Nyack Mayor Joe Rand, Candidate for NYS 38th Senatorial District

so you have some context and relevance. It is the seventeenth of December, well on the way into the holiday season. The Happy Hanuka to everyone, and sooner Merry Christmas, whatever holiday you choose to celebrate. Former Speaker of the House Tip O'Neil is most famously associated with the phrase all politics is local. Of course, by that he meant that no matter how high the office is, it all boils down to the people and if their basic needs are

being met or not by a candidate. Perhaps that's why local elections are the most important of all. It is these people that we elect that will ultimately have the most effect on our daily lives. It's also become cliche to say this is the most important election of our lives.

But I find that to be trite because every election is important, and more than fifty years of voting, I've never missed it's that important, and certainly, considering the sea change we are witnessing on the federal level, every election does take on additional importance. One of those key local elections is the New York State thirty eighth Senatorial District that consists of most of Rockland County, the exception being

Stony Point. It pits GOP incumbent Bill Weber versus his Democratic challenger, the current mayor of Nyak, New York, Joe Rand. We have invited mister Rand to join us for some intelligent conversation on the most important issues in this race. Let me introduce you to Joe Rand. He is the mayor of the village of Niak, New York, also serving as both a trustee and deputy mayor since twenty twenty one.

As mayor, he was responsible for securing the highly competitive four point five million New York Forward Downtown Revitalization Grant, as well as millions in other federal, state and County grants to build sidewalks, upgrades the village fleet, and remake

Memorial Park. He also has an extensive professional background as the chief creative officer of the RAND Realty Brokerage, which last year helped consumers sell six thousand homes worth over three billion dollars in value throughout the Tri state area. He is also a civic leader, educator, and author whose career SPAN's municipal government, real estate, higher education, and non

profit service. A resident of Rockland County for more than thirty five years, Rand has built a reputation for pragmatic leadership, innovative problem solving in a deep commitment to strengthening the communities he serves. Mister Mayer, Joe Ryan, thank you so much for joining us here on being front.

real estate company, to work with them. I did marketing, I did legal, I did training and education and compliance and things like that, and we built a company. We had a wonderful run, turned it to like ten times the size it was when I got there, my brothers and I and my mother who had founded the company. And then twenty twenty, I decided to get out. I'd been doing it enough on a day to day basis. I've been living or dying with every house sale, and it just got so stressful. So we sold part of

the company. I sold most of my interests out. I kept some, so I still have an interest in the family company, and I still rooting for them, and I'm doing some work with them periodically. But I got out of the day to day which was really grinding me, and I was going to do a lot of speaking. I had written two books in real estate. I was getting invited to speak at associations and brokers across the country.

I was making good money doing that. In the midst of that, Elijah Wright with the Milly got elected to the state Senate and he was a trustee in Nayak, and it left a spot open on the board of trustees. And right around that same time, the board of Trustees of South Nayak had put themselves in a position where they had to dissolve the entire village. A village with one hundred and fifty year history got dissolved in the span of about six months because of mismanagement by the

administration there, and it was really sad. And I saw what had happened in South Nike, and I didn't want to see what happened tonight. So I said, you know what, I really should get involved, because I think I'm good at what I do, and I think i'd be good at it and I could make sure that where I live is well taken care of. So I went to Don Hammond, it was the mayor, and I volunteered for the position. And there were a bunch of very good people who volunteered, but he chose me. I then finished

out that term. I got elected that fall in twenty one, got elected again in twenty three, and then when he stepped down he retired, I decided to run from mayor. I got elected two years and got reelected last month. And I really that was why I got involved. It was really about the fact that I want to protect where I live.

and things like that. So every month you get those numbers and it's like you live or die by those numbers. And that was what really was causing me to stress. So I said, you know what, at least you know you run a village. Yeah, it taxes, It's not like it kind of runs. The taxes don't go up and down the way that profits do in a real estate company.

Taxes are pretty steady. So that's okay. But little did I realize that one of the things that I was going to take leadership of when I got when I became mayor was I really did want to help revitalize the downtown and particularly post COVID. I wanted to make sure that our downtown was going to survive the downturn, which it did very well. I'm not saying as because

of me, but I did try to help. Yes, Yeah, and now it's back to I think it's it's back to nearly full you know, like full employment is three percent employment because there's always some people move around. We're pretty close to full occupancy either places are coming or they're already here. So that's been fine. But the thing is, man, I'm telling you, all those years I worried about the p and L from my company. Now I worry about

the P and F. Like two hundred businesses. I worry about every one of them, and when one of them goes out of business, it breaks my heart. It does when when some of these business that have gone out in the last few years, I just it's a heartbreak because I really want the mine.

not to make light of it. It is concerning when you see there are many empty stories.

not being rented because there's no demand. There is a lot of demand for businesses to come here. I mean it's weird because, like running a small businesses one of the hardest things in the world. But people do want to work here. It's a good environment to work. It's a tough environment, but it's probably the most robust downtown in rock and County. And I mean there's a lot of good downtowns rock County, but like nik is is,

you know, it's the most it's the biggest. I mean, we have a we have an actual linear mile of retail stores. We have two hundred businesses in our downtown, two hundred business Our village consists of seventy five hundred people and we have two hundred businesses, which means we got to do a good job of attracting the rest of Rocking County and Bergen County and the whole region to come to ni to shop and to dine. And

it's a real challenge. And like I say, I live and die, and when I'm centered, I'm gonna live and die with every business in Rock and County. I'm gonna the same thing. I'm gonna I'm gonna feel responsible for you know, how everybody does and how can we make it better? And that's that's you take it on a lot and I and I didn't necessarily anticipate that I would feel that kind of responsibility, but I do.

and trying to diffuse situations. It's one of my strengths, both written communication and speaking. And that was you know, I wasn't always that way. It really developed, and you know, the more you do it. The ten thousand hours thing like I did a lot of speaking. I spoke in front of a lot of audience. I've done a lot of teaching in my life, you know, and I'm very

comfortable in front of the big audience. And it does help because there's a lot of what you have to do as mayor and a lot of what I'll have to do as a senator is communicate to people and sometimes explaining them a difficult situation, sometimes explaining them what needs to be done to solve a problem. And that's a big one. Communication is a big one, I would say. The other big one is the ability to identify, understand

and then solve problems. Like That's another strength that I like to feel like I've developed over time, is the ability to look at a problem from multiple perspectives, see them from different perspectives to be able to see all around the problems, so I don't just look at it from a like a rigid point. Like in business, you really should not have a fixed point of view on

any problem because new problems come up. You know, if your fixed way of looking at things is built on well, I really wanted it's the most important thing we do is search engine optimization. Okay, Well, then AI comes along, and if it's like well, no, I see always where it's at and you're missing AI, your business is going is gonna is gonna have a difficulty. You got to look at every problem from every perspective, and that helps me.

That has helped me be solved, problem solving, problem solving, and it also helps me be persuasive and to work with people, because you cannot persuade somebody on an issue. You can argue with them and just butt heads until you both give up, but you can never persuade somebody until you understand their perspective on the issue and figure out the right way to talk to them. You have to kind of puzzle it out and say, Okay, how

do they see this problem? And how can I talk to them in a way that would would address their concerns rather than just saying the same thing over and over again and why I'm right and there wrong, because that doesn't work. That never convinces anybody.

to move the car. So right, I still do get tickets. Everybody in America everyone there, but that usually I forget some movement. I deliberately moved to the side of the road that it was supposed to be on for that night, but it was not that night yet, it was still the previous night. It was just too damn early. So I'm up early. I'm in the office early. I you know, a lot of my day is there's a lot of paper to push around. There's a lot of emails to address,

there's a lot of phone calls to make. There there are a lot of events. I go to a lot of events. I do a lot of I do you know, Like today, I was at something I'll be at UH later on Today I'm going to a mural unveiling at UH that the Art Collective is doing at at at Burgloft Tomorrow, I think Friday there's something at there's an art display at Rock Rock Shop. So it's all things like that. I mean, the Minora lighting on Sunday. I mean, there's always something going on and as mayor, you want

to be there for it. But the typical day also, you know, there's things that you're there's big projects that on any given day you're trying to push forward, like rocks. You're trying to you're trying to get them a little further along the path. And you know, I'm always working on four or five major projects that have to get advanced. Almost every day I got to work on them to some extent, you know, Like it was the New York Forward Grant, there was a lot of work with the

New York Forward Grant. Every day there was something, Yeah, every day there was something for me to do on that. You know, I might be working on the new event guide that we have out, the new seasonal event guides that give you a list of all the events going on in the village for the next three months. I'm working recently, I have a new thing coming out. It's going to be a downtown shopping map, a map with all the shopping districts and all the businesses that are

in the shopping districts. That's going to be coming out soon. It's almost done. I've been working on for months. I might be working on the holiday programming that we're doing with the There's always something going on that's going to take my time. And then there's the big but there's the legislature. You know, we have we laws, we pass laws, and I got to read them and I got to figure out whether they makes sense. So it's just it's it's what's interesting about the job is it's never the

same every day. The problems are often complicated, and there's a lot of satisfaction in solving the problems and a lot of these times some problems you can't solve. Some problems you just you make them a little better, you put a band aid on them. But sometimes you actually solve the problem. And that's a really good feeling when you fix somebody. Somebody comes to you with something and then you fix it for them. That's great.

I mean, that's that's that's twenty years worth of investment that would take us to make a four point five million dollar investment into our lights and in downtown restaurant. So we're going to get a downtown restaurant or sorry, marina restaurant. It's gonna be really a nice, little fast casual place where you go, you have a drink, you have a bite, right looking at the boats and looking

at the water. To replace the it's not going to fully replace the this thing that you ever be there, the River Club, because it's not gonna be it's not gonna be a full service restaurant. But because we couldn't afford build quite honestly, you couldn't afford to do it. We're gonna put all new light lamp posts along Broadway to make them like the lamp posts on Maine. That's a big deal. We're doing tons of renovations to a

lot of the nonprofits. That John Greenhouse is getting four walls for the first time, the UH, the Hopper House, the Angels getting an HVAC system, the UH. We're doing stuff for NIAX Center as well as for Elmwood Theater Elmwood Playhouse. So we're getting a lot done. And that was a big deal because that's a competitive grant, like they give out about one They give out one grant or two grants to every region, and we got one of them, and we had tried for five years to

get it. And I feel like two things made a difference with me doing it. One of them was that I made it. I made made a decision or I made a recommendation that we followed. Wasn't my decision, it was a committee decision, but it was to There was a ten million dollar grant and a four point five million dollar grant, and we'd always gone for the ten million and we'd always lost. And I said, you know what,

we're a small village. Those ten million dollar grants are going to like Syracuse and like Peak Skill in yon Cooaty City. Yeah, you know, we're small, Like ten million dollars is too much money for us. Let's go for the four point five, we'll be more competitive. And the first time we went for the four point five, we got it. And the second thing I think I brought to the table on that is I've been working on economic development in the Hudson Valley for twenty five years.

You know, we my company and my brother and I had been on the board of the HVDC, the Hudson Valley Economic Development Corporation run by my friend Mike Oates, wonderful guy. I does a great job. We've worked with him, We've worked with the Rockland County Economic Development, We've worked with statewide Economic Development of initials. Those people knew me who made that decision, and they knew that I would

be a good, good steward of their money. And so I think that really did help us get it, and I'm very proud of that. I think it's been a very good problem was fun this year. It was tough work, but it was fun to uh, really flesh through the projects and forge all we wanted to do. And I would say the second thing that I'm happy about is that it's it's more fixing a problem than it is doing something new. Like the Forward was kind of getting something new. This is more. You know, you're here, you

live here, you walk the streets. We've had issues with the downtown. We've had quality of life issues relating to panhandling, related to people square, sleeping in the sleeping in the in the park. Uh and uh, you know generally, you know,

congregating in ways that make people uncomfortable, menacing, stuff like that. Now, a lot of it's free speech, so like we respect that and we're sensitive to and a lot of those issues are related to people who've got difficult situations, you know, they you know, we know it relates to mental illness and dependency, it might relate to povery all these things, and you know, we're we're we're we want to be

sensitive to that. But at the same time, as it started to become a very acute issue, like two years ago, it was like first the panhandling became a very cute issue and then the people sleeping in the square became a much bigger issue in the last year. So what did we do. Well, we tried to get creative. We knew we didn't want to do anything. We wanted to treat the root causes, so we did bring in Catholic charities.

We brought in other organizations, including the social services from the county, to intercede with these people to make sure that they didn't need help and if they needed help, that they were getting the help. So we tried to attack it from the supply side of panhandlers, but we also tried to attack the demand side and try to dry up the incentive for people to panhandle, because people shouldn't be giving on the street. It just creates more

of an incentive for people to Panhanal. People were literally commuting to Nayakapan. These weren't locals. These are people coming from other parts of the county that were taking the bus down to Panhanal a nike because we were considered a very very giving community, which.

created personally with some other people. It's got an independent board of people like Phyllis frank On it other really well known people who are involved in nonprofits throughout the county that I put to make it independent. And what they're supposed to do is money comes in. Now, we haven't gotten that much money in, we haven't gotten the many donations. But what's coming is supposed to help address the root causes of poverty, of dependency, of mental illness.

But the idea is that give people an alternative to giving on the street. Let them take out their phones and go tap tap tap using a QR code that's on you know, brochures and is on posters throughout the village. And I have to make a donation that makes a difference, that actually is going to address those cads. So it was a permission structure for people to not feel bad

if they didn't give on the street. And it was also a permission structure for the businesses to say please do not give to panhandlers, because they didn't want to put up posters saying please don't give to panhandlers because it seems harmless, and the businesses don't want see harless. They don't want to turn people off. But if you put up a poster that says, you know, please make a donation, that makes a difference. Give to this fund instead of giving on the street. It has a sensitivity

to it that is more appropriate. So we really did that. You know, I don't know how much. You never know cause and effect, but the paneling situation definitely has gotten better in the last couple of years. And then last year with the people sleeping in the square, we had to make some difficult decisions.

You know, it's a it's a national problem. It's caused by housing on affordability, It's caused by mental health calls on my list. We we know what all that, we know what creates all of that, so we want to be sensitive to it. But at the same time, it is a public space. It is supposed to be used by the public. It's not supposed to be used proprietarily

by any individuals. And whether those individuals are you know, people that we want to be sensitive to, whether it's just a jerk who like sets up he wants to like, you know, do something private there and take People sometimes want to use the square for private events. We generally do not allow unless they're open to the public. Because public spaces should be open to the public, they should not be used for private use. And I think that I think that's a fundamental principle of mind. So what

do we do. The first thing we did, which was very controversial, was we remove the benches because I talked to the people from the from the social service agencies and they said, there are opportunities for these people to sleep inside, they won't take them if there are alternatives available to them, like sleeping in the square. So we had to remove the alternative. We had to remove the option. So we got We pulled out the benches and that was heartbreaking. I hate doing it. I hate going into

the square now and I don't see better. They're still not there yet because we're afraid to put them on memorial.

signs to enforce the curfew, so we did. They wanted a resolution making sure it was very clear that you're not allowed to be in the park after at midnight. And when we did that, the OPD became better about asking people to leave and finding them alternate places to live if they were staying in the square. So we worked with OPD, we worked with we work with the social service agencies, and it's gotten better. You do not see that anymore. Easter Square is a lot more accommodating,

a lot more usable than it was. Uh and and that's a good thing, okay, and it and it was creating a very weird downtown vibe that we have dispelled. And then sort of the third problem was kind of this very low key petty crime stuff like that aggressive panhanling. Panhelling is a protected First Amendment right, but not if you're going to keep following people or try to get into their car and stuff like that. And there was people doing weird stuff and they're drinking openly, drinking on

the street and whatnot. So we ended up hiring a service that we call the Night Safety Patrol of Professional Security guards that patrol the streets because the town we get our policing from Orangetown. They're great. I love what they do. They're very responsive to us. But their model of policing is that they're a suburban police department, so most of their time is spent responding to calls from cars. So they don't want to be on the street. They want to be in their cars because then they can

be more responsive to calls. They don't want to be walking down and they don't want to be three blocks from their car. A call comes in there's someone having a you know, there's a break in, and they have to run to their car and then drive, and they're they're late to the situation, so they don't They don't walk as many patrols as we would like. We would love them to walk daily patrols, but they've got a whole county to service. There the whole town to service,

so we hired the patrol and that's many difference. People see. They don't have police powers. They can't arrest anybody, they can't even get violations. They're just there to send to be eyes and ears for the police and to send a sense, to create a sense of law and order on the streets. And I think it has worked. I think it has helped that I've got a lot of

feedback from people that has helped. So you ask what are my achievements, I would say, one the what we did with the forward grants to try to make NAE better and then with the issues that we'd laid into the street life, very difficult decisions, very hard decisions that I didn't like having to make, to make Niac safer and more and more appealing to be in the downtown.

I'll give you. The other thing I'm very proud of is the way in which this community responded to the Nine Plaza fire. That was a wonderful thing that the community did. I had a small part in it. You know, I was there an hour, half an hour. Whenever I was there. As the fire was going on, we set up a command post at the Senior Center. We started immediately trying to identify who the families were that were affected.

Because we didn't have a list or anything we had, we started were using a lot of word of mouth so we could get their names and their phone numbs. As soon as we got a phone number, we would call them and tell them to come to the Senior Center, getting the Red Cross here and whatnot. But it really what I feel like I made a difference was when the Red Cross was there and we were like, Okay,

the Red Cross is here, We're all saved now. But their idea to house these thirteen families was to put them in a gymnasium on cots, and I looked at the families and they were just not at all pleased about that. They were dismayed. So I went I didn't have any authority. I went up to the Westgate Hotel and I booked like fifteen rooms on my credit card and I said, well, if if the village want to imbursed me for this, well then you know, I still feel like I'm doing the right thing. The village did

eventually reimburse me. I'm not trying to play hero. The village did eventually reimburse me. The board approved it. Village, we took it out of we have money that we get from affordable housing buyouts, so it's our affordable housing fund.

We felt like this was affordable housing. And then Nicki Hines from the NAACP n I branch did a wonderful job raising money at They're raised by ninety thousand dollars, so we were able to get those people out of that hotel into a nicer hotel where they stayed for several months. And then at the same time, I started working with HUD to allow them to take their vouchers that they have for Section eight housing for community housing and today those matches which are applicable to the plaza

and apply them to market rate housing. And then I got a bunch of agents at my real estate company to work for free to find them market rate housing. And we eventually housed all those people in one way or another, we found them all housing, and I'm very proud. It took us too long. We didn't do it as quickly as I would have been happy doing it, but we got it done. And that was a team effort by Nicki. Eies did a great job. Bishop Stringfeld did

a great job. People in the village did a great job Rosa and all the staff here in the village. And I felt like I contributed my way as well and did and that was taking care of people in our community who needed help, and so I felt very proud of the way we responded to that.

thousand people in the entire county. And I love this county. I came back to live here after living in the city for a long time. I've lived in Rockland for thirty five years, but not continuously. I lived the first twenty years of my life and I've lived the last fifteen years of my life to get to the thirty five because I was in the city, and I came back here because I loved Rocking County. I grew up in Congre's in western Nayak, and I really want to

make life better. I mean, it's I know it's cheesy and tokey and politicians stays all the time. I don't need to do this, I don't I could be on a beef somewhere. I do not need to work anymore. I'm lucky. I've been lucky in my career to do what I want to do for a living, and this is what I want to do. I really do get the satisfaction out of making the community I live in a better place to live. I've loved being mayor and I'm really I really would love being a center as well.

how to bring money to a community. And that's one of the big jobs in the Center is to get money from the Senate, from the from the Albany and get it back to Rockland. We pay a lot of taxes up to Albany, and I don't think we get our fair share of back for the things that we need throughout this county. So, like my greatest accomplishment is mayor or something I think that's immediately translatable to what

I accomplish I could accomplish as a senator. And then you know what were the other things we talked about? Making hard decisions, making tough decisions. You got to do that as a senator. You know, you've got to respond to crises like I did with the ni Plaza. I'll do that as a cenator. But if you've going to identify the issues, Number one is definitely you got to get money back to the district. And we haven't been getting enough back to the district, and and and I

want to fix that. I think that you need to go up to Albany with a mindset that you're there to sell Rockland to them and sell Rockland's needs to them. You have to be entrepreneurial. You got to be on it. You have to be at every meeting. You have to be working and working and working to get that money back to the village, back to the county, and that's what I'm good at. Second major issue I think in this campaign is going to be affordability. And I think

affordability is what drive. Affordability gets addressed to understand that we can get money from abiting, but affordability of healthcare, affordability of utilities and energy.

I've heard people. People have given me some ideas of things that I want to chew on as to. But I think we got to address that. We got to address the health care costs. We have to address energy costs, and that means doing what we need to do to incentivize people to use more efficient energy. I'm getting solar

panels on house. I'm doing it this month, our next month because my energy bills are out of control and I feel like if I'm at the solar panels and It'll be worth the investment for me to be more energy efficient in the long run. And then when it comes to.

I've done it every quarter for twenty four years, twenty five years, and I know this market better than anybody alive in terms of what's going on the housing market. And I will give you just a staff that will blow your mind. If you go back right before Covid and looked at the average sales price of Westchester County, which was about nine hundred thousand dollars, that's the average sales price in Rockland right now. Wowvince Covid, We would if you had asked us in twenty nineteen and said,

you know what's hot? Westress?

you can buy the average priced condo in Rockham County. Like, in just six years, the price of a house has become the price of a condo. Now what does that mean for us? Well, it's wonderful if you've bought property here before two thousand and say, before twenty ten, or since before twenty nineteen. It's great if you'll held probably thirty years even better. Property values have done wonderfully for

the homeowners here. But we also have to think about the people that want to live here, that want to move here, and the kids. What do we do with our kids? My kids are fourteen and twelve. What kind of job are they gonna have to lose?

in two ways. The uppercase a affordable is like government restricted rent, government rent control, government provided community how whatever, subsidized. That's all. We need some of that. We always need some of that, but that's very expensive for the county or the state to provide. The other kind of affordability is the lower case, which is just we need housing

that's cheap. We need smaller units. We need studios and one bedroom condos where kids who are twenty five can make their first apartment or make their first home that they buy. You know, we need that. Now, what does that mean. It means more people coming into the county, which everybody gets scared of that because they make more traffic and more wear and tear on the infrastructure. Well, then you deal with that, you deal with the problems that come from having more people here. But you have

to grow. If you don't grow, you die. Communities that don't grow die. So people are you know, they're so adamant that they don't want to build anything, and I get what they're worried about. But what we have to do is we need that state money to help us deal with the impacts of increased housing. But we need the increased house because there's nowhere for your kids to live. There's nowhere for the nurses to live. There's nowhere for the for the young cops to live, there's nowhere for

the uh, for the for the teachers to live. None of them can afford to live in Rocking County. And unless you want the person that's teaching your kid to have an hour and a half drive from you know, Upper Sullivan County or Ulster County. In order to teach your kid and they come in all sleepy, you need a place for them to live locally. We got to do it done. That's that is the biggest driver affordability.

I think it's a big problem and it's something I know better than anybody about how to get that done.

Any kind of violence is important, and political violence is especially derogatory to the to the to the well being of a community. You know, violence in any kind is gonna is damage as our cultural psyche. But political violence, because it's it's directed at the heart of what binds us, our democracy and our relationships with each other, it's particularly terrible. You know, I think now about you know, I think about Rob Bryan Er. I mean, he wasn't wasn't political,

but it was. It was What a terrible situation, What an.

So I will just say this, back off from violence, and let's just talk about the non violent way we treat each other now politically, and that feeds the and that's the root cause of the violence, is the fact that we are dehumanizing each other with the way that we talk to each other. So I will say this, I am running against Bill Weber. I think Bill Weber is a fine man. He's a good man. He has he has done I say, incredible time. I don't want to say he's done a good job. He say, well, he's

done a good job. Why do you want her against him? I think he's done a fine job. He's done what he can with the circumstances he's in as a Republican and a democratically controlled UH legislature, he has done what he could. He is he is a true blue patriot. He's a nice man. I'm not running against him. I'm running for myself. I'm running to to bring what my talents to Rockland to make Rockland a better place. But it is not it's not a knock against him. He's

a good guy. So I don't want anybody and I'll say this. I told him, I called him a couple of weeks ago that I gave him a courtesy call weeks before I announced to tell him I was running. I didn't want to have him hear it from anybody besides me, and so I had a conversation with him and we talked about it and I said, and he agreed, and he said the same thing I said. Listen, I'm not going to run a negative campaign, even if you, even if you go after me, I'll run an issues campaign.

I might criticize you on like votes that you made, but it's not going to be that you're not patriotic. It's not going to be that you're not a good person. It's not gonna be that you're evil. It's not going to be a hock. I'm not going to do that. But if somebody does that in my name, if you see stuff online that people are going after you and saying this or that about you, and there's my supporters. You let me know, because I want to put a

stop to that kind of stuff. I don't like. I don't like seeing what I see out there in the politics right now and right now. When I got into the when I got into the race, Bill left a very gracious message. He put out a great, very gracious message which did what he what he what he should absolutely do, which has extolled his record, made his best case for his reelection. Didn't do any you know, was not to or to you let me have my moment.

I thought that was very gracious of him, and I'm appreciative of it, and I think that's the way we have to conduct ourselves. We need to get back to the tip O'Neil Ronald Reagan having a drink after after work, that they could sit and they could talk to each other because they were opponents. They were not they were not they were not evil, they were not battle not

it's tires. They were not, you know. And I will say this, it is one of the things that I think I'm well suited for given my background in real estate, because the thing about real estate is that you know, just to pick a random guy. My my, my friend Russ Willie who's a broker here, and I who's a great guy. And Russ and I have He's recruited my people, I've recruit his people. I've been mad at him as you wouldn't believe. I'm sure he's been mad at me

beyond measure. When we got somebody his he got somebody of art. We've all we've both drawn blood from each other, and we both fought for listings. And he's gotten listenings nine Nash my teeth, and I get my agents get his listings, and I get listenings in the Nationals teeth. But if he gets a listing, the next day, I call him up and I say, or my agents call up and say, hey, we have a buyer for you. Let's do a deal like we will compete and then

we will do deals. And that's the way, that's the that's the message I take to what I do here and what I take up to Aubany is let's compete and then let's do deals to let's let's work together, let's get something done for the people of Rock and County. I mean, I've worked with all the Republicans, I've worked with Teresa Kenney, my supervisor in Rangetown, part of nix In Orangetown. I have to go along with Teresa. We have a great relationship. I haven't part of Rocklands in Tarktown.

George Haman, I have a great relationship with him, he said. They're both lovely people that I disagree with on certain things. But certain things, you know, there's you know we're putting in you know, we're putting in a new road or whatever, like, there's not a Republican in a democratic way of doing it. I've worked with that day. I've worked with Mike Lawler, I've worked with all of them, and they've worked with

me just the same way. So I give them the same credit of working with me as I've worked with them. And that's what we really need to do here, and we need to get away from the kind of rhetoric that leads to political violence.

has a very unique voting style. I don't know whether we're to use called the block vote, and I want to talk a little bit about that because it's kind of a it's not only unique now to Rockland, we see other areas, but it has to be accounted for in a political sense, and I want to talk a little bit more about that in some detail. We've got to take a quick break first. Don't go anywhere yet.

We're back with more with this really terrific show, Nyack mayor and future candidate for a New York State senator, mister Joe Rand. Don't go anywhere, be right back Hudson.

iHeartRadio and all the others. And because every Being Frank is archived, you can listen to any of our programs anytime you like. You can find a link to Being Frank on the Hudson River Radio Facebook page or at our website Hudson River Radio dot com. Just click and you're there. We're back with our special guest, Niak Mayor Joseph Rand who is also a candidate for the thirty

eighth New York State Senatorial District Joe. Before we took the break, I teased a little bit kind of a unique situation, or it had been in Rockland County, but in other areas at Lakewood and some areas of Orange County, a large populations, particularly of Orthodox Jewish people who tend to vote in an insular way, and to the fact that it's earned a name called the block vote, and it has an enormous impact both locally and in the

Senate and nationally. I want you your thoughts on as a candidate, how does one deal with the situation of the block vote, which meaning on the instruction sometimes of a single religious leader, thousands of people vote the same way. So it's obviously creates enormous political power. All legal, it's all legally voted for, but it has enormous uh implications address that if you would jump.

right to live where they want to live. When people come to politicians and they say, well, what are you going to do to stop the expansion of the of the block, the answer is like, well, I'm not gonna do I'm not gonna do anything like there's not People have rights to live, to buy how they can afford that, they buy the house and they live there, and they live, they live where they want to live. It's been the

case everywhere. Neighborhoods are always evolving, they're always changing. Nic it is different than it was twenty five years ago. Habstro is different than it was twenty five years ago. All these communities changed as new people move in, and I understand that people there's some discomfort people sometimes people. When I say people, I mean people that are the historical residents of like areas of the county where the religious community is expanding. I understand that some of those

people they're disquiet. They see their neighbors changing around them. It's a difficult feeling sometimes, but they have to realize that that would be true if anybody was moving in that wasn't the people they're used to being there. And so it's a that's the first point. And I want to make that clear because I don't want anything to do with like saying I want to put this community against another community. I want to represent all of Rock

and County. I want to represent the religious communities up in Ramapo, the Acidic, the ultra Orthodox, the Orthodox. There's different there's different groups within those brand of those larger names. I want to represent all them. I want to represent the Latinos and Avastra. I want to represent the old white guys, Irish guys in Pearl River that haven't voted Democrat in twenty five years, they're still register as Democrats. I want to represent them. I want to represent niyakers.

I want to represent the African American community, the LGBTQ community, I want to represent Conservatives, Republicans. I want to represent everybody. I'm going to represent them all, and I want all their votes. I'm not writing off anybody, and I'm not going to pit a community against each other, because what the Republicans have do done with this issue, which I

think is really objectionable, has been that they will. They will say they're going to stop, they're going to fight, They're going to do this, They're going to they run ads that say that there's a there's a storm coming or whatever. They're trying to imply some sort of sinister malevolence to the growth of this community. And then after they've done that, they turn around and they try to get their votes, and they do. They get pret there, they will, they will, they will then try to solicit

their votes. I'm gonna be very honest. I want everybody's vote. And if anyone says to me, well, if you go to their vote, I'm gonna give you my vote, Well, what am I gonna do about that I want your vote, but I also want their vote. I'm not gonna pick and choose whose votes, and I want for everybody's vote. That's an important point to make. People have rights the

liver they want to live and I don't. Not only am I not gonna stop it, No politician is gonna stop it, No public visions stop it, No politicians should stop it. And that that's that second point. Everybody has to follow the law every community. And people will say that in the contexts of well, you know these people around they have to follow the law they have. We have housing violations everywhere. We have people doing things everywhere,

not just in one community, in all communities. Everybody's got to follow the law equally, no special rules for it. That's that I think is another thing. Can we all agree people have writes the liver, they want to live and live how they want to live, and everybody's got to follow the law. We are we good so far on these two points, because then it gets a little bit thorn here, all right. Next point I would make is that there are forms of block b l oc.

There are forms of block votes everywhere all over the country. You know, I mean, unions are block votes. LGBTQ community is a block vote. African Americans form a block votes. The Latino vote is a block voter. Now a lot of those blocks are much less disciplined and much less solid.

the rules. Everybody's there's nothing stopping any other community from instilling more discipline and being more more rigorous and trying to get the vote they want to get. I don't know there's anything wrong with what an anything we talked about. People have rights to live where they want to live. They have right to live how they want to live, as long as they're following the law. Everybody's got fall

the law. Everybody, all communities that the follow the law, and everybody has a right to organize their vote to vote the way that they want to vote as a group to affect their own interests. All these things should be unobjectionable. What happens, I think is that there's a lot of misconceptions about that community. There's a lot of things that people are unfamiliar about with that community, that

ultra orthodoxysttic group. I think that there are impacts in the community that come from they're the one community that's growing. They're growing in people, They're doing construction and around the pout that's not really happening anywhere else in Rocky County besides parts of Clarkstown, and so that growth has impact. Like we talked about before, it is impact on infrastructures, impact on traffic. All those things are true. But what

you need to do is address the impacts. You don't say, well, you got to stop growing. How do you tell people to stop growing. It's almost stop having kids. You got to tell them to stop moving here you want. That's not the way it works. It's a free country. People write to a move here, and they definitely have a right to have kids. So the community is going to grow as other communities have grown. Believe me what they're saying now. They said about my Irish grandfather. You know,

I come from an Irish hut. They have all these kids and the kids. That's a trope that's been going on forever when a community grows and expands. All right, So my whole, my whole. What I'm leading to is this idea that we need to diffuse this this issue. It's a it's become a toxic conversation that has poisoned the well of our local politics. Okay, and there are there it gets bound up. I'm that And I haven't said one thing about anti Semitism. I haven't said one

thing about sematism. There was definitely and and there is definitely an element of it that fuels this, But it's not all about that. A lot of it's just about unfamiliarity. It's about discomfort with the unfamiliar and doesn't mean to but there is some we know. The answers said, we've seen it. We just saw what happened in BONDI we know what exists in this country, in this world, and we can't put that aside either. But with all that put aside, where do we come out on this? I

want to represent Rocky County. I want to represent Ramic Beell and represent have a straw. I want to represent the Clarkstown Water, represent Armshound, and represent all the villages. The only one I don't want to represent a Stony Point is it' not in the district. But I'll still look out for them anyway, you know, because what helps hero upes there? What does everybody need? We need clean water, we need clean air, we need affordable groceries, we need

affordable healthcare, we need affordable housing. You know, we need more money coming from the state to help support the infrastructure needs of a growing community. Okay, that's what we need. And that's what I'm going to do. And don't tell me that I can represent some people, be out of the bell and represent everybody, and I'm going to go. I'm gonna be unapologetic about going after every vote in

Rockey County. And if someone doesn't like the I'm going after every vote Rocky County, well then I don't know what to tell you. I don't know what to tell you. Do you have a FAMA if I'm going after the LGBTQ vote, do you have a problem going after the African American books. I'm going after those votes too. Do you have a fama. I'm going after the Irish guys and proover, I'm going after their vote too. I'm a half Irish guide. I'm getting older, I'm going to be

in their ranks soon. I want their votes also. And I'll just give you an example of the perniciousness of some of these and why I say that A lot of this is just is a trope, and a lot of it is misconception. There is this conception among the traditional community, the SECONDO committee, whatever you want to call it, the established residents that in Rocky County, not the residents

coming out of around Polk, spanning the community's spanning. There's a perception that when people in the city, religious, whatever community, when they move into a neighborhood, property values go down. I know the housing market. I've studied the house and markets. So people say, well, they move in and then all of a sudden the properties go down and then they snap up your home for a song and they're costing me money. That is absolutely, positively not true. And I

will tell you I have looked at this. I looked at this information, I looked at this data. I ran the numbers for ten years. Okay, A couple of years ago, and do you know what the school district that the highest performing. I did it by school district. What's the change in property values over ten years by school district and then by sort of town within the school district. Do you know what the highest performing average sales price? Where the average price went up the most in Rocking County.

You're gonna guess it the way I've set it up for you. But yeah, the East Rampo School district prices went up more than anywhere else. So all these people saying, oh, they stole my house, they didn't steal your house. People moved in. They created buyer demand. You know, if there's two people can meeting for your house, your house value goes up. And that's what's happened. There are people coming that want to live in Rocking County and that drives the price out even I'll give you this is the

most interesting nugget because it really was by the school district. People. You know this, we're top of the school district. And a second beause there's an issue with the school. There's big issues with the school district. But in terms of within that school district, it's a desirable school district from the perspective of people that want to be there because of the services that provides to their community. If you look at I broke it tick. I said, well, let

me look at these Trampo School district. There's a part of these Rampo School district that's a new city. And let's compare that to the part of these Rampa School district that's not a new city. Do you know that are a part of new city that's in Clarkstown, And said, show me twoth that starks down East Rapo, show me Clarkstown Clarkstown schools. You know what performed better, higher average sales price, more increase the East Rample School district part

of the city. So if I were to pull these people aside, who are the most agitated about this issue, they would absolutely tell me that they bring proper revalues down. And I am telling you, I will give you the numbers. I will show you the graphs. They do not. They do not. They compete for property and then because they compete, property values go up. And they're building because they have a need for more construction. So they're doing that all right.

So that's if I establish my kind of holistic overall perspective on this, I'm okay with this because then we have to get to these Rampo school district. We need to take care of those kids. There are black and brown kids in that school district that are not getting an education they should get. And that is on all of us. It is we say, well, it's on the people who run that school dirict. It's on all of us. We all have to do something for them. And and

do I have an answer. No, And I'm not I have a People will tell you I have a big ego. I do not have a big enough ego to say that I can solve the problem with these Rampo school district on my own. It's going to take help from Albany. It's going to take help from the county. It's going to take help from the communities of Brocken County. The people of Rocken County have to work together figure out how to get these kids like the education they deserve.

And that's got to be done. And that is that's absolutely you know, we say what are the things that are it's the the impacts in terms of you know, uh, traffic and traffic safety and sidewalks and and and and construction and traffic and all that stuff. And there's an impact that's happened with the resraple schools that we have that we have to address and we got to fix it. We got to take care of those kids. And that's Albany does have a role there. It's not up to us.

It's too big a problem for us to fix. We need Albany to get involved. And that's what I will do. Uh, that's what I will. I will certainly make it something that as a priority of us to try to finally figure out what we can do for those kids to make that better.

that's patriotic. Second most important thing we do is vote. Second most patriarch thing we do is vote. Even if, like you don't see an election that is close, you don't perceive it to be close. Elections are closer than you thinks. Sometimes voting is an act of reinforcement of democracy. Our voting, our voting rates are abysmal. We need to make it and we need to make it almost like it's shameful if you don't vote. I don't think it's

I don't think it's considered shameful. But we need to make it like you didn't vote yet, Get out there and vote. You're not registered, go register. It's easy to get registered. Soul, Tell everybody here get registered and go vote. They've made so much easier to vote. You can vote early, you can vote, You can vote no excuse absentee of the whole day. They open at six am and they close at nine pm. This all day pop in takes five minutes. In your vote, and you're making a statement

about democracy, and there are elections that are closed. Andy Stewart, the village administrator, and I when he ran one of the years he ran for Orangetown supervisor, he won by two votes out of like he had like thirteen thousand votes and he won by two votes. Every vote matters, it can matter, It can make a difference.

I do appreciate it. And I look forward to a spirit of campaign with Bill and I hope that we can we can flesh out a lot of these issues and really give the people a choice that they that they feel, they feel that they deserve, they deserve to make.

and this one comes from John Lewis. Remember make Good Trouble and he said, the vote is precious is the most powerful non violent tool we have in a democratic society, and we must use it. Okay, we've got some closing music from my good friend Peter Danish. Let's have some

fun with this one. He's always entertaining, to say the least. Again, as I mentioned, we're in the midst of the holiday season, and whatever one you choose to celebrate, I hope you do so for our engineer, the mailman, mister Neil rich or I'm your host, Franklebono. We hope to have you join us on the next being Frank, We're the only way to be is Frank.