Visited with The Highlanders last week
Assemblyman Colin Schmitt may be relatively new at his job, but he knows the way to get undivided attention when he stops by a Senior Citizen Club meeting … bring a tray of cookies.
He and his staffer Jake Cataldo, a constituent liaison, stopped by the February meeting of the Highlanders Senior Citizens Club on Feb. 18, and talked with the 25 seniors who were in attendance for about an hour. He first walked around the room introducing himself, and after took a few minutes to speak privately with residents after he finished speaking.
Schmitt, in case he was meeting anyone for the first time, spoke about his growing up in Orange County, and his education and military experience. He also talked about how he’s in the second year of his first term in office.
“I am truly honored to hold this position,” he said. “I’m truly blessed to be able to wake up every day and go to work to represent you and advance the interest and concerns that are important to our district.”
He said that he’s enjoyed his time in Albany so far, noting that he serves on the Local Governments Committee, so he gets to spend a great deal of time working with local leaders, and talked about how right now much of the work they are doing in the state capitol involves the state budget.
As they do that work, he said, he’s trying to find funding to repave Rt. 218 in Highland Falls, from Rt. 9W to West Point’s Thayer Gate. He said he’s written letters and spoken to other state officials about making that work a priority.
Both Highland Falls Mayor Joe D’Onofrio and Highlands Councilman Tyrone King were in attendance at the meeting, and nodded in agreement that the work needs to be done.
Schmitt also talked about the ‘constituent services’ work he and his staff do — “every one of the 133,000 people who live in our district can feel free to reach out to me,” he said.
He noted that a recent call for help was from a resident who had a dead squirrel in their pool and didn’t know how to get it out. “We were able to help them,” he laughed.
Schmitt talked about something he’s been working on lately, “one of my top legislative priorities”, a senior citizen property tax freeze — he says it has bipartisan support — to ensure that property taxes never go up for those aged 62 and up.
“It won’t be easy to get it passed,” he said, “but we want to help make sure you aren’t forced to leave the community you helped make great. We do know that even a few dollar increase can make a difference for some people.”
Cataldo passed around a petition asking for support for that plan.
After Schmitt spoke, D’Onofrio took a minute to thank him for everything he has already done to help the Town of Highlands.
The assemblyman also answered questions from the audience on topics such as the state’s recent changes to the bail system. Schmitt is against it — “New York State has handcuffed its own cops,” he said, “I’ve been pushing for a full repeal, and then a chance to find out what would work, and to do it the right way. We need to be safe, and we are less safe now since this law went into place.”
Another topic that came up was the potential of recreational marijuana becoming legal in New York — Schmitt said he is not in favor of that either.
“The governor is pushing for this. I do believe the medicinal program that was put in place is appropriate,” he said. “But I think legal recreational use is going to be a problem.”
