Latest / None of Your Business Podcast / One Town. One Supervisor. One SPECHTacular Comeback

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One Town. One Supervisor. One SPECHTacular Comeback · None of Your Business Podcast

• 0:00
  When I first took office and I met with the County Executive to
• 0:02
  introduce myself, he said, he said, you know, your town is is
• 0:08
  kind of like the North Korea of Rockland County.
• 0:10
  Don't be the North Korea. And I actually said, well, I
• 0:12
  think we're more like the Israel of Rockland County.
• 1:09
  Welcome back everybody to another amazing episode of the
• 1:12
  None of Your Business podcast. I'm your host, Michael
• 1:14
  Greenfield joined with me is Oshi Schwartz.
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  And today we have an amazing, amazing guest, the CEO of
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  Ramapo, the town supervisor, the man himself, Mr. Michael Spect,
• 1:23
  welcome to the program. Thank you.
• 1:25
  We are so excited to have you here.
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  Just a quick promo drop. We're backed by the Prime Source
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  production team, and we'd love for you guys to like, subscribe,
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  comment, get involved, tell us the kind of questions you like
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  to hear. You know the Mr. Spect answer,
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  you know, tell us the kind of things that you want us to talk
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  about and we will sometimes pay attention.
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  Yeah, not too much a. Little bit when it makes sense,
• 1:46
  right? When it, when it, when it's, you
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  know, Michael, Mr. Town Supervisor, what, what what do
• 1:51
  we call you? Michael, Michael.
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  Michael is perfect. That's OK.
• 1:53
  Michael. Mike.
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  Yeah. So, Your Honor, Your Eminence.
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  Your Majesty. Your Majesty.
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  Yes, that does make sense. You have an amazing background.
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  I know very little of you, but the little that I do know is
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  very, very impressive. I know you were a former
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  prosecutor and I know that you're a town of Ramapo lover,
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  and maybe by force, I don't know.
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  Did your wife make you? Get into this.
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  She did. She did.
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  She made me get into the town. I grew up in Haverstraw, N
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  Rockland, and I met my wife in 1990.
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  I got out of law school, she got out of college.
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  And my mother will always take the credit 'cause she was
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  reading. Back then, you didn't have the
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  Internet. She had the Journal News and
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  they had a thing Jewish singles volleyball tomorrow night at a
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  synagogue, which is no longer there in suffering.
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  I'll go. I went, I met my wife and we
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  wound up. I went back the next week.
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  I asked her out. We began dating, we got engaged,
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  and then we had to decide where we're going to live.
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  She grew up in what's now Ermont in the Tallman neighborhood, but
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  she always called her Suffern, and she loved the town.
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  She had interned when she was in college for Supervisor Herb
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  Riesman, who was a legend. And I said, do you want to live
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  in Haverstraw? Do you want to live by you?
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  And she said, we have to live in Ramapo.
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  I, I don't want to live anywhere else.
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  I said all right, I I didn't know then anything.
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  One town was the same as another.
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  And you were in love. I was in love and I said 15
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  minutes away from where I live now.
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  And you haven't stopped taking orders since.
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  No, that hasn't changed. She's.
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  The real supervisor here. She is she is somebody the.
• 3:25
  Supervisors. Supervisor.
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  The other day somebody came in and they were unhappy with
• 3:28
  something that one of our departments did.
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  And they asked who do I complain to?
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  Who's above? And they said the supervisor and
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  they came to my office and they didn't like what I said.
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  And they said, well, who's above you?
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  I said Karen, I'll give you her number, but she may not pick up.
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  Oh, I'm curious, what was the what was the complaint?
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  Let me hear what people are complaining about.
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  They went to the town clerk's office and they wanted a copy of
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  an old record from 20 odd years ago that they said they had
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  asked for then and they never got.
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  And the clerk said we have no record of you ever asking for
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  it, but either way, it's a new copy.
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  OK, boring. I thought it would be a little
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  bit more. Exciting.
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  It was very, very boring. It was over $10.00 but.
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  Why don't we start with just. First of all, what the heck does
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  a town supervisor do? Great question.
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  What is your role? What is your?
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  Responsibility. I think the way you said it as
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  CEO of the town is the best way. I'm the chief executive of the
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  town of Ramapol. I'm the person who has the
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  responsibility for the responsibility for the town's
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  finances. We have a finance director who
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  reports directly to me, but ultimately I'm the one who signs
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  off on the finances. I direct all the departments
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  with the exception of the highway department because we
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  have been elected highway Superintendent.
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  Fred Brin, who we work together, we're a great team, but he
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  controls what his department does, although we provide the
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  funding for his department. So it's a little complicated
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  there, so. Let me just let me understand
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  this. Let me just break this down and
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  I want to dumb this down a little bit for guys like me.
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  So let's assume you have a bank account, OK?
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  The name of the bank account is registered to Tanaramabo.
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  You're the you're the officer of that bank account.
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  You're in control of it. And that money comes from all
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  taxes that are paid into it, which ultimately goes the bank
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  account. And there's hundreds of millions
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  of dollars in there potentially at a time.
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  And then you're the one who authorizes and you say, all
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  right, this is approved. This is right.
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  You're, you're allocating where the money goes and you don't
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  like is there a board? Is there?
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  We do. We have an account board,
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  there's five members, myself and four elected town council people
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  and we set the budget every year we vote on on the budget, which
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  has allocations for different projects, different departments,
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  salaries, things like that. And then throughout the year,
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  ultimately I have to prove every week the checks that are issued,
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  I have to sign off on payroll. I have that responsibility.
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  You know, we have a finance department that those the the
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  accounting and the, and the leg work.
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  But ultimately they present it to me every week and I have to
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  approve it and sign off. But the overall large spending
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  is done with the approval of the Town Board.
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  I'm curious, by the way, besides payroll, what's a big expense
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  that town? Around the big what's the number
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  one expense? Or.
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  Good town around. Right now, well, payroll is big,
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  of course. Yeah, right now we we're
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  spending a lot of money on infrastructure upgrades because
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  we went many years without putting in sidewalks, without
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  fixing the roads, and we've been doing that.
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  So we're spending on installing sidewalks.
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  I just got off the phone an hour ago about putting in a new
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  sidewalk that's been long-awaited.
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  And we're looking to do traffic improvements, turning lanes,
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  stacking lanes, street lights, things like that.
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  So that's a big expense. Our Police Department is a big
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  part of the budget, both salary and just operational expense
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  because we have a large department.
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  We have about 110 officers and we could probably hire a few
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  more and still be, you know, within what we need.
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  This is the Ramapo. Ramapo Police.
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  So there could also be like the town police.
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  Yeah, we're the town. So we have that, yeah.
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  And then the the Rambo police is the highest order in.
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  Well department, we have Rambo's unique because we have 12
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  villages in the town, right? And the villages have a lot of
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  independence. They set their own local laws,
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  their own zoning, their own land use approvals. 2 of them have
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  police departments, Spring Valley and suffering.
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  So we don't do policing in Spring Valley or suffering
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  unless they're asking us for help, for backup.
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  But the other 10 villages and the rated town, Muncie and the
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  other on the corporate areas where the police.
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  So that is a big expense that takes the biggest part of our
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  budget. Highway is a big part, both
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  salaries and fixing potholes. You know, people love to
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  complain that that potholes need to be fixed.
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  And when we wherever we learn or then we go out and we do it.
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  But there's a cost material. Every time I go over a pothole I
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  curse your name. You do damn supervisor fine
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  though. Where's?
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  Those some of. Those maybe state or county
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  roads. You know, by the way, funny,
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  funny you should say that in the town of Ramapo.
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  I've experienced that. If I get put by the way, you've
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  gotten pulled over ever in the town of Ramapo has that
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  happened? Can imagine someone pull you
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  over who you pay their paycheck? To no comment.
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  But you know, the police here they are like, you know what she
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  was mentioning a minute ago? So there's Ramapo police in the
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  town, then Villages have their own police.
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  Two of our. Villages too, Yeah.
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  Which one? Yes, suffering in Spring Valley.
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  And those are the two older villages that were established
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  in the 1800s, Probably interesting.
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  Yeah. And they were there.
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  They were always more independent because if we look
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  at it geographically, Spring Valley is at the intersection of
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  Route 59 and Route 45, two major state roads and train station
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  was there. So it became a commercial area,
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  shopping. And then you had the bungalow
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  colonies and then that were there years ago.
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  So that was always his own little village.
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  And then suffering is in the intersection of 2O2 and Route 59
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  and also a train station. So their transportation hubs,
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  their shopping hubs. So they kind of grew up
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  organically and the town kind of came into being around them.
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  So they always had their own their own police.
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  The other villages for the most part came about in the latter
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  part of the 20th century country and a lot of them were created
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  as zoning villages. They were created because they,
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  unfortunately, some of the villages wanted to keep people
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  out, so they created it to pass restrictive zoning laws.
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  And that's changing. And we have great relationship
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  with our villages now. We all work together.
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  So Spring Valley police chasing someone down the road comes into
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  another town. Yeah, he doesn't have to pull.
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  Over Valley hot pursuit law you can keep.
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  Following. Oh, that's what it's called.
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  Yeah, it is New York hot pursuit.
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  Police in hot pursuit of a of a wanted criminal or suspect could
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  cross the municipal lines. So they have no jurisdiction
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  beyond their confined territory. Well, they they do and they
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  don't. A New York A police officer in
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  New York is a police officer throughout the whole state.
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  So cop goes on vacation to Buffalo and he sees a crime
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  being committed. Could act as a cop, but
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  generally the right practices to to defer to the local
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  authorities and call in and and say I'm a cop from out of the
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  area and I saw this and that happening.
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  It's a way to avoid problem. If you don't mind, clarify
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  something for me. I'm on the Palisades.
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  I'm from New York to New Jersey. Yeah, that's separate.
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  That's the Palisades police. That's the New York of the New
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  York State Police, and then you cross over, you have the New
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  Jersey State Police. So what happens there?
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  Can they chase me into New Jersey?
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  Yeah, I think they can. I think they go over the line if
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  they're. Michael, can you please not?
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  I have a feeling he's going to try this just to like really
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  test it out. Please don't.
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  No. You know, there's always a thing
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  like, oh, if you get pulled over on the Palisades between Exit 5
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  and whatever, it's OK because New Jersey, you don't have
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  points. It might.
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  Be true. I don't know how New Jersey
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  right, right. You may not get points.
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  But something that I was saying earlier is something that I,
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  that I found interesting. Oh, she, I don't know if you
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  ever had this, if you OK, so you know, Mr. Supervisor, you've
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  never gotten pulled over. We won't talk about it.
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  But I've gotten pulled over. I've gotten pulled over and I've
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  been to the court system and I find and I'm I don't want this
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  to change, but I still going to bring attention to it because I
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  find it fascinating that 90% of the tickets that you're
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  listening to speeding and seatbelts and cell phones
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  turning into parking. Tickets.
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  That's right. They turn into probably 12 O1 AI
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  think, which is parking on the pavement.
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  Yeah, because the idea is that unless it was really egregious
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  and it's someone's first offence, you want to, you want
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  to, you want to give them a warning, you want them to pay,
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  but you don't want to impair someone's license because people
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  worry about their insurance going up.
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  They worry about. Losing less.
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  And when they pay, they pay for parking.
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  It goes to the town, it goes, the money goes to the village.
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  If the municipality gets part of it and part of it goes to the
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  state, I'm not. And if it's a.
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  Speeding ticket and it stays as a speeding ticket then it
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  automatically. Goes to.
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  I believe it all goes to the state there.
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  So it makes sense. It's a it's a compromise for
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  all. Of us, it helps the courts, it
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  helps us and. And everybody makes a drive,
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  Everybody's acting. Right, that's what I.
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  Well, we instituted a couple years ago because we're having
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  long lines of traffic. It was tying up the attorneys
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  and the court. We did what some other towns
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  did. We did plea by mail where you
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  get a ticket. A few weeks later, you'll get a
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  letter from our town attorney's office saying you have a ticket.
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  It's a if you're found guilty, it's a 5 point, whatever it is,
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  we're offering you a plea to whatever the number is.
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  It could be the 12 O1 no points. It could be a reduction 2
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  points. If you want to take it, sign the
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  form, mail it in and you'll get a, a letter from the court with
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  your fine. And people love that because
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  they don't want to go waste the whole morning, afternoon that's
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  sitting in court. How many villages are part of
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  the town? Around we have 12 villages. 12
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  total villages. Total villages in the town.
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  What's the biggest village? Good question.
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  In terms of population, New Square is big.
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  It's got a lot of people. Trying to New Square is
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  considered its own village. New squares is they're one of
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  the 12 of the original. And they're one of the biggest
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  it. Was one of the I believe it is
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  in terms of population, if not in terms of area.
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  How many people are? How many?
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  First of all, how many voters do they have?
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  I. Think that's more, I think about
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  3500 or so as far as I could remember. 3500 is considered the
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  biggest village. Well, that's voters.
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  That's the voters. In terms of people, it's a lot
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  more because you have a lot of kids.
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  Yeah, yeah. How many people total in
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  Rockland? County, Ohio in Rockland,
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  300,000 and change and Ramapo officially we're about 160,000
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  or so. Wow.
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  Yeah, so we're we are we're about 45% of the population of
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  the entire county. Wow.
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  Yeah, we're big. We're big.
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  We've. Grown.
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  We. Went up 20% our population
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  between the 2010 and the 2020 census.
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  And that's just the population that was counted.
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  That doesn't include the people that were not were undercounted
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  in the in the census. Wow, I did not.
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  Yeah, we're we're very big. Where do you think all the
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  traffic is coming from? That's why 9 the cars in the
• 13:01
  road exactly. Wait a second, it's 300,001.
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  Somebody just had a base. I always get people complaining
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  and they're like, we moved here three years ago from Brooklyn or
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  wherever, and there's too much traffic.
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  I'm like, that's because everyone's moving here, you
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  know? Why did you move here?
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  Well, we walked to the schools. We went to this and that.
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  I'm like, well, you're not the only.
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  One I'm just curious, you say mazel tov and you say it very
• 13:20
  easily it's coming out of you know you said you went to a
• 13:22
  Jewish volleyball singles event so you are Jewish I.
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  Am Jewish. It's a a little known secret.
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  I've never, certainly never hide it.
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  And I I tell people all the time, but people don't think I
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  am A lot of people don't think I am in the community because my
• 13:34
  last name is not obviously Jewish.
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  It could be, it could not be, it could go either way.
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  And I'm, I'm not from an Orthodox background, but I, I
• 13:41
  grew up in a went to a Conservative synagogue and have
• 13:44
  a straw and my, you know, my grandparents on one side, great
• 13:50
  grandparents on the other side were immigrants from Eastern
• 13:52
  Europe. You just speaking.
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  My parents grew up in households where their parents, my
• 13:56
  grandparents spoke Yiddish at home and English and, you know,
• 13:59
  at work and then where else. So.
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  You know what town and you're saying Eastern?
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  Europe. Yeah, I know.
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  My grandfather was from Lancet, which is Poland, and he actually
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  came here as a young man after World War One.
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  He served in the Austro Hungarian army in World War One
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  and then he came here in the 1920s when he was in his early
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  to mid 20s, I think, became a citizen.
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  My grandmother who married, she, her parents were from Russia.
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  They went to London and she was born in London and lived there
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  in, in White Chapel of the East End until she was a little girl
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  five years old or so. They moved to America and then
• 14:35
  they actually was interesting somehow they got jobs in a town
• 14:39
  in a small town in Massachusetts, working in a
• 14:41
  hotel there that they knew somebody who owned it.
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  My great grandfather was like a handyman.
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  My great grandmother was a cook and she spent her childhood as a
• 14:50
  little girl in this little town in in Massachusetts.
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  And then they went up moving to, to this New York City when she
• 14:57
  was a little bit older. So she had a she didn't have a
• 15:01
  stereotypical New York Jewish accent when she was young.
• 15:05
  And, and we're talking back then, this is like the 1910s
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  when she was a teenager and she was going for jobs.
• 15:11
  And she was telling me once how you know, it was, it was, it was
• 15:14
  blatant anti-Semitism. Like it was known that some
• 15:16
  places offices would not hire you if they thought you were
• 15:19
  Jewish. So because of her, her accent,
• 15:22
  it was this New England accent and her, she would go in and
• 15:26
  give a different last name. She would, you know, not give
• 15:28
  her last name as Solomon. And they didn't, there was no
• 15:30
  Social Security cards and ID back then.
• 15:32
  So they, they took her word and, and she got hired in places that
• 15:35
  were, you know, restricted because they didn't want people
• 15:39
  like her if they knew she was Jewish working there.
• 15:41
  So. It could be your name was
• 15:42
  Spektlovsky. Or it could have been.
• 15:44
  I mean, as far as we know it was back then too, but.
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  One of the bigger, bigger challenges back in the 20s was
• 15:51
  that, you know, the Jewish Orthodox people didn't want to
• 15:53
  work on Saturday, right? And anybody hiring someone,
• 15:56
  like, if you're not working on Saturday, you were done.
• 15:58
  Yeah. They weren't hiring you.
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  You know that was a big problem. No, absolutely.
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  I never really when I was young, I never really asked my, I
• 16:05
  didn't know enough to ask my grandmother these questions.
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  And I kind of, you know, she passed away years ago, but I
• 16:09
  kind of wish I I did what it was like back then.
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  You know, she started working as a teenager in 19 tens 1920s and
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  and like you said, it was it was legal to discriminate then there
• 16:20
  was no. Are there any traditions or
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  things that lessons learned from, you know, growing up in
• 16:26
  that environment or grandparents and that kind of thing?
• 16:28
  Is yeah, always be proud to be Jewish.
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  We're all, you know, whatever our level of, of observance,
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  we're all one people. We have to speak together in a
• 16:39
  positive way. One thing my mother always said
• 16:44
  when I was in school and not yet in the working world, she goes
• 16:47
  when you get a job, if they tell you you have to work on a
• 16:50
  Saturday and you have to work on a holiday, even if you don't
• 16:53
  observe, even if you are going to go play golf on Saturday,
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  tell them you can't. It's against the religion
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  because you can't. You can't let that become how
• 17:02
  you're defined because then what will happen is she saw that in
• 17:05
  places where she worked. If if I come in and work on on
• 17:08
  Shabbos and then somebody who, who is Shoma Shabbos says I
• 17:11
  can't work, they're going to say, well, well, SPECT is able
• 17:13
  to work in Houston, which why can't you do it?
• 17:16
  You're setting an example. Exactly, so I've always tried to
• 17:18
  keep that in mind. Yeah, but I was just going to
• 17:21
  ask, you know, a lot of Jewish identity stems from Israel.
• 17:24
  And recently there was a little bit of something that happened
• 17:26
  with an Israeli flag or something.
• 17:28
  What happened there? I mean, I, well, I heard
• 17:30
  something. Yeah, well, you know, it's last
• 17:33
  year, October 7th took us all. We were all horrified.
• 17:36
  We actually that day, I, I first found out about it because I got
• 17:40
  a call in the morning from our police chief, Chief Riley, who
• 17:44
  was in Israel as part of a conference by the Israeli.
• 17:49
  I'm, I'm trying to remember the agency, not homeless security,
• 17:52
  but the equivalent for police chiefs from this region.
• 17:54
  He was there with about 20 other police chiefs from.
• 17:57
  They were all there. They were all there and they
• 17:58
  were, they were near Center Rd. so they were close to where
• 18:02
  everything was happening. And he called me to say just, I
• 18:05
  don't know if you heard there's attacks by Hamas.
• 18:08
  At that time, he only knew about the Rockets being launched.
• 18:11
  He said, my hotel, I'm looking out the window and there were
• 18:14
  rockets being intercepted by the Iron Dome and their helicopters
• 18:17
  overhead. And he goes, I got to go.
• 18:18
  They're having us go into the bomb shelter.
• 18:20
  So then we stayed in touch with him.
• 18:21
  He was able, they were all able to get them out that they got
• 18:23
  him into. There were no flights leaving
• 18:25
  Israel, but they got them into Dubai.
• 18:27
  And then from Dubai they got, they got back home.
• 18:29
  But by that time we learned of the more of what was happening
• 18:34
  of the hundreds and then over 1200 people that were massacred.
• 18:38
  So we decided the town, we, we had to do something to show
• 18:41
  solidarity. So I think that Wednesday or
• 18:44
  Thursday, a few days later, we decided we're going to raise the
• 18:46
  Israeli flag. We went out, we, we got an
• 18:48
  Israeli flag from Tuvias and Tuvias.
• 18:51
  Yeah, everybody. Knows one of the oldest stores
• 18:53
  in Muncie. Yeah, I got my tallest there
• 18:56
  from my bar mitzvah, and my son's tallest there for he's
• 18:59
  kidding me. Wow.
• 19:00
  Been there forever. That's great.
• 19:02
  Fun fact, yeah. Really, you know, really cool.
• 19:04
  And we, we put the, we raised the flag.
• 19:07
  We had a lot of people from the community, a lot of local
• 19:10
  officials show up. And at the time I said we're
• 19:13
  going to fly this flag in solidarity with the people of
• 19:15
  Israel. And this flag stays up to all
• 19:16
  the hostages are brought home. And we meant that and it's still
• 19:19
  up. And we got pushed back a bit
• 19:22
  later from unfortunately, very first push back.
• 19:25
  We got a few calls from anti Israel people just in general in
• 19:31
  some emails. How can you fly the flag?
• 19:33
  And as before, Israel even did anything to they.
• 19:36
  Didn't even do anything and people were already saying.
• 19:39
  That genocide, genocide. At that point, Israel was just
• 19:42
  trying to rescue the people that were and, and I would hang up on
• 19:47
  people or tell them, you know, OK, goodbye, you know, and, you
• 19:51
  know, genocide or some people thought they were being
• 19:53
  reasonable. Well, if you're going to fly the
• 19:54
  Israeli flag, you have to fly the Palestinian flag too.
• 19:57
  And I said, no, we don't. We're not, it's not even a
• 20:00
  country not flying it. And then we got the organized
• 20:03
  protest by Natori Carta. And that went on for a while.
• 20:08
  They'd come up and demonstrate in front of town hall 5 people
• 20:11
  or whatever cars would go by and jeer at them.
• 20:14
  And then and then finally last. After a few months, they sued us
• 20:18
  and the lawsuit is still pending.
• 20:20
  They're alleging it's illegal to fly the a foreign flag.
• 20:24
  And their lawyer is the guy who's the lawyer, literally the
• 20:27
  lawyer for Hamas, Stanley Cohen, who if you look him up, he has
• 20:30
  represented Hamas, Hezbollah in court and mourns the death of
• 20:38
  Sinwar and Israeli. Yeah.
• 20:41
  Oh, totally. I mean, there are people out
• 20:43
  there that are pro peace. There are people out there that
• 20:45
  are anti Zionist. He is somebody out there who is
• 20:48
  pro Hamas and he represents them in the lawsuit.
• 20:53
  One guy, one, one person who's suing us is trying to claim it's
• 20:55
  on behalf of the greater Hasidic community that all five of them.
• 20:59
  Yeah, yeah, exactly. And they're so non
• 21:01
  representative of what people think.
• 21:03
  The vast majority of people in the town from all walks of life,
• 21:06
  including people that aren't Jewish, have said it's great
• 21:09
  we're doing it. They're proud, they're happy to
• 21:11
  see it. And we, we, we, we think it's
• 21:15
  the right thing to do. Wow.
• 21:17
  Well, thank you for standing up for we're, we're what's right.
• 21:20
  We're happy to do it. And we, I, I said recently, I
• 21:24
  said, look, if, if the day comes when all the hostages are
• 21:26
  finally home, we'll be happy to take the flag down.
• 21:29
  Not that we're capitulating. We're taking it down because,
• 21:31
  you know, we, we, we promised we'll be up for that reason.
• 21:33
  We're taking it down for good reason.
• 21:36
  It was never meant to be a permanent thing, but at the same
• 21:37
  time it wasn't meant to be a one day thing either.
• 21:39
  You know it's. Amazing.
• 21:40
  I have to ask, you know, because I, I, I've moved to Ramapo.
• 21:44
  I'm, I'm a Brooklyn kid, sort of grew up in Israel a little bit.
• 21:47
  And then when I first came here, it was so quiet.
• 21:50
  I didn't know what to do with myself.
• 21:53
  I learned what a deer was, you know, all I knew was rats, you
• 21:57
  know, and sometimes little squirrels.
• 21:58
  But it was quiet. And then there was a lot of
• 22:01
  noise that I was hearing in the world of politics.
• 22:04
  But how it affected me also, and I'll never forget the I was just
• 22:07
  trying to figure out what's happening with my taxes because
• 22:10
  taxes were so high. Yeah.
• 22:11
  And we don't send our kids to, you know, public schools.
• 22:13
  But you're paying we're. Paying, you know, 80% I think of
• 22:16
  our taxes goes towards it or a very large.
• 22:18
  Large amount, yeah, it was 60% probably.
• 22:19
  Yeah, 51%, you know, that's how I like to say over there, over
• 22:23
  50. So, you know, I went to this
• 22:25
  town board meeting, the school board just to see what was
• 22:27
  happening. And someone, one of my friends
• 22:29
  asked me to come and join. And I couldn't believe the the
• 22:32
  anger that ensued there throughout the next few years
• 22:36
  that I was watching. I mean, this is not for me.
• 22:38
  You know, I have a brother that's in politics.
• 22:40
  He's he's one of the best in my opinion.
• 22:42
  What was the anger about? It was just, it was just two
• 22:45
  different sides. Because what happens is when you
• 22:47
  pay for privates, when you pay for public school taxes as a
• 22:51
  resident, you have other rights other than sending to public
• 22:56
  school. Exactly one of those things, and
• 22:57
  correct me if I'm wrong, is books, books, very small amount
• 23:00
  of things, public transportation, special special,
• 23:03
  special needs. So it comes along with it.
• 23:06
  So if you as someone who pays your tax, takes advantage of
• 23:09
  that but not taking that and it's a whole fight, like let's
• 23:11
  you know, so people were fighting about everything and
• 23:15
  then and then came up this beautiful, you know, park,
• 23:17
  which, you know, it's a nice park to look at and has nice
• 23:20
  events that happened from time to time.
• 23:21
  Yeah. You came in, Yeah.
• 23:24
  In an era where you had to rebuild trust and you're coming
• 23:29
  in as a prosecutor, ex prosecutor and someone who's now
• 23:33
  fiscally responsible for so much playing politics, building
• 23:37
  trust. What was your secret sauce?
• 23:39
  I mean, I see what you're about just in this one story about the
• 23:42
  Israeli flag, which is giving me confidence on thank you at least
• 23:45
  how you'd, you know, somewhat, you know, created trust in your
• 23:48
  environment. But what was it?
• 23:50
  What was your secret? How have you done it?
• 23:52
  What were the challenges? Take me to this process,
• 23:54
  probably the biggest challenge coming in because the town's
• 23:56
  reputation was at an all time low because of what had
• 23:58
  happened. And we had bad relations with
• 24:01
  most of the villages in the town, bad relations with the
• 24:04
  other towns, the five of the four of the towns in the county,
• 24:06
  bad relations with county government.
• 24:08
  And it was just a matter of I think being honest, open, being
• 24:12
  a team player. We had a lawsuit with
• 24:15
  Clarkstown. That was a couple lawsuits that
• 24:17
  were one lawsuit with Clarkstown, one with the sewer
• 24:19
  district that had been pending from before I took office.
• 24:21
  We settled them, we worked out a reasonable settlement and and
• 24:24
  we're able to then move forward positively.
• 24:27
  We met with the county, we met with the other towns, we met
• 24:30
  with the mayors of the villages and basically the message was
• 24:33
  we're here to rebuild, we're here to work together.
• 24:35
  It was good for everybody. We're all, we're all really
• 24:37
  looking for the same thing here. Everyone always says that.
• 24:39
  I know. How did you actually do it?
• 24:41
  What was that? Secret sauce We had to just.
• 24:42
  I think part of it was just be by being open by.
• 24:45
  Transparency. Transparency, that's the big
• 24:47
  word that we kept here. You have to be transparent.
• 24:49
  So we will be. We have nothing to hide, you
• 24:51
  know, with the thinking that if we're doing everything right,
• 24:53
  even if we make mistakes, to be honest mistakes and we're not
• 24:55
  going to hide anything. So I, I had to give a lot of
• 24:57
  credit. The other 4 supervisors of the
• 24:59
  towns, Clarkstown, Haverstra, Orange Town, Spring and Stony
• 25:03
  Point were wonderful. Within a few weeks taking
• 25:06
  office, they all called me up and welcomed me to the
• 25:09
  supervisors club. And, and I didn't know that they
• 25:11
  did this, but every two months they would meet for lunch and
• 25:14
  work over issues and they said our next meeting is coming up in
• 25:16
  a couple weeks. Can't wait to see you there.
• 25:18
  And I went in and it was, you know, it was really nobody,
• 25:21
  nobody was judging me, nobody was judging the town.
• 25:22
  Everybody was looking to build a relationship.
• 25:25
  They saw it the way I did. This is a, a chance to start a
• 25:27
  restart a relationship. So I think by doing that, by
• 25:32
  being honest about what our finances were, you know, when I
• 25:35
  came in, there was an issue where we hadn't had, we lost our
• 25:42
  bond rating because we hadn't had our finances audited.
• 25:46
  We got that cleared up. We were able to get our bond
• 25:49
  rating back and we have a decent bond rating considering
• 25:51
  everything. Congratulations on that.
• 25:53
  That was a big move. Thank you, which allows us to
• 25:55
  borrow money to build the sidewalks in the streets that
• 25:57
  people need. So a lot of it was just, you
• 26:01
  know, cliche, Rome wasn't built in a day.
• 26:03
  I think what we did, it wasn't in one day.
• 26:05
  It was just every day a little bit more just to just to move
• 26:09
  the town forward, working with the other towns if they if it
• 26:13
  was something that taking a stand on an issue that affected
• 26:17
  everybody. You know, the simple thing like,
• 26:19
  hey, everybody, OK, if we all sign a letter agreeing on an
• 26:23
  issue and but yeah, absolutely send a letter over and I'll sign
• 26:25
  it just being being a team player and it and it paid off
• 26:27
  because I think we are all, we're all all on one positive
• 26:31
  team now. Very nice.
• 26:33
  How long have you been the town supervisor?
• 26:35
  Since January 2018, so over seven years.
• 26:38
  About seven years. Is there like a term limit for
• 26:40
  this? Yeah, there's no term limit.
• 26:41
  I keep running as long as people want me and as long as I want
• 26:44
  it. I run every two years.
• 26:45
  I'm running for reelection now and.
• 26:48
  How often do you run for reelection?
• 26:49
  Every two years. Every two years, Yeah.
• 26:50
  So I'm in my fifth term right now.
• 26:53
  Fourth term right now. I'm running for my 5th.
• 26:54
  Wow. So you're pretty good at
• 26:55
  campaigning, You're good at this?
• 26:56
  Thing I've been lucky you. Keep winning, you have a nice
• 26:58
  winning streak going. So far so good.
• 27:00
  I I won my first election when I had a a serious opposition when
• 27:03
  I wasn't in office yet and I won pretty comfortably.
• 27:07
  Second election somebody challenged me and I won even
• 27:10
  bigger. And then my third and 4th
• 27:11
  election. I had no opposition this year,
• 27:16
  as my mother would say, Kanahara.
• 27:18
  I don't have anyone on a major 1 running against me.
• 27:21
  There's still time for someone to run an independent line, but
• 27:24
  I'm optimistic that that's not going to be a problem.
• 27:26
  Who do you report to as a town supervisor?
• 27:28
  Who's your superior? My wife, Karen.
• 27:31
  After your wife, I mean. Great question.
• 27:33
  Politically, the hierarchy. The people, the the the voters.
• 27:37
  The voters, That's Yeah. I mean, you have a board.
• 27:39
  There are government entities that are bigger than the town.
• 27:42
  There's the county, there's the state, but there's no direct
• 27:46
  chain of command. Like I don't report to the
• 27:48
  County Executive, he doesn't report to the governor.
• 27:50
  We're all, we all have our own jurisdictions.
• 27:53
  Theirs are bigger than mine. Mine's focus on the town.
• 27:55
  But but within the town, I am the chief executive.
• 27:59
  I report to the town board, whatever I do, I have to be
• 28:01
  accountable to them. Board, They don't pull me in
• 28:03
  office. I'm put in office by the voters.
• 28:05
  But you know, we have to have a majority vote to do anything,
• 28:08
  you know. In terms of government though,
• 28:10
  do you do you need to go to a higher level of government to
• 28:14
  get anything done for the town and meaning like the governor
• 28:16
  for? Yes and no.
• 28:17
  If it's something within our our jurisdiction, no, if it's
• 28:20
  something that we need help from the state, if it's if we have a
• 28:23
  state road that's a problem and we are not allowed to fix it, we
• 28:26
  have to go to the to the state government.
• 28:28
  So we go to the governor's office, we go to our
• 28:30
  legislators, we go to the Department of Transportation
• 28:33
  people. And we basically say, hey, our,
• 28:36
  our, our residents. Who are your residents too?
• 28:38
  They need this fixed. They need this done.
• 28:40
  So we'll go to the state. We'll go to the county on county
• 28:42
  roads. I'm using roads as an example
• 28:43
  because that's the thing that always comes up.
• 28:45
  But it could be anything. It could be, you know, if we
• 28:48
  have a problem with the health department, we go to the county.
• 28:51
  So yeah. And that's more a question of
• 28:54
  just working collaboratively, like, like going back to what we
• 28:56
  were saying a few minutes ago when I took office, our
• 28:59
  relations with the county were very strained.
• 29:01
  And now it's cordial. We can call up and say, hey, we,
• 29:05
  we have an issue. Could we meet, can we work it
• 29:06
  out? When I, when I, when I first
• 29:09
  took office and I met with the County Executive to introduce
• 29:11
  myself. And again, relations were
• 29:13
  strained. And he said, he said, you know,
• 29:17
  your town is, is kind of like the North Korea of Rockland
• 29:19
  County. Don't be the North Korea.
• 29:21
  And I actually said, well, I think we're more like the Israel
• 29:23
  of Rocky County. We're doing what we think is
• 29:26
  quite. We don't get well, we don't get
• 29:27
  treated that way. And he, he laughed and.
• 29:30
  You're you're building trust and you're doing and it's
• 29:32
  interesting, but I didn't know that as ACEO you're really not
• 29:35
  answering to anybody. I mean, we have partners, we
• 29:36
  have people that we can talk to. Yeah, You know, it's pretty
• 29:39
  powerful position, very considering.
• 29:41
  It is a lot of money you have. To like if you wanted it
• 29:43
  tomorrow, just go spend 100 grand to buy a brand new car
• 29:46
  from that money. Like what are the checks and
• 29:48
  balances of like, you know, in a nursing home, right?
• 29:51
  There's the state will send in an inspector, you know, once a
• 29:54
  year or twice a year and they'll show up spontaneously.
• 29:58
  The federal government will send people in as well separately,
• 30:02
  right? So and that's kind of sort of
• 30:04
  keeping you honest. That's the order that they
• 30:06
  perform, right? Who's doing that for the town?
• 30:08
  Who will comes in to order? What's going on?
• 30:10
  Well, we do get audited every year in.
• 30:11
  Fact by who? Right state.
• 30:12
  Who's an outside agency? An outside firm of auditors,
• 30:16
  Cpas, and they ordered us and then that has to get filed with
• 30:20
  the state controller and we put it on our website, it becomes
• 30:22
  public. So if there is a problem, then
• 30:25
  we would hear from the controller's office and they're
• 30:28
  not shy about letting us know. And certainly in the, the days
• 30:32
  before our supervisor, they were on top of us.
• 30:36
  So we have to. So in terms of fiscally, we have
• 30:38
  to be accountable that way. But a bigger thing is we're
• 30:41
  accountable to the public. This is the information error
• 30:43
  where everything we do is out there.
• 30:45
  Somebody wants to know what's in our budget or what resolutions
• 30:47
  we pass that go in our. What is the budget?
• 30:49
  What is the? Budget's about 132 million every
• 30:52
  year, roughly. So it's it's a lot.
• 30:55
  It's a big budget. We put it out there there,
• 30:58
  there's multiple meetings worth discussed, workshop meetings
• 31:02
  with the town board, and then there's a hearing on it and then
• 31:04
  it's voted on. But I also have to be
• 31:06
  accountable to the town board now.
• 31:07
  The $100,000 car, for example, if we had in our budget, if the
• 31:11
  town board approved the budget that said $100,000 for a car, I
• 31:15
  could go out and order it because it's been approved and
• 31:17
  budgeted for. If we if it's not that specific,
• 31:21
  something like that, an expense over a small amount, I'd have to
• 31:25
  go to the town board and and put a resolution on authorize the
• 31:28
  town to buy $100,000 car and you, you could bet there'll be
• 31:31
  questions why you're buying 100. 1000 Is there a place we could
• 31:34
  go as a resident of Ramapo? Can we go online somewhere and
• 31:38
  see exactly sort of the the Expensify list where you spent
• 31:42
  the money like we had $140 million this year and this is
• 31:46
  where the money? Well, you can go to ramapo.org
• 31:49
  which is our website. We have all of our budgets that
• 31:52
  have been passed for the last number of years.
• 31:54
  Certainly since I've been supervisor online.
• 31:57
  We always have there's a multi step process with the budget.
• 32:00
  We the beginning budget is the tentative budget or called the
• 32:03
  supervisors budget, where I proposed the budget to the town
• 32:05
  board that gets presented to them.
• 32:07
  They look at it, they ask questions, they make changes.
• 32:10
  It then becomes the preliminary budget.
• 32:12
  And once it's the preliminary budget, we have a public hearing
• 32:15
  on it and we let people come in and give their opinions on it.
• 32:18
  Which everybody has. Everybody has, although most
• 32:20
  people don't come to meetings. So usually we find out a month
• 32:23
  later, somebody will say, I can't believe you approved this
• 32:25
  budget with this and what did you go to the meeting?
• 32:27
  No, I was busy that night. And then we vote on it and we
• 32:30
  vote and then it becomes the final budget.
• 32:32
  All those budgets from preliminary through permanent
• 32:34
  are online. In terms of what we actually
• 32:38
  spend through the year. Anybody could do a Freedom of
• 32:41
  Information law request, a floor request, they could e-mail it to
• 32:44
  our town clerk's office and the town clerk will respond and
• 32:48
  it'll say how much. Give us any copies of payments
• 32:53
  made for police cars for 2000. And four and we'll provide it
• 32:57
  and they release that information.
• 32:58
  We release it only. For somebody who's very bored.
• 33:01
  Somebody that is nothing else to do and wants to read over the
• 33:03
  stuff, we don't release it. If it's personal information,
• 33:06
  we're not going to release somebody's personal file on.
• 33:07
  This is there a savings account for the town?
• 33:09
  We have bank, whereas everything that comes in gets spent.
• 33:12
  No, we, we, there are investments like.
• 33:14
  We can't have investments, but we we do have fund fund balance
• 33:18
  and accounts. We have multiple bank accounts.
• 33:21
  Town finance is a little bit convoluted because of all the
• 33:23
  villages. So some villages use different
• 33:26
  services than others from the town.
• 33:27
  So it affects the taxes. You know like like 2 villages we
• 33:31
  mentioned don't have Police Department, have their own
• 33:33
  police departments. So we don't bill them for police
• 33:35
  services, we don't tax them for police.
• 33:38
  Some villages have their own water, not water, their own
• 33:42
  highway companies, or their own sewer companies, right?
• 33:45
  So the village themselves tax them, right?
• 33:47
  Exactly. And then they pay for it and
• 33:48
  they they got the revenue and they have that expense.
• 33:50
  Right. So it all depends.
• 33:52
  So what your taxes will be depend on what village, or
• 33:55
  whether you're in a village at all.
• 33:57
  Are we considered a rich town, Ramapo, as I'm talking about in
• 34:01
  the state of New York or even on our surrounding states.
• 34:03
  I'm not talking about across the country, but 5-6 states right
• 34:06
  around us. Like where, where do we stand as
• 34:09
  far as being well off or we're struggling to the.
• 34:13
  Question. I think overall we're we're
• 34:15
  considered fairly well off except we have pockets of
• 34:18
  poverty and I don't know how it averages out.
• 34:21
  I know we are eligible and to get community block development
• 34:28
  grant money because we do have areas of poverty in the town.
• 34:31
  So that's a good question. I don't know how you'd sum it
• 34:35
  up. Right.
• 34:36
  Well, you have a good credit rating.
• 34:37
  We have a good credit rating. We have a strong tax base and
• 34:40
  that's something the the S&P when they give us the credit
• 34:44
  rating, look at that, we have a secure tax base and it's growing
• 34:47
  every year. So if you look at being a a rich
• 34:51
  town in that level, absolutely. Wow, is there an entertainment
• 34:55
  budget for the town? Like do you allocate funds so
• 34:59
  you can give the town a good time?
• 35:01
  Throw a party, a big block party, a BBQ, something.
• 35:03
  We have some money for special events, special events, so we'll
• 35:06
  do things like we just had two weeks ago.
• 35:09
  We did a safety carnival at Clover Stadium or Baseball Park
• 35:15
  and. The town funds that everything
• 35:17
  going. On we had the county came in on
• 35:19
  it too in terms of funding. We basically we did the
• 35:23
  publicity for it. We had police there fire.
• 35:26
  But isn't that a private entity, the Boulder?
• 35:28
  State. Well, we own it, The town.
• 35:30
  The town owns it. The town.
• 35:32
  The town built it. The town built.
• 35:33
  The town paid for it. Town paid for it.
• 35:35
  We have a rock, a Ramapo Local Development Corporation, which
• 35:39
  is a quasi public entity that the town owns.
• 35:46
  The directors of the of the RLDC are myself and the town board
• 35:50
  members. We we serve ex officio as
• 35:54
  directors. So it's like a town owned entity
• 35:59
  I guess and that owns the the stadium and.
• 36:04
  What about the teams that are playing?
• 36:06
  Team is a private entity. That's private they so when they
• 36:09
  when you buy a ticket to the Clover City for a game that goes
• 36:12
  to them they. Not all of it.
• 36:13
  We get part of it too. You do get part.
• 36:14
  We have a we have a revenue sharing agreement with them.
• 36:17
  We get money from the parking, We get money from the concession
• 36:19
  stands. You go and buy a hot dog, we get
• 36:21
  part of it, so. Are we, are we losing money in
• 36:24
  this proposition every year as a town, or are we, are we at a
• 36:27
  surplus there? I would not say we're at a
• 36:29
  surplus. Yeah, imagine not.
• 36:30
  We are paying the debt service for it, even though it's owned
• 36:33
  by the RLDC, except a small part of it's owned, not right by the
• 36:36
  town. The town by agreement with the
• 36:38
  RLDC pays the debt service on the bond.
• 36:40
  That's a big amount every year. And in addition it does, to be
• 36:44
  honest, it does operate at an operating loss every year.
• 36:47
  We've managed to cut the. So you're supplementing this,
• 36:49
  you guys are covering? This, the way we see it, it it's
• 36:52
  we can't go into the expectation it's going to make money.
• 36:55
  We go in with the understanding that it's like a park.
• 36:58
  Our parks don't make money or parks are there for recreation
• 37:00
  for people to enjoy. They cost money because of
• 37:03
  equipment and maintenance and labor.
• 37:05
  But we look at the ballpark that way and we get more use out of
• 37:08
  it. So we have this carnival there,
• 37:09
  the safety carnival. We had our solo there.
• 37:12
  We had Springhill and Flights DMS, We had Rample Police,
• 37:16
  Rockland County Health Department and other agencies
• 37:18
  were there, and we made it fun. We talked to kids about how to
• 37:21
  walk across the street safely and how to get off the school
• 37:23
  bus and look both ways. I've attended some of those
• 37:25
  events with my kids. Yeah, I think it's great.
• 37:27
  And by the way, for the local community, it's awesome.
• 37:30
  We appreciate it because we go to games.
• 37:32
  Yep. It's very on a Sunday, it's
• 37:34
  cheap tickets, 10 bucks get in family event.
• 37:36
  Yeah, Yeah. And if I, if I splurge and I go
• 37:39
  to $30 and get VIP, that's right.
• 37:41
  I get to sit all the way at the bottom.
• 37:42
  Exactly. It's a good time, you know, but
• 37:44
  not everybody, you know, would love it because not everybody's
• 37:47
  benefiting from it. And it's a a big expense, I
• 37:49
  imagine, for the town. What other splurges is the town
• 37:53
  doing? Like Clover?
• 37:54
  State we did. Actually, I think that was in
• 37:57
  the fall Clamode. We did a big carnival in Welder
• 38:00
  Park. We had bouncy castles and cotton
• 38:03
  candy and all sorts of stuff. So that's a big public event.
• 38:07
  We'll do things like that. So I don't know if we call it
• 38:10
  entertainment of the budget, but we call it special events.
• 38:13
  What is something that you as the town supervisor, ever since
• 38:16
  you've had this role, what is something you're very proud of
• 38:19
  that you've done, that you can really pinpoint?
• 38:21
  And you can say, I think that we're excelling in this area
• 38:25
  that other towns could really learn from us, you know, take a
• 38:27
  page out of our book. What's something that we can all
• 38:30
  be proud of, some of that you've done, you know, on behalf of the
• 38:32
  commute, behalf of the entire village town.
• 38:35
  I think right off the top of my head, and it's not a glamorous
• 38:37
  thing, but I think it's something that affects a lot of
• 38:39
  people. I'm just going to say the number
• 38:40
  of sidewalks we've played in over the last few years.
• 38:43
  Like I said, we couldn't do a lot when I first took office
• 38:45
  because of the financial issues and we didn't have the bond
• 38:47
  rating. We couldn't go out the bond and
• 38:48
  we didn't want to. We didn't have the money to
• 38:50
  spend out of pocket and sidewalks are not cheap, but
• 38:53
  we've put in miles of sidewalk in the last few years.
• 38:57
  And it's one of the things that people I think are very happy
• 39:00
  about. When I see people on the street,
• 39:02
  I get people come up and say, oh, thank you.
• 39:04
  I live on Francis Place and thank you for the new sidewalks.
• 39:06
  Or my kids love it. They they get to, you know, walk
• 39:08
  to school without worrying. It's it's really gratifying to
• 39:12
  see. Just this morning we have a
• 39:13
  sidewalk in the suffering and a Mont Rampo area on Cragmire
• 39:17
  Road. And that's like we have a need
• 39:18
  for sidewalk. More and more people from the
• 39:21
  community have moved into that neighborhood over the last
• 39:23
  couple years and they're walking to shul, they're walking to the
• 39:26
  park nearby. And there's been a big demand
• 39:28
  for it. And we had and, and there were
• 39:29
  some challenges because one is the layout of the road is a
• 39:32
  little bit difficult, but also it goes through different
• 39:35
  municipalities. It goes through Aramonta
• 39:37
  Village, it goes through Suffrna Village.
• 39:39
  And we're trying to figure out a way to get everyone on board.
• 39:42
  And it's kind of hard with three different municipalities with
• 39:44
  different needs, different budgets.
• 39:46
  And they're smaller villages. They don't have the.
• 39:48
  Do you contract third party? Company, we do.
• 39:50
  We go out for a bid and we hire. We go out for bid and yeah, hire
• 39:53
  outside conference. We follow state bidding law on
• 39:55
  that. Where do you guys get your
• 39:57
  toilet paper from? I think Costco or Amazon, I
• 40:01
  don't know. Whatever's changing, I.
• 40:02
  Just want to say thank you for keeping our kids safe.
• 40:03
  By the way that. Is that is the.
• 40:05
  It's a big deal. It's a big deal.
• 40:07
  I live, by the way, by 306. Oh yeah, There's no sidewalks
• 40:10
  where I live in that part. And actually, it's pitch black.
• 40:12
  Over. That's a very.
• 40:13
  Dangerous. There's no St. life either.
• 40:15
  Sidewalks are coming in from Edison Court, I think up to
• 40:20
  Biola, but you're up past. There way past that I'm closer
• 40:22
  to 202. You're in the village you're in.
• 40:24
  Pomona so that. 'D be some Pomona.
• 40:26
  Whatever. I'm like a little past Wesley
• 40:27
  culture, Yeah. Yeah, so the challenge is, and I
• 40:30
  remember moving in and hearing these people fighting, and it's
• 40:32
  just so interesting to me. It's like we're not putting in
• 40:34
  sidewalks. You don't ruin the orphan.
• 40:36
  No, that was a big of our town. I don't want people walking.
• 40:39
  That's right. And I meanwhile kids, God
• 40:41
  forbid, are getting hit by cars. So like, yeah, you got to face
• 40:44
  the real. Years ago and it's probably the
• 40:46
  early 2000s. I remember the supervisor then
• 40:49
  was very happy because he got a grant from the state to put
• 40:52
  sidewalks in a particular neighborhood.
• 40:53
  And the people came out and they said we don't want sidewalks.
• 40:55
  We don't want to change the character life.
• 40:57
  And sadly, a lot of it was we don't want those people walking
• 40:59
  here. They're going to move here now.
• 41:00
  Exactly. I have to be honest with you, by
• 41:02
  the way, 19 in the 80s, early 90s when they put sidewalks on W
• 41:05
  Maple when a lot of people live in there, they were not happy
• 41:08
  about it either. Really, they were not.
• 41:10
  Because it changes the. But one thing that.
• 41:14
  The people need it. This week's episode again is
• 41:16
  brought to you by Gem Enrollments, an employee
• 41:19
  benefits. It's program Ushi.
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  accessible for them. Any information that they need,
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  they reach out to Gem Enrollments and they take that
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  off your plate. And as always, reach out to a
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  prime source expense advisor to learn more about GEM
• 41:48
  enrollments. And now back to our program.
• 41:50
  One thing that didn't change about Ramapo that keeps getting
• 41:52
  better are the parks. I have to tell you.
• 41:54
  That I. Love the parks.
• 41:55
  I love hiking. Yeah, it's something that's so,
• 41:58
  so absolutely. Beautiful Bear Mountain Park.
• 42:00
  Is that part of Ramapo? No.
• 42:02
  No, but I'm just saying even all the local part, there are so
• 42:04
  many little. Hidden Park, Gene Levy Park.
• 42:07
  What What is one of your favorite spots in Ramapo?
• 42:11
  Right now, well, too Clark Park, which is kind of near where I
• 42:14
  live. You see that area is talking
• 42:15
  about Craig Miro that people are walking on.
• 42:18
  So that that was the park, our park growing up.
• 42:21
  That was my daughter's favorite place in the world when she was
• 42:24
  in second grade. We go to parent teacher night or
• 42:26
  whatever and they have on the on the wall they had, they had to
• 42:28
  write your favorite place to be and everybody's writing Disney
• 42:31
  World and this and that. And my daughter wrote Clark
• 42:33
  Park. And I thought that was so sweet.
• 42:35
  So I always loved Clark Park. It's it's my neighborhood park.
• 42:38
  That's one and the other right now, Welder Park, which is the
• 42:42
  big park right in the, the heart of Muncie.
• 42:44
  Viola Park it used to be called, We put in a couple years ago and
• 42:47
  it's another thing I'm very proud of.
• 42:49
  We put in a new state-of-the-art playground there that, you know,
• 42:53
  has equipment for kids of all different abilities.
• 42:56
  Thank you for the. Pickleball court.
• 42:57
  Oh, you're welcome. Pickleball is huge.
• 42:59
  We could not have enough pickleball carts.
• 43:00
  Everybody wants pickleball. Yes, and we put that park in and
• 43:03
  it's busy every day and I love to drive by and just see all the
• 43:06
  kids playing on it cuz it shows it.
• 43:07
  Gives you knockouts. I want to give a shout out to
• 43:09
  Bruce, the attendant. Oh, he's that part.
• 43:12
  He loves that job. What do you call it, Wilder?
• 43:14
  Welder Park. Welder Park.
• 43:16
  Yeah, we know what is Viola part that.
• 43:18
  That's the name. It's always going to.
• 43:19
  Stick always. Viola, we'll always call the
• 43:20
  Viola part. But this guy, Bruce, I don't
• 43:22
  know if you know who he is. He's been there for, I don't
• 43:24
  know, 30 years, 2530 been for a long time, and he man's that
• 43:29
  part like it's his own personal playground.
• 43:31
  Absolutely. He's.
• 43:32
  Very, very passionate about it and he's made a lot of friends
• 43:34
  over the years. You know, he's a little bit of
• 43:36
  an interesting cat, but in a good way.
• 43:38
  He's in a nice way. He's.
• 43:39
  Harmless. Well, we have a wonderful part.
• 43:41
  Michelle is our parks director, parks Immigration, and she loves
• 43:43
  her work. She.
• 43:45
  So can I tell you something as the town super, I want to
• 43:47
  confess. I want to own up to something.
• 43:49
  OK, this has been a long standing I'm going to a lot of
• 43:53
  people are going to be very mad at me.
• 43:54
  You're. Not the one who wrote the
• 43:55
  graffiti in the park. No, no, that wasn't.
• 43:56
  But I did something else, though.
• 43:58
  I'm about to confess over here. Okay, don't send the cops to my
• 44:01
  house. But basically, the lights at
• 44:04
  Viola Park would shut it off at 10:00, okay?
• 44:07
  And some nights that would shut off even earlier.
• 44:10
  Like. Bruce wasn't there.
• 44:11
  There was another attendant. They would bounce after like
• 44:13
  8:00 and shut the lights off. So it's a known thing.
• 44:17
  There's a bunch of people in the community that we figured out
• 44:20
  how to pick. The light.
• 44:22
  In the main electric room. And we would.
• 44:26
  We would. Why are you sharing this?
• 44:27
  Because I know about that light. You know why?
• 44:30
  Because they've bolted that door now, so somebody caught on to
• 44:34
  what was happening. It's going on for years.
• 44:36
  What's going on? But I think now we keep it on
• 44:38
  later the lights, I think we. Have not late enough, but yeah,
• 44:41
  it's up until about 10. About it and we we thought we
• 44:43
  were going to work something out, but yeah, people still want
• 44:46
  it later. Yeah, for sure.
• 44:47
  We went on till 3:00 in the morning.
• 44:48
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 44:49
  I'm an avid tennis player, so I played Viola Park, got us there
• 44:53
  for dozens of years. Yeah, I've played there hundreds
• 44:55
  of times. As of many others, Shia Schiller
• 44:58
  probably played in Viola Park the most from anybody in the
• 45:01
  history of that park. He's there almost every single
• 45:03
  day. Yeah.
• 45:04
  But it is a great park. It meets so many needs.
• 45:06
  There's a lot of, there's a lot of fun things to do there.
• 45:09
  And that new addition that you did with the playground, it's
• 45:12
  full, man. If you drove by and if you look,
• 45:14
  it's always, it's always crowded.
• 45:15
  Excellent. We actually, we planned it to be
• 45:17
  a certain size and then part way through we said let's make it
• 45:19
  50% bigger and we probably could have tripled it.
• 45:22
  We're we're looking at it put more of those in on the park.
• 45:25
  We're trying to find room. We have the baseball fields
• 45:28
  which we want to keep, but we have to figure out a way to put
• 45:30
  more playgrounds in. We're trying to get from the
• 45:33
  county a license or release to use the property, the vacant
• 45:36
  property next door, which is I think county owned land that's
• 45:39
  not being used, yes. So if we can.
• 45:41
  Of course, Maple farms. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 45:43
  So if we can get that which we think we can.
• 45:46
  Who owns it right now? County.
• 45:48
  Rocking the county? Owns it, right.
• 45:49
  So we would expand into that and.
• 45:52
  Smart. Yep.
• 45:53
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow.
• 45:54
  So what is the difference? Mike, I know you had some
• 45:56
  questions with my last one. Please what what is the
• 45:58
  difference between the county and?
• 46:00
  The give away all the other secrets that we climb over the
• 46:04
  fences to play tennis sometime. No, you can't climb those
• 46:07
  fences. Those are cool fences.
• 46:08
  Other parts that we have, yeah, yeah.
• 46:11
  Rockland County Who's the talent?
• 46:12
  Who's the Rockland County supervisor Is the?
• 46:14
  Rockland County, the head is a day is the County Executive, OK,
• 46:18
  and he is the chief executive of the county and then you're the
• 46:20
  county legislature, so. But it's separate.
• 46:23
  The county and the town are two. Separate entities.
• 46:26
  They run their own. Right.
• 46:27
  We have home rule in New York State law.
• 46:28
  We have municipal home rules. So we do our zoning laws, our
• 46:31
  local laws. We have our own police.
• 46:33
  There is a County Sheriff who has like a police force, but
• 46:36
  he's an elected official, independent of the County
• 46:38
  Executive. But the County Executive is in
• 46:40
  charge of the county budget. His budget's a lot bigger than
• 46:43
  ours. There are a lot of county roads,
• 46:46
  highways or our. County do we pay taxes into the
• 46:48
  county do. You pay county and.
• 46:50
  So we pay town, town, village, and town and village?
• 46:52
  Yes, and federal and federal and state.
• 46:55
  Exactly. It never ends.
• 46:56
  Anybody else want to tax us? Anybody else?
• 46:58
  Now you know why local politics are more important.
• 47:00
  It's it's just. Unbelievable.
• 47:01
  Yeah. And we are a very high taxed.
• 47:04
  We are like. Level from an old department.
• 47:07
  No, no question our property taxes are high in in our area,
• 47:11
  New York State overall and Rockland County is is high.
• 47:14
  Wow, wow. Where's your office for the
• 47:17
  town? Your headquarters.
• 47:19
  Right 237 Route 59, is town hall across from the Walmart shopping
• 47:24
  center. Across.
• 47:25
  That's where your office. Is that's her office?
• 47:27
  Yeah. So you go there every day.
• 47:29
  That's where your. Yeah, that's I go every single
• 47:31
  day. My office is there.
• 47:33
  You walk in the main entrance and I'm right on the left and my
• 47:35
  doors are open. I have staff members that are
• 47:37
  always there to greet people and I'm there more.
• 47:40
  Most time I must have a meeting or something like this.
• 47:42
  I'm I'm in the office there. What's next for you, Mr. Speck?
• 47:46
  I want to. House Supervisor, where do you
• 47:48
  go from here? I'm running for re election.
• 47:50
  I hope I get re elected. I get to.
• 47:51
  Do this is where you want to stay.
• 47:53
  I am thrilled to be here. I don't want to be anywhere, any
• 47:56
  office except for the town around Paul, and I mean that.
• 47:59
  I love so no higher aspirations. None at all.
• 48:01
  None at all. I am very happy to do what I'm
• 48:05
  doing. I love what I'm doing.
• 48:06
  I love the people in our town. And most days I I go home the
• 48:11
  other day very happy. Sometimes I get aggravated, but
• 48:13
  but more often satisfied. So I'm I'm very happy to keep
• 48:18
  doing this. What's the best part of your
• 48:19
  job? What do you love the most?
• 48:20
  When I hear from people how I actually help them, when
• 48:25
  actually somebody says something specific like thank you, I asked
• 48:28
  you to fix the traffic light and you did it right away.
• 48:30
  Thank you so much. You put the sidewalk in.
• 48:32
  Thank you. My kids love the new playground.
• 48:34
  Thank you. Thank you for even when somebody
• 48:38
  has a problem and we look into, we get it fixed right away or
• 48:42
  even a lot of times there are things we can't control.
• 48:45
  There are things we do that somebody may not be happy about,
• 48:47
  but we explain to them why it has to be a certain way or
• 48:50
  things that are out of our control.
• 48:51
  We have to tell them we can't do anything.
• 48:53
  I find as long as you get back to people right away and you you
• 48:56
  answer their question and you're not trying to hide from them,
• 48:59
  most people are happy that government even responded.
• 49:02
  They don't expect any response from government so.
• 49:04
  You get calls on your cell phone like people reach out directly
• 49:06
  to you. I, I don't hide my cell phone
• 49:09
  number from people that, that need to reach me, But generally
• 49:11
  I tell people, call the office because that way somebody will
• 49:14
  pick up. If I'm not available, it'll be
• 49:16
  somebody to help them. It'll be a message.
• 49:18
  It's easier than calling the cell.
• 49:20
  If I see a number I don't recognize, I generally don't
• 49:22
  pick up and you know, I wait for the message.
• 49:24
  I'd rather have people call. Speaking of cell phone, I'm
• 49:26
  curious who's the most influential, powerful person you
• 49:28
  have in your cell phone? Oh, good question.
• 49:33
  I have our congressman. I have our state representative.
• 49:35
  Is that Mike Lawler? Mike Lawler, he's very
• 49:38
  accessible. I could call him or text him and
• 49:41
  he'll get back to me. He's great.
• 49:42
  He's very good. Very well spoken.
• 49:44
  Very much, yeah. He's in our community a lot.
• 49:48
  He's in our town at different events, you know, on a very
• 49:52
  regular basis. We love him.
• 49:54
  Trying to think who else? I have people in the governor's
• 49:56
  office. I don't have the governor
• 49:57
  directly on the phone, but I I could.
• 49:59
  Reach. So have you met Kathy Hochul?
• 50:00
  I've met her a number of times. Is she as advertised when you
• 50:03
  met her? In what way?
• 50:05
  Not in a good way. I've had great experiences with
• 50:08
  the governor, limited contacts, but I we basically we're hoping
• 50:15
  to work with. Well, you gotta play nice.
• 50:17
  At the end of the day, it's because you know you're
• 50:19
  representing people and you know you think, so you need to pull
• 50:21
  favours sometimes from the from the state you look.
• 50:24
  For grant money. We're not in the business of
• 50:26
  picking fights, no, no. No, you really are not at all.
• 50:28
  And right now she's promoting housing.
• 50:31
  We have a housing shortage in our town and spoken to David
• 50:34
  about that a lot. And we're trying to do what we
• 50:36
  can to promote more housing, both affordable legally, you
• 50:40
  know, what was defined as affordable and housing in
• 50:42
  general. Because the more housing we
• 50:44
  have, the more of the supply, the lower the prices will be
• 50:47
  overall. Aren't you limited though from
• 50:49
  sewer electric, isn't it? Yeah, We got to take into
• 50:51
  account infrastructure, so it's a balance.
• 50:53
  But right now the government is trying to promote our own
• 50:56
  housing. We became, under her plan, we
• 50:58
  became a certified pro housing community, which opens us up to
• 51:02
  get grant money that we won't be able to get, which would go
• 51:05
  towards sewer and streets and things like that.
• 51:09
  So it's a symbiotic thing, yeah. You know, I was thinking when I
• 51:13
  went to this carnival that you're describing earlier, I
• 51:16
  think one of our associates friends, Neil Zelman, actually
• 51:20
  in Polaris and Oh yeah, Serenity, they do something at
• 51:23
  the stadium. In July, usually, yeah, Yeah.
• 51:26
  National bossy Friedman's in charge of making.
• 51:28
  It great if there was a fun event.
• 51:30
  She gets great participation every police first responder
• 51:33
  agents. It's a wonderful town event.
• 51:35
  That they really that they pull. Nice event.
• 51:37
  Definitely credit to them and their organization.
• 51:38
  Do an amazing job. And, and I remember when I was
• 51:40
  there once and I was with some of my kids and we were learning
• 51:43
  about the different volunteer organizations in the community.
• 51:46
  So of course I agree with you. The parks are amazing and
• 51:48
  they're and, and you know, one day we'll, we'll get Ushi's
• 51:51
  Baseball League to play a game in that park.
• 51:53
  That's, I think, something that we have to pull.
• 51:55
  Well, Perche already has that Perche.
• 51:56
  Now that you've been here, yeah. They play their championship
• 51:59
  game for the older kids in Clover State.
• 52:00
  I didn't. Know that.
• 52:01
  Yeah, they do that. Do you want to play your
• 52:03
  championship game in there? Not necessarily.
• 52:04
  It's not a softball field. So it's I see, I see we play in
• 52:07
  the Eugene Levy. We have a very.
• 52:09
  Oh, good. Yeah, they're great.
• 52:10
  We. Have a really competitive
• 52:11
  league, an adult league. Oh good.
• 52:12
  It's been around for like. 5020 years.
• 52:14
  Oh, you're the leagues about, Michelle was just telling is
• 52:16
  that there's a number of leagues that are long term.
• 52:18
  Yeah, yes. Well, we know you play
• 52:19
  volleyball. Anything else that you play?
• 52:22
  I played volleyball till I met my wife and then that was the
• 52:24
  last. Time.
• 52:26
  So I'm, I'm going around the the the carnival, the and.
• 52:29
  And there's a lot of different, you know, volunteers and there's
• 52:32
  I see a search and rescue team. Oh yeah, yeah.
• 52:34
  Barium. Yeah, Hatsala.
• 52:35
  And I see the fire department and I start to learn how all
• 52:39
  these organizations share one thing in common.
• 52:40
  They're all volunteers. Yeah.
• 52:42
  And now coming and growing up in Brooklyn.
• 52:43
  Yeah. The fire department are anything
• 52:45
  but volleyball. They got paid.
• 52:47
  So it changes the dynamic when you're in a community where
• 52:50
  everyone's volunteers, but then you also have to play, I guess,
• 52:53
  the politics or getting along with everyone from one to
• 52:55
  another. So I was always curious about a
• 52:57
  couple of things that I want to ask you #1 is a firefighter a
• 53:02
  volunteer firefighter? And they're in their car and
• 53:05
  they get the beep or on the radio, whatever it is that they
• 53:07
  have to rush to the fire department.
• 53:09
  Are they allowed to go through red lights?
• 53:11
  If they're if they're a real first responder, they generally
• 53:14
  have a siren, a light and siren they put in their car, then
• 53:17
  yeah, then, but it's. Blue I noticed.
• 53:18
  Blue light. Yeah, blue light.
• 53:20
  And and they can go and you got to pull up.
• 53:22
  I don't know, you think members a guy that is rushing to a call
• 53:26
  about fire is no, no, no, I because he's gonna stop at a red
• 53:29
  light. He's gonna stop at a stop suck.
• 53:31
  I've seen he better run through that red light.
• 53:33
  And if that isn't the law, we need to change that quick.
• 53:36
  Right. So I'm happy you said
• 53:37
  emergencies. I remember.
• 53:38
  Certainly can. In terms of somebody's private
• 53:40
  car, I don't know the answer, no.
• 53:42
  No, it's a it's a private car. Yeah, but he has lights.
• 53:44
  He's sure to. Find lights.
• 53:45
  If they have them, that's OK. I guess authorized lights,
• 53:47
  right? And the reason why I'm bringing
• 53:48
  it up is I remember when I first moved in here, one of the
• 53:50
  Hatzullah members got pulled over by a police officer while
• 53:53
  on a call, while on a call. That happens unfortunately,
• 53:56
  yeah. And mistake or yeah.
• 53:58
  Right. So that's why I was wondering
• 53:59
  like you have the the firefighters that are
• 54:01
  volunteers. Yeah, it's all of their, you
• 54:03
  have Javerim, which by the way, you know, growing up in
• 54:05
  Brooklyn, I mean, you know, we didn't have Javerim then, but
• 54:08
  Javerim in Brooklyn is more of, you know, getting locked out of
• 54:11
  a house. You know, you have something
• 54:13
  that you need help with and and they come and then they have
• 54:16
  Shomrim, which is like which is separate the neighborhood watch.
• 54:18
  Exactly. Here in Rockland County, it's
• 54:20
  all one does both, right. I mean, you search and Russ, see
• 54:22
  Margaretton and Havaram, they do search and rescue.
• 54:24
  They do, you know, Yeah. We just recently a couple board
• 54:28
  meetings ago, we did a resolution to officially give
• 54:32
  them status with our town Office of Emergency Preparedness to
• 54:36
  give them more recognition so they could work more in
• 54:38
  partnership with the town. That's what I was going at.
• 54:40
  Yeah. That's what I was wondering.
• 54:41
  What do you do when you get a phone call?
• 54:42
  Yeah, from a police officer that says I just pulled over someone,
• 54:46
  but Hatsala volunteer who says I couldn't make it to a call and
• 54:49
  help somebody. Usually we finally after the
• 54:51
  fact, because Hatsala will come and say this guy got a ticket
• 54:53
  and he was rushing to somebody having a heart attack and right.
• 54:55
  But our police work well with Hatsala and vice versa.
• 54:59
  We had meetings with leadership and they, you know, years ago it
• 55:01
  was a little different relationship.
• 55:03
  Now they're, they're partners. So generally, if a, if a cop
• 55:07
  sees somebody speeding and they, they don't know that they
• 55:12
  they're solo member and they pull them over and they and the
• 55:14
  house solo member shows ID they're gonna and and I'm
• 55:16
  responding to a call, the cops gonna say OK, good, good.
• 55:19
  Luck. I mean, most hotel members that
• 55:20
  I know today have so many lights.
• 55:21
  Yeah, yeah, they. Are an issue?
• 55:23
  It's hard to tell. It's usually not an issue right,
• 55:25
  right. When I when I years ago, when I
• 55:27
  was in private practice as a lawyer, I would help out Han
• 55:32
  Solo members who got tickets in other towns, not in Ramapo, but
• 55:35
  other towns where the cops didn't really know what Han Solo
• 55:39
  did and they'd be responding to. Right, so you'd educate them.
• 55:43
  I would go to court even sometimes they show the
• 55:46
  prosecutor that, look, this guy's an ambulance Corps member,
• 55:49
  He was responding to a call, here's his proof and everything
• 55:51
  and hopefully get the ticket dismissed.
• 55:53
  Wow. Yeah, and you were a prosecutor?
• 55:55
  Yeah, well, I was originally that I went into private
• 55:57
  practice as a lawyer, but I also was working part time for the
• 56:00
  town attorney's office, doing good violation prosecution,
• 56:03
  traffic prosecution in Ramapo, but not in.
• 56:05
  Well, as a as a prosecutor, you, your job was to put people.
• 56:08
  Away criminals, right? What was the longest you've ever
• 56:11
  had to put someone away for is that?
• 56:14
  Dealt with when I was in the DA's office, it was the
• 56:16
  beginning of my career. So I had some felony cases where
• 56:20
  I didn't get murders, I didn't get rapes.
• 56:22
  I didn't have the really big stuff because I, I wound up
• 56:24
  going to private practice relatively soon.
• 56:26
  But I, I did some cases, some robbery, some assaults where
• 56:30
  people got five years state prison, 5-10 years and bad
• 56:33
  people, people that you know. Were you ever worried for your
• 56:35
  life? Like for yourself?
• 56:36
  No, no, no. The one experience I found is
• 56:39
  that convicted and that convicted serious career
• 56:45
  criminals, whatever. If they were upset, anybody,
• 56:46
  they'd be upset at their attorneys.
• 56:49
  They kind of figured the press who was doing the job, if it's
• 56:51
  not this guy, it'll be someone else.
• 56:52
  Whereas they weren't upset that they got convicted.
• 56:54
  They blame their lawyer, public defender or whatever that they
• 56:56
  didn't, you know, exactly represent them, right.
• 56:58
  Yeah. Which is usually a mistake.
• 56:59
  Usually they got the best defense they could get.
• 57:01
  But, you know, people are looking to blame somebody.
• 57:03
  Wow. Yeah.
• 57:04
  That is a good point. You know, a fun fact that nobody
• 57:07
  really knows about you. Town Supervisor Mr. Speck.
• 57:10
  OK, what would that be? Oh, good question.
• 57:14
  Well, one, we talked earlier that I'm actually Jewish.
• 57:17
  So I, I was at some event and somebody we, we were all lining
• 57:22
  up and, and somebody to get food, a buffet.
• 57:24
  And this was, oh, you got to, you know, whenever there's food
• 57:27
  and people go, my sugar and I go, yeah.
• 57:29
  And he goes, you know what that means?
• 57:30
  I go, yeah, crazy. He goes, how do you know that?
• 57:31
  And I said, well, my growing up, my leg goes.
• 57:33
  How did you learn that growing up?
• 57:34
  Where are your parents from? And they were, and I used in
• 57:36
  Europe and he was like, how would they?
• 57:38
  Did they work with Jews or something?
• 57:39
  And I go, no, no, they're Jewish.
• 57:40
  And they were, they were shocked, but something new than
• 57:43
  that. Not to brag, but when I was 25,
• 57:49
  I was on Jeopardy. Yeah, yeah, I was on Jeopardy
• 57:52
  and I lost. You were on the Jeopardy show.
• 57:54
  I. Was on show I.
• 57:55
  Went if I go to YouTube and I look for I can find the episode.
• 57:58
  We looked, we couldn't find it, but I could bring you the
• 58:00
  videotape, the old decaying video.
• 58:01
  We want that video. How did?
• 58:02
  You get on the show, what did you?
• 58:03
  What happened was I used to came home from law school and my
• 58:06
  father and I would watch it every night.
• 58:07
  And then we're watching and then they go.
• 58:09
  We're having tryouts in Atlantic City at Merv Griffins Resort or
• 58:13
  whatever. So we said let's go.
• 58:16
  My parents used to love to go to Atlantic City.
• 58:18
  I said let's go. So we went whenever the day was
• 58:20
  having the tryouts and I, they had multiple levels of trying
• 58:23
  out. You did a written test first.
• 58:25
  There were 1000 people taking it and they got it down to like 100
• 58:28
  people that got above a certain score.
• 58:29
  And then they did like a live tryout where you went through a
• 58:32
  fake game and they were looking there to see that you I had the
• 58:35
  personality and I was young, which helped because you know, a
• 58:37
  lot of people on it or now they have more younger people.
• 58:39
  Back then, it was more middle-aged people that were on
• 58:41
  it. So they like that I was 25 and
• 58:43
  everything and a young lawyer. So they said, all right, you
• 58:46
  made it to the second stage and it got down to like 20 of us.
• 58:49
  And they said we may or may not call one or none of you.
• 58:53
  So all right, I didn't think anything of it.
• 58:54
  And then a couple months later they called me up and said, hi,
• 58:57
  it's so and so. Remember Me from Atlantic City?
• 58:59
  Well, could you be on next month in in in LA?
• 59:04
  Wow, yeah of. Course, that's have to ask what
• 59:06
  that process was like. I mean, you got to meet, you
• 59:08
  know, the famous. Alex Trebek.
• 59:10
  He was the host, then he was the.
• 59:11
  Host, the legend, I will say we didn't really get to talk to
• 59:14
  him. They they filmed a whole bunch
• 59:16
  of episodes in one day and the producers were very, very nice,
• 59:19
  very cordial. But they explained in the
• 59:21
  beginning on camera, you know you're going to see Alex when
• 59:24
  the camera stops filming for a break.
• 59:26
  He's going to go off and do his own thing.
• 59:28
  And they kind of apologize because I think his wife was
• 59:30
  about to give birth. So they say he's a little
• 59:32
  preoccupied, don't take it personally.
• 59:33
  So we didn't really. He doesn't mingle with the.
• 59:35
  Contest. He didn't mingle.
• 59:36
  He doesn't. So, you know, it was a little
• 59:38
  disappointing. Where did they?
• 59:39
  Where did they shoot? Where's?
• 59:40
  The studio at the studio whatever in in LA?
• 59:43
  What in Hollywood? Do you and they fly you in?
• 59:45
  No, we had to pay for it. We had to pay for your own
• 59:47
  flight to get there. I've never been to California
• 59:49
  before. So they don't give you any
• 59:51
  sniping at all. They gave us lunch.
• 59:53
  That was it that day. But you could win money.
• 59:55
  Oh yeah, you could win a lot of money.
• 59:56
  Did you win any money? I lost.
• 59:58
  I won the home game version. I won a a fax machine which came
• 1:00:02
  outdated in six months. I won Centrum silver vitamins
• 1:00:05
  and I think that was about it, the consolation process.
• 1:00:07
  My mother didn't want me to go on it.
• 1:00:09
  When she goes, you're gonna have to pay thousands of dollars to
• 1:00:11
  fly out there and stay in a hotel.
• 1:00:12
  Just to lose. And just, and they tell you have
• 1:00:15
  at least a three night stay because if you win, you could be
• 1:00:17
  keep coming back to film. So of course I lost right away.
• 1:00:21
  So I had three nights there by myself.
• 1:00:22
  I didn't have any friends that were able to go with me.
• 1:00:24
  Everybody was starting their jobs and can take off.
• 1:00:26
  So I, I did all the things that I, you know, I went to, I went
• 1:00:29
  to Universal Studios and I went to Man's Chinese Theater and I
• 1:00:33
  did the Walk of Fame and all the Hollywood stuff.
• 1:00:35
  I rented a car and I drove around and went to Santa Monica.
• 1:00:38
  It was OK, but I was by myself. But it was a great experience to
• 1:00:41
  my mother at first was like, you're wasting money.
• 1:00:43
  You go in there. Then I've been paying.
• 1:00:44
  And I said, this is Jeopardy. I, I never get this chance to do
• 1:00:46
  it again. And it didn't sink in.
• 1:00:48
  And then, and then the night that it was on, I went out with
• 1:00:51
  everybody from the day's office and we go to a local bar after
• 1:00:54
  work to watch it. And then my mother's at home
• 1:00:57
  watching it. And and this is, you know,
• 1:00:58
  again, before the Internet, before anything and I go home
• 1:01:03
  and she's you were on TV, you were on TV, you weren't like it
• 1:01:06
  really something. I was on national TV and
• 1:01:08
  everything, even though she knew.
• 1:01:09
  So that's great. Even if you lose by that's what
• 1:01:12
  I said. It's still pretty cool it.
• 1:01:13
  Doesn't matter, it was great. Do you remember any of the
• 1:01:16
  answers or I forgot questions? No, the answers that you didn't
• 1:01:19
  remember the question too. What is?
• 1:01:20
  I remember? Who is?
• 1:01:21
  I remember Final Jeopardy, yeah, going into it, I was in last
• 1:01:26
  place, but it was close. Anybody could have won.
• 1:01:28
  Sure. And.
• 1:01:29
  Did you wager all your money it all?
• 1:01:31
  Because my man, I like it. I like your style.
• 1:01:33
  It was. Literature and that was one of
• 1:01:35
  my strong points, so I figured I got a better shot than average.
• 1:01:38
  What was the question? The question was, this line of a
• 1:01:41
  poem by Keats is also the title of a novel by F Scott
• 1:01:45
  Fitzgerald. And I blanked.
• 1:01:47
  I couldn't think of it. I couldn't think of.
• 1:01:49
  Yeah, I'm blanking. Also I couldn't.
• 1:01:50
  Why? Are you buying it?
• 1:01:51
  What is? Yeah.
• 1:01:52
  So I got the what is part and I I I just I guess something I
• 1:01:56
  guess something from the only thing by Keats I knew was Odo
• 1:02:00
  Grecian earn. So I wrote what is the thing of
• 1:02:02
  beauty. I thought maybe that's a novel
• 1:02:03
  bite Fitzgerald. I don't know.
• 1:02:05
  It was what is tender as the night which I'd heard it, but I
• 1:02:08
  didn't know that came from poem. So nobody got it.
• 1:02:11
  But the guy that won didn't bet a lot.
• 1:02:13
  He bet a few dollars. So he he.
• 1:02:15
  Won stayed in the lead. Wow.
• 1:02:16
  Yeah, it's OK. This would be a good segue,
• 1:02:18
  Speaking of entertainment, to get into our Lightning Round.
• 1:02:20
  So we have something called the Lightning Round where I prepare
• 1:02:22
  a couple of questions for you. I'm just going to ask you
• 1:02:24
  pointed questions. You can answer as quickly as you
• 1:02:27
  can. I don't think we have to time
• 1:02:29
  it. I think it goes, it flows
• 1:02:30
  nicely, I think is what we've learned by just asking you
• 1:02:32
  questions. So we're going to go through
• 1:02:34
  that and it's sponsored by, We'll be right back.
• 1:02:41
  This should be an easy one for you.
• 1:02:43
  One book that you could not live without.
• 1:02:45
  Oh, that's a great question. I'm going to go with a book.
• 1:02:49
  I started a series of books when I was 10 years old.
• 1:02:52
  I I started reading and every few years I'll reread it.
• 1:02:54
  It's going to sound funny, but it's the Sherlock Holmes stories
• 1:02:57
  of Arthur Conan Doyle. I loved them as a kid and I
• 1:03:00
  thought they were great stories. They're they're great mysteries.
• 1:03:03
  I love the character Sherlock Holmes, logical and intelligent
• 1:03:06
  and, you know, able to see things other people didn't see.
• 1:03:09
  And nice mine were. Things were justice.
• 1:03:11
  Mine were Hardy boys but. I love the Hardy boys.
• 1:03:13
  I never made it past the 1st chapter but.
• 1:03:16
  Those are great and and there's like 60 Sherlock Holmes stories
• 1:03:21
  and also there's plenty of them. And and also it made me
• 1:03:24
  interesting history because I was reading these in the 1970s
• 1:03:26
  and 80s as a kid and they were about the 1890s, nineteen, 1900
• 1:03:30
  area. So it got me interested in the
• 1:03:32
  language and the vocabulary and the culture.
• 1:03:34
  So I and I think if I had to pick only one book I could
• 1:03:37
  reread it, it would be that one. I always get pleasure out of it.
• 1:03:39
  Who's your mentor or biggest role model?
• 1:03:42
  Oh, wow, good question in town Aramopo.
• 1:03:45
  I started working in the attorney's office when I was in
• 1:03:49
  1998 for the town part time and Herb Riesman was a supervisor
• 1:03:54
  and Herb was a great role model because he really, it's when the
• 1:03:57
  town villages were being formed, there was a lot of issues and
• 1:04:05
  disagreement in the town and he was able to keep it together and
• 1:04:07
  focus on the positive. So certainly he would be.
• 1:04:11
  A big one. Speaking of positive, if you
• 1:04:13
  were stuck on an island with Hillary Clinton or Kamala
• 1:04:15
  Harris, what would it be and why?
• 1:04:18
  I'd have to pick Hillary. I think she'd be fascinated to
• 1:04:20
  talk to. I think she's, you know, as a
• 1:04:24
  New Yorker, we'd have a lot in common as a senator, as the
• 1:04:31
  Secretary of State. I'd love to talk about foreign
• 1:04:32
  policy with her, you know, including Israel.
• 1:04:36
  I think she's very supportive. And I think one of the things
• 1:04:38
  she's been doing that's been great since October 7th, she's
• 1:04:40
  been speaking about the reality of the of what happened during
• 1:04:44
  the peace process under her husband and how Israel was
• 1:04:47
  willing to, under hood Barack and Almart was willing to really
• 1:04:53
  make sacrifices and the Palestinians weren't.
• 1:04:55
  So she puts the blame where it belongs.
• 1:04:57
  And I give her a lot of credit for that.
• 1:04:59
  And I just think she'd be fascinating.
• 1:05:01
  Good segue to my next question is, have you ever been to
• 1:05:03
  Israel? No, I haven't, but I want to go
• 1:05:05
  and I'm I'm going to try to go this year.
• 1:05:07
  I've had different people offer to go with me.
• 1:05:10
  You've never been. I've never been.
• 1:05:12
  My daughter went for the first time on a birthright trip a
• 1:05:14
  couple years ago and she loved it.
• 1:05:16
  She wants to go back, she wants to do a family vacation there.
• 1:05:20
  We've got relatives there. My wife has a cousin that we
• 1:05:23
  didn't even know about 2-3 years ago and we found through another
• 1:05:25
  cousin and they're now pen pals and his nephew is in the IDF
• 1:05:30
  right now and we're always keeping in touch and I would
• 1:05:33
  just love. To go, you must go.
• 1:05:35
  I want to go. And you're going to love it.
• 1:05:37
  I can't wait. You're going to really love it.
• 1:05:39
  It's I'm excited for. You.
• 1:05:41
  Thank you. Yeah, Yeah.
• 1:05:42
  Yeah, I know you're, you know, definitely committed to the town
• 1:05:46
  and I respect it and love it. You have my vote.
• 1:05:48
  But if you could swap jobs with any one world leader, what would
• 1:05:51
  it be? Oh my God, that's a tough
• 1:05:55
  question. I can't think of any world
• 1:05:56
  leader, any leader, any leader, any political leader.
• 1:06:00
  I love what I'm doing. I love the town.
• 1:06:04
  We heard that. We got that out of the way.
• 1:06:06
  Yeah. If you had an opportunity to run
• 1:06:07
  for governor, like you had the right backing, you had the right
• 1:06:10
  resources, you you'd stay away. You wouldn't stay away.
• 1:06:13
  You wouldn't go for. It I feel I've gotten it down to
• 1:06:16
  where I understand what Ramapo needs and I don't have all the
• 1:06:18
  answers, but I have enough of them and I know the questions.
• 1:06:20
  If not, I don't think. I don't think I the state would
• 1:06:24
  be for me, I don't think. OK, I'll let you go with.
• 1:06:26
  That one, that's fine. Appreciate the pass on.
• 1:06:28
  That if you had a guest speaker to bring to all of Ramapo to
• 1:06:32
  speak, you know all the leaders of Ramapo, who would that person
• 1:06:34
  be? In somebody from Ramapo or from
• 1:06:36
  outside. Anyone.
• 1:06:36
  Anyone like a guest speaker? Someone that you know, you
• 1:06:39
  admire his, you know the way he speaks, or you know his
• 1:06:43
  influence. Wow, that is.
• 1:06:44
  His or hers? That is a great question.
• 1:06:47
  Your brother David is an amazing speaker and I think he would be
• 1:06:50
  great at explaining how political in the city is similar
• 1:06:53
  and different than politics and Ramapo.
• 1:06:54
  What a compliment. Wow.
• 1:06:56
  It's true. And housing, because right now
• 1:06:57
  housing is in everyone's mind, for or against.
• 1:07:00
  How does that make you feel? Better?
• 1:07:01
  He didn't ask you to come speak in Rambo.
• 1:07:02
  That's David. We're brothers, but you know,
• 1:07:05
  some of us have the brain, some of us have the look, Absolutely.
• 1:07:08
  But I think he would be. I think he would be somebody
• 1:07:10
  that he's got the role. I'll be honest with you, him
• 1:07:14
  living out here in Ramapo, you guys had, you have to figure out
• 1:07:17
  how to take advantage. Of him, yeah, absolutely.
• 1:07:19
  So I think he would be a great speaker.
• 1:07:20
  What's more stressful for you, budgeting season or town hall
• 1:07:23
  meetings? Budgeting season, because it's
• 1:07:25
  longer and town hall meetings are usually fairly pleasant.
• 1:07:30
  Every now and then we'll have something controversial or
• 1:07:33
  something wouldn't even be controversial, but people will
• 1:07:35
  misunderstand and come in. But that's a couple of people
• 1:07:37
  and it's over within an hour or so and we deal with it and I can
• 1:07:40
  smile. You ever had to arrest anybody
• 1:07:41
  at a town hall? No, we've had.
• 1:07:43
  Something getting unruly and. We've had to warn people, but
• 1:07:46
  people then sit down and you know, we've had some nice police
• 1:07:49
  attend if we think it's going to be disruptive and that's enough
• 1:07:51
  usually to keep people in. Line, I want to tell you we're
• 1:07:53
  about to wrap up and it was so nice to have you on our program.
• 1:07:55
  I really, really appreciate it and thank you Shy Glick for
• 1:07:58
  referring. Oh, he's.
• 1:08:00
  A wonderful friend. If you're going to go to Israel,
• 1:08:02
  by the way, you should go with him.
• 1:08:03
  He's he would, he would definitely be a good chaperone
• 1:08:05
  person to take you. Yeah.
• 1:08:07
  And he's a wonderful friend of the community.
• 1:08:08
  Yeah, he is he really? Is we really appreciate it you
• 1:08:11
  have any questions for us? We are your constituents.
• 1:08:13
  We're people of your neighbor. We're your voters.
• 1:08:16
  If you have a minute, what do you like about the town that we
• 1:08:18
  should keep doing and what do you think we should change?
• 1:08:21
  I'll let Oshi go first. You know, this is very unlike
• 1:08:24
  me, but I'm actually pretty happy.
• 1:08:27
  That's great, I have to say. Like, I think we live in a great
• 1:08:30
  town. I think we have great people,
• 1:08:32
  beautiful scenery. That's great, tremendous quality
• 1:08:35
  of life. I almost feel bad for people
• 1:08:38
  that don't have what we have, especially people living in the
• 1:08:41
  city and anywhere in the country.
• 1:08:43
  I, I think it's really awesome. It's a blessing.
• 1:08:46
  Thank you. I'm very, very grateful for what
• 1:08:48
  we have and appreciative for what we have.
• 1:08:49
  I think it's amazing, It really is.
• 1:08:52
  I will say I do have one complaint.
• 1:08:54
  There you go, change one place. What would it be?
• 1:08:55
  I have one complaint. But you know, it's not a real
• 1:08:57
  complaint because I actually am OK with it because at the end of
• 1:09:00
  the day, I understand the greater good.
• 1:09:01
  It's not just about me. But I live on a quiet cul-de-sac
• 1:09:05
  in Pomona. Very quiet cul-de-sac.
• 1:09:08
  There's only like 4 houses on it.
• 1:09:09
  Yeah. And you know, beyond me and my
• 1:09:12
  surroundings also very quiet, you know, very residential, OK,
• 1:09:15
  lots of trees, no lies and all. Anyway, one day right across
• 1:09:20
  from my street on three O 6, I find out that a a purchase was
• 1:09:25
  was made where the house that was right across the street
• 1:09:29
  looks like a school bought that property and it's a big
• 1:09:32
  property. It's got like, 2 acres all the
• 1:09:34
  way behind and BA, bam, like, like they start construction
• 1:09:38
  immediately. Yeah.
• 1:09:39
  And all of a sudden, my whole block is lined up with
• 1:09:41
  construction. Yeah.
• 1:09:42
  And then I find out that the property next door is gonna be
• 1:09:47
  also sold at another school. Yeah.
• 1:09:50
  I want to be very clear. I'm not hating on the
• 1:09:52
  situations. I love it.
• 1:09:53
  Yeah, we need school. We need school, right?
• 1:09:55
  Absolutely. Do we really have to do it right
• 1:09:57
  there in that spot? Could we not have found a better
• 1:09:59
  spot? Yeah.
• 1:10:00
  And it's not just me, you know, the whole the whole area.
• 1:10:03
  Always, and I understand that part of the situation is that
• 1:10:07
  under our local law and under I probably all the Villages law
• 1:10:11
  schools are zoned for residential neighborhoods.
• 1:10:14
  So, you know, people always ask why are you putting letting the
• 1:10:17
  school come in on our street? It's all residential.
• 1:10:19
  But that's the code. It goes back to when you know,
• 1:10:21
  you didn't have that many schools and they were meant for
• 1:10:23
  the public schools that kids would walk to.
• 1:10:25
  So the idea is the elementary school is 2 blocks away from the
• 1:10:28
  the neighborhood where people live.
• 1:10:29
  But we're looking now as we update our zoning law, we're
• 1:10:34
  looking to change it to allow schools in commercial areas
• 1:10:37
  because sometimes it makes more sense to be in a place where you
• 1:10:40
  have a better access for traffic and parking.
• 1:10:43
  And it's not going to affect people like you that what
• 1:10:45
  they're that's how you live. But.
• 1:10:46
  By the way, I just want to be clear, I'm going on a record
• 1:10:48
  here, so I want to make sure. But I appreciate the growth.
• 1:10:51
  Of course, I understand what the town is flourishing, right?
• 1:10:54
  And it's a blessing. It's a point of that, rather
• 1:10:56
  more schools than less schools. So I'm happy.
• 1:10:59
  I'll explain the challenge in a way that you didn't know, by the
• 1:11:01
  way. It's kind of fascinating.
• 1:11:04
  I like how you're a practical thinker, by the way, and you get
• 1:11:06
  to explain it in a way that we understand.
• 1:11:07
  Yeah. You know, it's a residential,
• 1:11:09
  you know, zoning law. It should be in a commercial.
• 1:11:11
  Get it done it. It just makes sense.
• 1:11:13
  Yeah. It's also safer for the kids to
• 1:11:15
  be in a more residential environment.
• 1:11:16
  It's quieter, it's. One of fires.
• 1:11:18
  And yeah, I want to 1st echo what Oshi was saying.
• 1:11:19
  Definitely. It's a safe town.
• 1:11:22
  It feels safe not just from a security level, but also from a
• 1:11:26
  diversification where we're all getting along.
• 1:11:28
  That's it. I love the Haitian community.
• 1:11:30
  I love the Spanish community. I love the Hasidic community and
• 1:11:32
  I love how we're all getting along.
• 1:11:34
  It's a cliche, but we are the most diverse town.
• 1:11:36
  It really is. All those communities are more
• 1:11:38
  are all part of the factory. It's not just that though, I
• 1:11:40
  grew up in Brooklyn where it's very diversified.
• 1:11:42
  If you were you would say, but it's so on top of one another.
• 1:11:45
  So here it's like you're able to actually breathe and have the
• 1:11:47
  quality of life with diversification.
• 1:11:49
  That's the Aramipo room for everybody.
• 1:11:51
  Exactly. So you know, but I would suggest
• 1:11:55
  one of you know, things you don't have a billion dollar
• 1:11:57
  budget, but a light rail system. Well, you know.
• 1:11:59
  We we've thought about that. We want to do public
• 1:12:01
  transportation. We're looking into doing the bus
• 1:12:03
  service we've tossed around here.
• 1:12:07
  We have a planner in our town who came from the city, worked
• 1:12:10
  in the city transportation department as a planner, and
• 1:12:14
  he's proposed a light rail system using the old MTA right
• 1:12:21
  away that's not used anymore or something like that.
• 1:12:22
  It's is not a crazy idea. Yeah.
• 1:12:25
  So that's what I was thinking. Yeah, sounds expensive but but.
• 1:12:28
  Grant money hopefully to answer you, which is something that why
• 1:12:30
  we we work with the governor we. Work exactly we work with the
• 1:12:33
  federal and I don't have to work with and I could talk trash
• 1:12:36
  about her no, I you I got to be politically correct as they said
• 1:12:40
  we. Had a great relationship with
• 1:12:41
  government. Speaking of well, Speaking of
• 1:12:43
  being politically correct, of course.
• 1:12:44
  You know, I agree with you that school's important and but what
• 1:12:48
  you didn't know is that when the towns become incorporated, years
• 1:12:53
  ago, when they became incorporated, there were certain
• 1:12:55
  people that lived on properties that opted out.
• 1:12:58
  And they said we don't want to be incorporated, we want to be
• 1:13:02
  unincorporated. Stay in the.
• 1:13:03
  Town. So what happened was there was a
• 1:13:05
  zoning law that no one knew about except the schools that
• 1:13:09
  figured it out that you can have you ready for this, I think 2
• 1:13:13
  acres and you can build a school.
• 1:13:16
  Correct. Because it's unincorporated.
• 1:13:18
  Yeah, that's our requirement, two or three in some of.
• 1:13:20
  Which is insane, right? You're in a residential
• 1:13:23
  community. You're gonna have two schools
• 1:13:24
  side by side. Right now on what would be two
• 1:13:26
  houses. Would be two houses, right?
• 1:13:28
  It really doesn't make any sense.
• 1:13:29
  The villages, not all, but a lot of them, require 10 acres.
• 1:13:33
  What do they get for not being incorporated?
• 1:13:35
  Like what did they lose out when they said in the beginning, we
• 1:13:37
  don't want to be quiet, do they? The main thing and the main
• 1:13:39
  reason why the most of these villages form was to have
• 1:13:42
  control over the zoning. But but you were able to opt out
• 1:13:45
  then right as an as a landowner. I don't know if you could opt
• 1:13:48
  out if you're in the boundaries of the village.
• 1:13:49
  Yeah, I don't. Think you?
• 1:13:50
  Oh, so maybe it wasn't in the boundaries.
• 1:13:51
  They wanted to stay out of the they.
• 1:13:52
  Wanted to stay out of the boundaries so they don't get the
• 1:13:54
  garbage picked. Up.
• 1:13:54
  Yeah. What?
• 1:13:55
  Not right. We we do the you know, they
• 1:13:57
  would keep using our services and not have the village
• 1:14:00
  government over them. That's a fascinating.
• 1:14:02
  Thing it really is, I was. Saying for For those listeners
• 1:14:04
  who don't live in Rockland County, imagine living on a
• 1:14:07
  street where somebody has a house and knocks it down and
• 1:14:10
  builds a school. Yeah, on the same exact.
• 1:14:11
  People. Don't that's what you're having
• 1:14:13
  next for you. Exactly.
• 1:14:14
  But the beauty is that your community is beautiful.
• 1:14:16
  Yeah. The, you know, the synagogues
• 1:14:17
  that are allowed. And, you know, that's another
• 1:14:20
  thing that you guys have overcome as a community isn't,
• 1:14:23
  you know, allowing the churches and the synagogues to grow and
• 1:14:25
  the communities to grow, which is important to all of us.
• 1:14:28
  And again, thank you so much. We really, really appreciate you
• 1:14:31
  being here. I consider myself a listener #1
• 1:14:34
  I'm the one that listens to the podcast.
• 1:14:36
  I actually have two questions. Question number one is why
• 1:14:39
  aren't we utilizing Clover Stadium more?
• 1:14:42
  How come it's just being limited right now to just baseball?
• 1:14:44
  We have no concerts there. Well, we're some concerts.
• 1:14:47
  I've been This is very there should be more.
• 1:14:49
  You're such a good question. We had concerts there years ago
• 1:14:53
  when it first opened. We lost money on all but one
• 1:14:55
  concert. Part of the problem is we didn't
• 1:14:57
  promote. We tried to promote it
• 1:14:58
  ourselves, and we're not concert promoters.
• 1:15:00
  Part of the problem was every time we had a concert, the field
• 1:15:03
  got torn up and we had to spend thousands of dollars to rebuild
• 1:15:06
  the field. We're looking to do now
• 1:15:08
  artificial turf. It cost about one and a half,
• 1:15:11
  $1,000,000. So we're looking at the finances
• 1:15:13
  of it and we put artificial turf in.
• 1:15:15
  We could have concerts every week.
• 1:15:16
  You can have concerts, you can actually write it out for more
• 1:15:19
  sports leagues and we. Would all soccer would be big if
• 1:15:22
  the problem is is not big enough for layout to have a regulation
• 1:15:26
  soccer field, so that keeps the professional teams away.
• 1:15:29
  But soccer's tremendous, especially within the Haitian
• 1:15:32
  community, the Latino community, big demand for soccer and, and
• 1:15:36
  in the community at large. But if we had the field, we
• 1:15:40
  could do concerts, we would use a professional promoter like a
• 1:15:42
  Live Nation or something and get a just get like a fee for
• 1:15:46
  hosting it and we'd probably make money then.
• 1:15:48
  So that's, that's a great, that's a great question.
• 1:15:49
  My other question is what are they doing about route three O
• 1:15:52
  6? Like how are we, how is that
• 1:15:54
  going to like it's it was yeah, at one point the main yeah,
• 1:15:57
  thoroughfare of Muncie. Yeah.
• 1:15:59
  Like you were able to just drive?
• 1:16:00
  Your question about the traffic. Yeah, I'm talking about that,
• 1:16:02
  OK? I'm talking about like, how is
• 1:16:03
  they ever gonna act? We actually had a meeting a week
• 1:16:06
  ago, two weeks. Adjusted pricing, no.
• 1:16:08
  No, no, no. We had a meeting two weeks ago
• 1:16:11
  with the State Department transportation and we said fix
• 1:16:14
  it. And they, they're not, it's not
• 1:16:15
  in their schedule to fix. So we said to them, give us the
• 1:16:20
  road, pay a dollar for it, give it to us for a year, whatever it
• 1:16:24
  is, we'll find a way to fix it. We'll find a way to wind it.
• 1:16:26
  Do whatever has to be done. How could you wind it?
• 1:16:29
  All those apartments are like right up to the some.
• 1:16:31
  Of them, yeah, but some areas that could be room to take there
• 1:16:33
  could be and add turning lanes, stacking lanes there there that
• 1:16:37
  could be done. Just never go that direct.
• 1:16:39
  No I I avoid three O 6 like the plate.
• 1:16:42
  Avoid it. I avoid.
• 1:16:43
  I don't go that way. It it makes life a little bit
• 1:16:46
  difficult when you are thinking about going to that side of
• 1:16:48
  town. We were starting to build out
• 1:16:50
  this area this side, yeah, of of 2O2 yeah, that we really never
• 1:16:53
  should have to venture out to the.
• 1:16:54
  Other part that's and even like the the having Evergreen up town
• 1:16:58
  open a couple years. It was amazing dude.
• 1:17:00
  Light rail, guys, light rail. Yeah, light rail would be.
• 1:17:02
  Thank you everyone for listening.
• 1:17:03
  We really appreciate it. Thank you, Supervisor, for being
• 1:17:06
  here before we let you go. We also have a tradition where
• 1:17:09
  we ask you who would you recommend?
• 1:17:11
  We hope you had a good time on the podcast.
• 1:17:12
  Sure. Who would you recommend as a
• 1:17:13
  good guest in that seat? Great question.
• 1:17:18
  There's a number of people I work with in the town that would
• 1:17:20
  be interesting. Or Police Chief Dan Hyman would
• 1:17:23
  be a great love that talk about that's great about safety, about
• 1:17:28
  how the police works as a community policing.
• 1:17:31
  I actually just wanna know what kind of PBA card to have.
• 1:17:33
  He'll get you one, absolutely. How long was he the police
• 1:17:36
  chief? He's been police chief for It's
• 1:17:38
  gonna be a year in June, he was. He's been with the town almost
• 1:17:42
  40 years as a patrol officer and a Sergeant would.
• 1:17:44
  Love it. Captain, he replaced Martin
• 1:17:47
  Riley, who was chief for a couple years and also in a long
• 1:17:49
  time who retired and he was beloved.
• 1:17:51
  He did a great job and and Danny is a great chief.
• 1:17:54
  So he would be he would great be a great speaker.
• 1:17:56
  My chief of staff, Mona Montal, who's also the political guru he
• 1:17:59
  would staff. Yes.
• 1:18:03
  How do we not cover this? We had to wait till the end of
• 1:18:06
  the podcast. He's got to let you know.
• 1:18:08
  Bagels and more. Bagels and more she's.
• 1:18:10
  She had the first bagel store in Muncie back in the day.
• 1:18:14
  Ona's very loved. Been a fixture in the town, in
• 1:18:17
  government, politics and in the community for many, many.
• 1:18:19
  Years, you know, we'll take them both.
• 1:18:20
  She was the she had the party house for all the teenagers
• 1:18:23
  growing up. We all used to hang out over
• 1:18:26
  there. Shout out.
• 1:18:26
  We run into somebody and then she goes, oh, you see that guy?
• 1:18:29
  He stayed in my. House, of course.
• 1:18:30
  I worked in bagels more. Oh, no kidding.
• 1:18:32
  Really? Sure.
• 1:18:33
  Small world. So she was.
• 1:18:34
  She's the one who asked me if I wanted to run for supervisor and
• 1:18:38
  convinced me it would be a good idea.
• 1:18:39
  Wow. Hey, wow.
• 1:18:41
  Thank you, Mona. And she's, you know, got so much
• 1:18:43
  insight and. She's a mover and a shaker, She
• 1:18:46
  really is. She gets stuff done.
• 1:18:47
  So she'd be, I think, I think she'd be a great.
• 1:18:50
  Guest Sure, sure. She's been also long standing in
• 1:18:53
  months, by the way. I would tell you resident
• 1:18:55
  forever, I would. Tell you to call them and ask
• 1:18:56
  them, but I know how busy these guys are, so we'll arrange it.
• 1:18:59
  Yeah, it's no way for there. Oh.
• 1:19:01
  Masa Savmona. Yeah.
• 1:19:02
  Beautifulness. Very, very nice.
• 1:19:04
  All right, that's a wrap, guys. Thank.
• 1:19:06
  You. Thank you.
• 1:19:06
  This is great. This is a lot of fun.