Ted Baker: Good morning, it's 836. It's FLX Morning. Paul's on vacation this week. I'm the former guy, Ted Baker. We're joined by the 130th District Assemblyman representing Points North in our listening area, Brian Mankilow. Welcome back.
Brian Mankilow: Well, good morning, Ted, and good to hear your voice.
Ted Baker: Thanks, same to you, and we're happy to have you here with us. Everyone learned how to say semi-quincentennial over the weekend for America's 250th birthday. There were celebrations of all kinds going on all over the area. What did you do on the 4th?
Brian Mankilow: Well, unfortunately, we had a death in our family, so we were dealing with that actually on the morning of the 4th, so all of our plans kind of got squished from there, but I did watch a little bit of the fireworks and stuff at the national level, and, you know, I wonder what our forefathers would say today if they were here, Ted. You know, 250 years, it's a long time.
Ted Baker: I'm sorry to hear of your loss. It came at a good time because, obviously, we're probably as divided as a nation as we've been, and anything that allowed us to sort of come together and remember what that Declaration of Independence was all about is a good thing.
Brian Mankilow: Yeah, absolutely, and I know that we are divided, even here in New York State, and I don't think we're divided just to be divided. I think just of the makeup of our state, of course, what I see in the Assembly of the division of downstate versus upstate. Now, I shouldn't use the word, Ted, versus, but that's what it seems like sometimes. We have a great state. We have a lot of great things to do and see in New York State, but sometimes we forget that, you know, things that are passed for the New York State or New York City, it really doesn't work well here, and we continue to legislate that way, and it's sad for our upstate people.
Ted Baker: The session's over, and I, like I told you before we came on, I haven't been paying as close attention as I did prior to my semi-retirement, so kind of take us through the end of the session, the final disposition of the budget, the last-minute scramble to get bills passed at the end of the session.
Brian Mankilow: Yeah, it was pretty unfortunate as we went through the budget process, how late it was, second-latest budget in New York State history, I believe, and once we did pass that, it turned out to be a $277 billion budget, and unfortunately it took so long because of the pieces of the budget that were really not supposed to be in there, more policy than actual numbers, and that only left us basically one week to finish up session and local bills and passing some of the other bills, so there were some good things about that and some bad things about it, but in general we got through it. Do I anticipate we're going to go back at some point? I hear rumors, but I really don't see us going back, but you never know. So we went through it, we got our local bills passed, and here we are back in district now.
Ted Baker: It seems to me that it ought to be pretty clear, like you said, a lot of these things that are in the budget are not strictly budgetary, they're policy. Is there any way to change this? Can you make a court challenge or a suit or something and say, you know, because I know what the argument is. The argument is that everything in government now costs money, so everything's the budget, but I mean there's a difference between passing a budget and trying to stick policy proposals in there.
Brian Mankilow: Yeah, we could do it. We could do it legislatively for sure. We could pass that in both houses, and then whether the governor would sign it, I don't know. The governor, now Governor Hochul, of course, uses that as a tool in her toolbox to get what she wants, and if I was the governor, I would probably feel the same way, because if the legislature decides not to move anything forward that would help the governor's office, how does she do that? But I go back to, let's just do strictly the budget. Let's stick to the numbers, and anything policy related, we'll bring it to the floor where we can have time to digest it, reach out to our constituents back home, and talk with the taxpayers to see if it's a good thing for them or not, instead of sliding these things through the budget. And it should not take us that long to do that state budget.
Ted Baker: When I started doing the show about 20 years ago, we went through that that early phase where the budget was late seemingly every year, and then we got to a stretch where it was pretty much on time and a little less contentious. What changed from those days to now?
Brian Mankilow: I think what's changed is our former governor, Andrew Cuomo, he was able to get it through in a pretty close April 1st, and I think the legislature knew that and were able to make that happen. Now with the makeup of the legislature, and one of the things I see is the members of the New York City contingency. You know, you have a lot of Democrats down there, but you also had the DSA members, the Democratic Socialists of America, and they want more than what the Democrats want, and it's really within that house is what we're seeing and hearing of what the holdups are. And we could do it legislatively, as I said, and I wish we would because I just don't like the policy in there.
Ted Baker: Do you get much opportunity to talk to the other side of the aisle, just, you know, away from the office and kind of try to explain, hey I'm from upstate, this is how things are where we are, and this is how we see things?
Brian Mankilow: Oh, Ted, absolutely. I spend a lot of time talking to their members, whether it's at dinner at night, maybe a cocktail, maybe in the parking garage, I've done that, or throughout the day stopping in their office or vice versa. We do a lot of that. I think we have to do that, especially being in the minority. I definitely do that, and they're open in some of the ideas that we give them as we come to fruition through them, because of them being the majority, of course. So yeah, we do that. I think all of us as Republican members, as our conference being the minority conference, we do a lot of that.
Ted Baker: So let's talk about summer in the district. One of the things you do is just go around and get a lot of feedback, and I'm sure a lot of it comes to you. You probably don't have to reach out too much, but just talk about some of your priorities and the people you want to hear from, and what you have heard so far from constituents about what they think New York State needs.
Brian Mankilow: Yeah, I think, you know, we hear this all the time through New York State. We need transparency, of course, but we need to make business easier here in New York State. We've talked about that. Any legislator on either side of the aisle talks about that. The red tape and the paperwork to get anything done, the permitting process, it takes forever, especially going through DEC right now, working with our local municipalities and even some private landowners. It's just too long of a time to get through some of this red tape, and some of the red tape really needs to be changed because it's old-school red tape, and so that's one of the priorities I'll be working on, meeting with DEC, talking about some of the stuff going on there, and anything like that, whether it's DEC, DOT, Department of Labor, you know, helping our businesses and our local people get through some of that red tape and making sure we get accomplished what they want to have done locally. So that's probably the biggest part of my time right now.
Ted Baker: I know you're a big advocate for agriculture and the Finger Lakes. What are some of the issues the farmers are facing these days?
Brian Mankilow: Yeah, like right now as we get, you know, coming out of spring now, we're into summer, and looking at the crop, but also making sure that when we have that crop, making sure we have a home for that crop. And a few weeks ago I was up at Food Link up in Rochester, and we met with them. I'll be meeting with them next week here in my district office to talk about some of the apples that we produce here in Wayne County, making sure we have a home for them, because sometimes we see apples left on the trees because there isn't a home. So that's one of the priorities I'm going to bring forward to making sure that our farmers have other outlets for those apples, at least make sure we get those apples to Food Link and use them in a great way, and especially moving some of that product down in New York City as well.
Ted Baker: With the atmosphere in our country right now around immigration issues, are the farmers concerned about having workers when it comes harvest time?
Brian Mankilow: Ted, they are. I've talked to DeMay Labor, who's out of Williamson, and of course they use a lot of H-2A workers, so that's that's done through the federal system. But yeah, that's always a bone of contention as we move into harvest. But even prior to harvest, like this summer when you talked about thinning apples, doing other things within for row crops or the apples, making sure we have those workers here, because if we don't have those workers, those products aren't going to get harvested. So yeah, so we're working closely with them, and of course then we bring in our congressional members and our senators here at the state level, at the federal level, and making sure they can help move that thing forward as well.
Ted Baker: Are you doing any particular open house or town hall type events coming up?
Brian Mankilow: Yeah, right now what we're doing is, you know, we've only been out of Albany about a week, Ted, so we have a full schedule already. Yeah. Working through the local parades, the fair will be here, and just trying to catch up with what we missed for the first six months being in Albany. So once we do that, yeah, we'll be sitting down, talking with people, and to be honest with you, like you said earlier, I don't go out and reach, they reach out to us. So we spend a lot of time doing that, and that's where it's all, that's what's, that's what's so important about this job, is making sure we're in tune with the people that we represent, and making sure we're doing what they want, not what Brian wants.
Ted Baker: All right, Brian Mantello representing the 130th District, Wayne County, and Points North in our listening area. Good to talk with you again, and I look forward to the next time.
Brian Mankilow: You as well, Ted. Have a great week and a great month, and it's good talking with you as well.
