Generation Magazine

The assemblyman for New York District 145 talks about his decision to support gay marriage, his favorite Buffalo restaurant and why he thinks John B.
Simpson has balls.

You grew up in South Buffalo, and went St. Thomas Aquinas School before graduating from Public School #72 and Bishop Timon High School. What made you want to become a politician?

I was involved in community service my entire life, mostly because my father was involved and my mother was a Buffalo school teacher, along with the enculturation by the Sister of Mercy and the friars at Bishop Timon. The sense of community was always there. I was involved in a lot of things when I was young. In fact, when I was 24, in 1981, I ran for office in the Erie County Legislature, and I got beat. After, I stayed in the private sector until 2001; 20 years later I ran for the Erie County Legislature and I won.

You have a Twitter and a Facebook account. Do you find that this is a good way to keep in contact with your  constituents?

Yes and no. I don’t know if it is really a constituent base yet. Most of the people on Facebook are the people who are around Buffalo Metropolitan area and Erie County, but how many who are actually regular people who live in the houses that I represent, I’m not quite sure about that yet. I think potentially communication will completely change over the next 10 years in politics in terms of reaching out to people.

Has it changed your way of interacting with people at all?

I actually had a couple of young interns in here that told me I should really have a Facebook, I asked them why and they told me, and now I do. I mean, we still send out newsletters, but frankly, most people in my district, most voters are seniors. They are very loyal voters and most of them are going to read the newsletters; 20, 30, 40-year-olds aren’t going to read them, so this is how we can communicate with them, through Facebook.

You recently announced that you’re going to seek re-election. Give us a quick stump speech. Why should we vote for you?

First of all, having come from the private sector, I work by objective and I still try to think logically, which, in my view, government doesn’t. The reason why people should consider voting for me is because I am not a politician that is the issue of the day. There are a lot of politicians, especially in this town, who are going to be all over the issue and they’re going to do a press conference. We really don’t do that at all, we stay with the objectives I set. I am castigated on the floor of the Assembly because I stand up when I think my party is wrong. I stand up and say what I have to say in conference or on the floor of the Assembly. I’m not afraid of any of them, I don’t report to any of them, and I don’t take a penny from their monetary fund DAC, the Democratic Assembly Committee.

You spoke out in favor of same-sex marriage in New York State and you helped the Assembly pass a bill legalizing it, even though it was shot down by the state Senate. Why do you support same-sex marriage for New York?

Initially my internal position, which never came up on the floor, is that I was opposed to it. But my door is always open to anybody and over the last couple of years, several groups have come in an explained to me why they thought it was important. I was beginning to understand it, but I still wasn’t there yet. What got me there is that I went to the Assembly Library, and I must have spent probably 12 hours in that library, and I researched some things and it became clear to me. Within the first 60 years of New York State there was only what was called “Common Law Marriage,” there was no Civil Law marriage until the 1820s to ‘30s when several lawyers came together to put together 21 clauses to protect marriage. The only reason why they did it was because it was a protection for people, especially in terms of property. So I thought about it and I thought to myself, I am an elected official in the state of New York. I don’t represent the country of the religion that I follow, so I made the distinction that the bill is very clear that it can’t impose on any religion to do same-sex marriage in their church. It is never a good policy to discriminate against anybody.

What sorts of things have you done to improve UB students’ experience in Buffalo?

I am on the UB 2020 bill, which has now escalated to what I call the SUNY 2020 bill. I’ve worked very closely with the government affairs staff at UB and, in particular, I have cultivated a very good relationship with [UB President] Dr. [John] Simpson who I like very much, and I think he has balls. I think he calls out politicians, and calls out New York State for doing the same thing over, and over, and over again. UB and other universities like UB need some flexibility to make decisions and make things happen in a transparent way.

What piece of legislation are you most proud of?

Amanda’s Law, because it is life and death. Jan. 17, 2009, a 16-year-old girl went to a sleepover and never wakes up because of this poisonous gas—the only child of her parents Ken and Kim Hansen. The next week her father is in my office at my conference table. I literally took out a yellow pad and said, “OK brother, you tell me what you want and I will guarantee that we will amend the law to make sure this never happens again to anybody in our state.” He told me what he wanted, I wrote it down, and drafted a bill. At the end of the day we got the bill through within one session—even no-brainers take longer than that to pass. As of Feb. 21, everyone in New York State must have a carbon monoxide detector in his or her home.

Do you think that it is important that we save the Statler Building? Should we sink a lot of money into it when the economy is so poor?

Yes. I think it’s very important to save it.

What do you think would be the best way to save it?

Right now Western New York Americorps, a non-for-profit, is trying to be involved and they’re trying to negotiate this right now, to give them a role to play until there is a viable developer. I think it would be a good interim position for Western New York Americorps, or any other non-for-profit, to get in there to try to get it buttoned up so it doesn’t deteriorate and fall apart, so it doesn’t cost more money in the end to rehabilitate it.

Where do Buffalo politicians go to eat? Don’t say Chef’s, that’s too cliche.

My district has the best restaurants around. My favorite is DiTondo’s, located across from Chef’s in my district, as well as Francesca’s that just opened up on the Seneca strip in my district. I’m a real big shop-in-your-neighborhood, support-your-merchant person, and everyone knows that is one of my themes over the past nine years.

When you have it, what do you like to do in your free time?

I don’t really watch TV but I am a runner for probably 30 years. I have run nine marathons and I am thinking about doing my 10th—but I don’t know because 26.2 miles is a lot. I am also an amateur historian. A lot of colleagues of mine will kind of always roll their eyes because I never speak on the floor of the Assembly or Legislature without referencing history first.

As a politician, you’ve been on all of the local news channels and been covered in all of the local publications. Do you have a favorite?

I’ve never really thought about it in that way. There isn’t anyone that I am not comfortable with, especially in this town. I have an open door policy to everybody and I’ve never felt that there was somebody or some group that I don’t want to talk to.

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