not safe walking down Main Street in Jeffersonville, if we're not safe walking down Main Street in Middletown or Wallkill, we have a problem. And right now we definitely have a problem. People don't feel safe. They just don't. And it's unfortunate. And what we need to do is we need to put the laws that are in place. We need to be able to take those. We need to be able to reinvestigate them. We need to be able to put the the ability to hold people responsible back in the judges' hands and the judge, the scales of justice. There's a reason that there's blind. We need to put that back in the judges' hands, take it out of our politicized district attorneys and allow judges to judge and allow police to police and allow communities to be safe. That definitely needs to happen. So you're running in the 100th Assembly District. You mentioned before how long Aileen Gunther's been serving there. She's representing this area for more than 20 years before that her husband, Jake Gunther, represented it for at least a decade. So this is going to be the first time in more than 30 years. Next year will be the first time more than 30 years that somebody not named Gunther will be representing voters in this area. What do you think of that? Well, it's, uh, it's kind of bittersweet. It truly is because I am a Republican conservative and Aileen Gunther and my experience has been with Aileen, not too much with Jake, rest his soul. But Aileen Gunther has been a very centrist, um, public servant in the legislature. I have a great relationship with Aileen Gunther and the day that she announced and we found out that we she announced that she wasn't running. The first text message I made that morning was to Aileen Gunther. I texted her at seven o'clock in the morning and she's an early riser and she called me back and I said, Hey, what's going on? I just heard the news and she said, uh, it's time. And again, not to talk too much about her private life, but she said it's time. And she said, I want to be a grandma. And I said, well, I want to be an assemblyman. And we had, we had an awesome conversation. Um, and since that time, like I said, we're moving forward, we sit on different sides of the aisle, but, uh, a lot of the, a lot of the things that Aileen was pushing for and Aileen was getting done. A lot of those things are literally on my radar screen. And that was a good collaboration, a good ability to work with her. I worked with her on numerous projects and grants, things like that in the town of Walkill in my fire district specifically in house. Um, I'm looking to take her legacy and move forward, of course, because there is a legacy there. That's for sure. Um, but I'm looking to take it forward with a fresh voice, a fresh vision and, you know, take it to the next level. I'm looking to collaborate. I'm looking to work across the aisle. That's for sure. What I want to do is I want to get a seat at the table. I want to get a seat at the table because what happens right now, unfortunately, once again, with the super majority in Albany, the Republican conservatives do not have a seat at the table. They negotiate in hallways, they're handed information at 11 o'clock at night to vote on it two in the morning. And that just needs to stop. It really does. As soon as you said, the seat at the table, my next question would be like, well, is that going to be enough? So what you're saying, uh, I guess I'm going to change the question is getting elected, uh, to represent this district enough to get a seat at the table. And if not, what else needs to happen? Well, to answer your question, yes, it does. Uh, anyone that knows me knows that I care about people knows that I care about the public and knows that I am a person who likes to get things done. Uh, I set deadlines, not only for myself, um, but for the folks that work with me, we set deadlines. If in fact, when I am successful in this position and I get my seat at the table on January 1st, they will know that I'm there. They will know that I'm there. They'll know that I'm a strong voice for our community. Uh, I will represent everyone in this district. Republican, Democrat, independent, blank, I will represent everyone to the utmost. Right now three seats need to be flipped to break the super majority. We know in New York state right now that we are there. We can flip these seats. This seat specifically is being, uh, called out as one of the prime seats that they know is available. And the reason that is is because we have a good, strong centrist Republican conservative candidate that's going for this seat. Um, and like I said, I know that when I get to Albany, I will be able to make a difference and it may be an uphill climb. Okay. Uh, you don't turn a battleship on a dime. It might take a little time, but at the end of the day, they'll know I'm in the house. They'll know that I'm there for the betterment of the hundred and sixty some thousand people that live in my district. Number one, and number two, the Hudson Valley and number three New York state. And my goal is when I get to Albany, I want to be a force to be reckoned with. I honestly do. All right. Well, as we wrap up here, the last question I've got for you is, why would you say folks should vote for you over your opponents? I think it comes down to real world experience. I think it comes down to helping people. I think it comes down to my dad, God rest his soul. One of his saying is saying is was, what are you doing when nobody's looking? And why are you doing it? I have spent a lifetime volunteering in my community. I've spent a lifetime volunteering in my community for a little or no renumeration, a choice that I've made. My renumeration, my pay is to see someone's problem solved. My pay is to see someone's smile. My pay is to see someone to be able to enjoy their life a little better than they are right now. All that being said, the reason that I feel that I'm the best candidate to do this, I have a lifetime of real world experience. I have a lifetime of infrastructure experience. We know that infrastructure is an issue specifically in Sullivan County. We know that water and sewer is an issue. We know that our chips funding, we know what kind of condition our roads are in. What you're going to have in my candidacy and in me as an assemblyman, you're going to have someone with real world experience, you're going to have someone with subject matter expertise, and you're going to have someone that is going to fight tooth and nail to bring everything back to this district, what it needs, what it deserves, and what our state should be providing that they may not be be providing right now. All right. Well, Lou and grassy, I thank you so much for coming here and for taking the time to talk to us. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. Like I said, Radio Catskill, listen in on FM, log in, listen to these folks here. We just had a whole tour of the entire studio and their entire operation here. This is an amazing thing that they're doing and we really, really need to keep public radio working for the people as it is. And just congratulations on this, the home that you have here. And we're really going to look forward to working with you in the future to sustain and make this home a better place for public radio. Thank you. Thank you. That's a luck.