Senator Elaine Phillips was the special guest at the Mineola Chamber of Commerce meeting last week, meeting with local business owners and residents about what’s going on at the capital and issues they can anticipate coming down the line.
A Chamber of Commerce meeting was a fitting setting for Phillips, who spent around 23 years in the financial service industry and has a professional background in business. The former mayor of Flower Hill said she decided to run for the Senate seat after former Sen. Jack Martins suggested it to her and at a little over two months into the job, she says it’s been a collaborative experience.
“I truly believe in order to get something done in New York state, this party affiliation thing has got to go out the window,” Phillips said to applause from the crowd. “I have been impressed to date, with how cooperative and collaborative my colleagues have been with each other.”
The collaboration is especially important now, as Phillips finds herself thrust into budget season. One of the challenges she faces in Albany is having to dispel the notion many lawmakers have of Nassau residents.
“We’re not all Caucasian and middle class,” said Phillips. “The Elmont School District has 70 different languages spoken, in Westbury, there’s 55. People think Port Washington is the rich people on the North Shore, but they have more English as a New Language Learners than most of Suffolk County. For people to think our needs aren’t as great on Long Island, it’s just wrong.”
Phillips also noted that the public would have a chance to vote on legislation that would eliminate pensions for public officials found guilty of corruption.
“The public will have an opportunity to vote on it in November. I’m sure it will pass. So any public official found guilty of a crime will no longer be able to receive a pension,” Phillips said, adding that government officials needed to be above scrutiny. “No one pushed me into running for office, I chose to run. Therefore, I should and want to be held to a higher standard. It’s the way government has to work.”
Governor Andrew Cuomo has been a proponent of eliminating layers of government and having municipalities combine services, as well as proposed that in order to receive state funding, local governments like the Village of Mineola and special districts (such as a park or water district) report to Nassau County and come up with a plan to save money and share services. While intuitively, she felt it was a good idea, Phillips said she was “so against the concept.”
“We as government officials should be doing this as our normal course of business. But I am so against this concept. I don’t need his heavy hand to come down on the Village of Mineola and tell us how to run” Phillips said. “Do we need to be threatened by the governor, to say whatever little money the state does give to the village, to imply or threaten the only way we’ll get it is to have Nassau County tell us how to run?”
Phillips said she had reached out to the villages in the Seventh Senate District, and much of the feedback had been against the governor’s proposal.
In speaking to the crowd of roughly 50 people, Phillips encouraged them to reach out if they needed any help on the state level. She also asked them to let her know if there were any archaic business regulations they felt needed to be changed or done away with.
“If you need an advocate at the state level, that’s what my office can do,” Phillips said. “If you get to a point with the state that something’s not happening, reach out to my office, we would be more than happy to help.”
