Anna S. Alonge, 78, supervisor at Candy Lane

By DEBORAH E. LANS

GHENT–It’s a new year, and The Columbia Paper spoke with local representatives in Albany about their legislative goals for the year. Agriculture, affordable housing, the environment and healthcare are among their priorities.

Michelle Hinchey (D) represents the 41st district, which includes Columbia County, in the State Senate. The senator opened her conversation with the paper by saying that she is proud to see some of the initiatives she has championed in the past included in the governor’s budget plans for this year. These include funding a Mid-Hudson Valley Transit study, to address the area’s need to address the lack of public transportation, and support for universal free school meals (breakfast and lunch).

The state has been increasing school meal funding over time to its current 80% coverage, and the senator thinks now is the time to close the remaining gap. Doing so will allow for expanding Farm to School measures as well – programs that support the sale of locally-sourced fresh food to schools by reimbursing their costs. In addition to supporting universal free school meals, the senator has introduced a proposal that would enshrine a “right to food,” the freedom to pursue activities that support its production, and a right to be free from hunger in the state’s constitution.

On the housing front, Senator Hinchey is sponsoring a bill to codify programs that support the kinds of affordable housing that are most suitable for rural communities, i.e., those for 4-to-20 unit developments. While such programs exist, they lack permanence, which the senator hopes to achieve.

The senator has introduced a bill that would increase the training requirements for local planning groups (planning boards and zoning boards of appeal) to include one hour of training for environmentally-conscious planning every year. (Currently, board members are required to train for four hours annually.) The additional training would cover the goals of the state’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, funding opportunities, farmland and natural resource conservation, design and materials techniques and best practices.

In 2024 the legislature passed, but the Governor vetoed, a bill sponsored by Senator Hinchey that would have required hospitals to disclose the services they do not provide, based on “policy-based exclusions,” including such procedures as reproductive and gender-affirming care, thereby exposing service gaps. Senator Hinchey has reintroduced the bill this year (S-1003A). The “Legislative Findings” in the bill include stark warnings about the trajectory of healthcare:

“The legislature finds that since 2003 more than 40 community hospitals in New York state have closed.

“The legislature additionally finds that as a result of hospital consolidation, large health care systems now control more than 70 percent of acute hospital beds in the state and that these systems sometimes remove categories of care from local hospitals, leaving patients in regions of the state without access to particular types of care, including some types of emergency care.”

The goal of the bill is to require disclosure of the service gaps to aid patients in obtaining needed services.

The senator continues to work for farmland protection, in recognition of the fact that climate changes will set up the Northeast as the nation’s bread basket. Local weather shifts are less extreme here than in California, Florida and the Midwest. To avoid food crises or dependence on foreign food sources, the finite resource of agricultural land must be protected against extreme development pressures for housing, solar farms and other needs. Concerning solar siting, the senator continues to work with state regulators and developers in an effort to increase incentives to siting not on productive farm land but instead on such areas as rooftops, closed landfills or brownfields – locations that developers say are currently not cost efficient.

As an affordability and fairness measure the senator has also re-introduced a bill that would preclude utilities, except as a matter of one-time necessity, from issuing estimated bills rather than bills based on actual usage. Her similar measure passed the legislature last year but was vetoed by the governor. This year, some technical amendments have been made.

Didi Barrett (D) represents the 106th district in the state Assembly, a district that encompasses much of Columbia and Dutchess counties. Like Senator Hinchey, she is excited by many of the governor’s proposals that align with her concerns about affordability, especially in housing, and her focus on the green economy.

A key, and innovative, bill Assemblymember Barrett has introduced (A.331) would empower local governments to create community housing funds, as a means to establish locally-appropriate affordability solutions. A locality can opt in to the program via a referendum. The fund would be financed by a supplemental real estate transfer tax of up to 0.5% of the sales price of a home, in excess of the local median sales price, levied on the buyer. The tax and the fund would operate similarly to community preservation fund programs, such as the Town of Chatham enacted recently, except the fund would be used not to protect open spaces and farmland but instead to provide financial assistance to first-time home buyers who live or work in the community and to the production or rehabilitation of local housing.

New York State has enacted various programs to incentivize the purchase of electric vehicles. Assemblymember Barrett has proposed a bill that would also grant rebates of up to $2,000 to the purchasers of previously-owned zero-emission vehicles, as a measure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, some 20% of which are attributable to personal transportation. In a similar vein, Ms. Barrett has again introduced a bill to require NYDERDA (the New York State Energy and Research Development Authority) to develop an implementation plan for vehicle fast charging stations. Last year, that bill passed the legislature but was vetoed by the governor.

In different ways Senator Hinchey and Assemblymember Barrett have also addressed the importance of EMS and firefighting workers to our communities. The senator would deem EMS to be an essential service and Ms. Barrett has introduced legislation to allow volunteer firefighters and ambulance workers to receive tax credits and property tax relief.

Scott Bendett (R-107th) represents Kinderhook and Ghent, as well as much of Rensselaer and part of Washington counties. A self-proclaimed “Libertarian” he values his services in supporting community member needs – services he can fully control – at least as much as legislation, of which he often believes the state has overmuch. In addition, as a member of the Republican minority, he considers his ability to successfully promote legislation to be limited.

The bills of which Mr. Bendett is the primary or sole sponsor this session include one that would phase out medical expense assistance in local communities to needy persons and to use the savings to reduce property taxes and one that would mandate the establishment of addiction counseling programs for incarcerated individual in all state and county detention facilities. Mr. Bendett is deeply concerned with addiction issues, and in 2024 he brought an informational program to Columbia County together with Senator Hinchey and local physician William Murphy.

The assembly member believes that our senior citizens are not sufficiently honored and protected by the state. He is the sponsor of a bill to ensure the access to a telephone for local and long-distance calls in the room of every nursing home resident, and he has co-sponsored a bill to study the implementation of a statewide “frailty index,” a recognized measure, with the goal of improving the health of nursing home residents.

This session, he is co-sponsoring, among other things, bills to create a property tax exemption for lands used to produce crops for ethanol production; a tax credit for businesses that develop college-to-work programs; a bill to train family members to become “complex care assistants” and thereby qualify for Medicare reimbursement for attending their eligible relatives; a bill to study strategies to support small businesses, including through loans, grants, equipment upgrades and financial education; a bill that would require implementation of a statewide civics education curriculum; and a bill that would require the presentation of an ID document at the time of casting a ballot.

A bill with broad Republican support would require all refugees and asylum seekers to register with the state and be subject to background searches, with the results to be shared with federal and local law enforcement agencies. Mr. Bendett is also a co-sponsor of a bill that would allow localities to provide a 50% tax exemption to child care facilities.

To see all the legislation sponsored or supported by a legislator, go to www.billtrack50.com.

To contact reporter Deborah Lans email deborahlans@icloud.com