Michael Sussman for Orange County Executive—His Message to You

Hi, Mr. Sussman. So I know you're an electrician candidate right now. So would you please introduce yourself to our audience and general idea? I'm Michael Sussman. You're in my office, which is in Goshen, New York. I'm running for Orange County Executive, which is the chief executive position in Orange County. We have a government that's comprised of many departments. We have a county legislature. And the county executive's job is to develop a budget, develop priorities, administer the departments, and make sure that we are, in fact, providing services needed for our people. I'm a Democrat and Working Family Party candidate. I'm running against a 12-year incumbent, Mr. Newhouse. He's had the position for 12 years. And my own view is 12 years is enough to get done whatever you think you might want to get done. And it's time to now give someone else a chance to run our county and implement programs that they think are important. That's what I'm doing. And that's why I'm doing it to summarize. OK, great. I am a civil rights and constitutional lawyer. I also do a lot of environmental law and labor law. I have seven children. I'm married to a woman who's a master electrician and a lighting designer and has been a union president for most of the last 30 years. She's a very involved individual and has been a great partner in this effort for me. OK, great. A beautiful family. Thank you. Yeah. So yeah, you said that you're a justice lawyer. So I would like to ask your opinion. If people, like they are in the US, even though they are citizens, but they still be oppressed by other countries, like specifically like Communist Party of China. And then they've been persecuted before. And they've been oppressed here. So I don't know. As a lawyer, what's your opinion about this? Well, we do have international norms that we should be all, every country following. Those include an international right to travel, an international right to emigrate. They also include freedom of religious expression, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, which every country should be honoring. Some countries in the world, certainly China notoriously, has dishonored those principles. And it's up to the United States government, in my opinion, to elevate the conversation about human rights in China and to insist that our economic interrelationship will be dependent on the Chinese giving their people these basic human rights. Sometimes American presidents have taken that seriously. Other times they're not taking it seriously. I think we have to be very consistent in our insistence on the international human rights laws being followed by every country, certainly including the most populous country, which is China. But there's another part of this, which is once people come to our country, from whatever other country they come to, and you know that our country, more than any country, has people from all over the world. That's one of our strengths. They become Americans. They may have allegiance to Italy or Ireland or Israel or China or some other country also, but when they're here as citizens, particularly, they have to participate in our political process for that process to be meaningful. It's not going to be meaningful if 10 or 15 or even 50% of the people participate. The objective here is for everyone to participate so that the government goes in a direction within our constitutional system, because that's important. That's a barrier. You can't do anything. But we can do many things that the people participating want us to do as a government. One of our problems, as we talked about before, is that a number of our Chinese brothers and sisters don't participate and they don't feel comfortable yet participating, and many immigrant communities have had this lag between when they come and when they start really participating to learn the language, to learn the customs, to feel comfortable with the discussion. So I'm urging people from your country and from every country to be deeply involved here, add your insight. People who come from different countries may, not necessarily will, but may have a different perspective on things happening here. They may have insights to offer, even solutions to offer from what they've seen work somewhere else. If they don't participate, we never get the benefit of that. So that's how I feel. Yeah, good suggestions. I think more and more people, they involve the community, the participants, and they talk to people and talk to the government, talk to the VIPs, and try to communicate with all the aspects that they can contact with. So that's, yeah, that's a good part to start with, yeah. Well, I hope that's true, and I hope it's true in our own country, because we do have these elections coming up. We do have an opportunity for people to learn about the candidates and decide they want to vote and then vote. It's not that difficult, but getting information. You know, I often amass, we have people running for judge. Right. And most people have no idea who these people are. They really can't campaign because they're not allowed to say very much in campaigning. So how do you know who to vote for? Yeah. In my race, I've put out on Facebook, on website, on YouTube, a lot of information about what I would like to do is count the executive. So people can access that and watch it and read it and make their own choice. Right. I've also been trying to have debates with my opponent, but he doesn't want to debate. So it's, you can't debate yourself. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, I do have a question. Sure. Like many people, you know, like I know, more and more people moved to Orange County. Like they like this environment and they are open and they have many opportunities. And I would like to know if you being elected, like how you will like encourage the open environment and help them to grow like immigration. That's a very good question. So county government has an agency called the Industrial Development Agency, IDA. And right now the IDA under New York state law and county law has the authority to raise money to support job creation and economic development in our county. However, the IDA is using their authority only to support very large businesses. CPV, which is a fossil fuel plant. Danstam, which is another fossil fuel plant. Legoland, which is owned by the second largest entertainment company in the world, Merlin. I don't want to see the IDA use its capacity in this way. I want to see the IDA support small businesses as you're describing them, so that there can be revolving loan programs, which the IDA sponsors. And these organizations, small businesses, can benefit from that to jumpstart their operation, create jobs for many people, because small businesses create more jobs than anyone in our economy. The other thing I want to see is that the IDA works to stimulate housing. We have a big gap between our housing supply and the wages that many people in the county earn. Those wages don't allow people to actually access housing in the county. They have to go to Sullivan County, to Pennsylvania, wherever they're going, because they can't find housing. So we have to, in my opinion, help those who want to develop that housing to ensure that they've economically mixed housing, so that people have an opportunity to live here, and their children could live here, and those seniors who want to sell their houses could sell them and still live here. Right now, we don't have the supply for all this. And the market hasn't produced it. So I think this is a way to redevelop our cities. I also think it's a way to employ people, give job training in the skilled crafts to people, and obviously provide a housing supply that helps meet our demand. So I think all those things would help if done aggressively. Yeah, yeah, you're right. That's good. Yes, because right now, with more people moving, they bring their arts, they bring their culture, they bring their habits, their stuff, their lifestyles. So how would you increase their multicultural environment for them to feel comfortable? Well, I think that's a hard question, because obviously there are two levels. One is the individual person. An individual person, as we explained before and talked about, feeling more comfortable as they settle economically, as their children are in school, as they feel more proficient with the language, easier to communicate with others, they start individually making contributions. But I think the other part of it is that there are organizations from all different groups around their county. And as county executive, while I can't meet with every individual, I can be meeting with these different organizations to encourage them to go to fairs, to create fairs and festivals, to participate politically in the life of the county, and go to their meetings, their events, and give this message of encouragement and hopefully inspiration so that people will feel the openness of the county government. Right now, we've had the same party in control for 60 years, and many people feel excluded from the government. They feel it's a club. It shouldn't be a club. It should be open to these ideas that you're speaking about. So there is a role, but it's also, I think, personal. People have to take their time, but once they feel balanced, centered, they have to get involved and feel there's a place for them. So- Yes, yes, you're right. Yes, yes, that's right. Thank you. So other things, I think, right now, we also have other problems, like the social media for the education for the kids. They are unsafe, and people being affected a lot. We see a lot of lawsuits, and the people, especially young generations, they've been influenced by the social media a lot. So I think if you've been elected, then will you improve the social media environment and be open, be nice, be clean, and be, you know- I think that I'm a miracle worker. It's not, so look, I think we have, and it's not a laughing matter, a number of, if you will, crises going on at the same time. And the first step in responding to any situation is to appreciate what it is, and to realize what it is, and to appreciate it, meaning understand it. If we deny it, or we don't pay attention to it, it doesn't go away. Right, yes. This is a personal problem in your own life. You just ignore it, it doesn't usually go away. Sometimes it does, if you're lucky, but usually it doesn't. So just to speak to what you're asking about, which is social media, and the young, and the like, there are many issues that come together and create this. One is the economics of our society is such that very often both parents, where there are both parents, are working. This has left many young people to fend for themselves at too early an age without sufficient parental guidance. And I think that's one of the reasons that we have what you're talking about. Another issue is, obviously in many cases, we have single parent families, and whoever the parent is, is forced to work to support his or her family, and there's not a lot of time and attention that parent can give, at times, not always, obviously, to their children. So again, I think we need to do several specific things about this, and I'll tell you what they are. I don't know that as county executive I can do any of this, but I can talk about it and suggest it. One of the things we need to do is better utilize our schools. Schools right now are nine to three, 8.30 to two, and then that's it. However, when you have a situation of young people who are without much to do, we have something called extracurricular activities, and people stay in school later, they participate in athletics, they participate in clubs, they're more engaged. We need to, I think, substantially increase the offerings in our schools. We have to open our schools earlier, we have to keep our schools open generally later, so that people are in a social environment which is constructive and not left to themselves. Now obviously, not everyone can take advantage of this. Some families do have activities for their children and do have the ability to provide in that way, but where people are working in this way, they should have an idea that their children are being provided for with something constructive. We have the buildings, and to the extent we need to invest more money in personnel to supervise this, I think it's an important social investment. The other thing is we have to have more venues where young people can perform. It's one thing to have one school play a year. It's another thing to have local theater groups, local art facilities where young people can go and develop these skills, other than athletic skills. In our county, we have a lot of opportunities, clubs, sporting events, all of which is wonderful, but many young people are not involved in that. So what are they going to do comparable to that to develop their skills and interests? Whether those be mechanical, technical, computer, we have to have structures. We've, I think, been a little delinquent in doing that. The other thing I believe is intergenerationality. We have many older people. The older people say, I'm bored. I want to do something. I don't just want to retire and do nothing. Bring them into contact with the young. They can be mentors. They can be buddies. They can go out. They can go shop. They can go to movies. They can have discussion groups. They can have book groups. There's a lot that can be done structurally. And finally, I set up, with my own money, empowering centers around the region. Empowering centers were storefronts where people could come and do anything constructive. We had one in Port Jervis. We had one in Liberty. We had one in Ellenville. We had one in Newburgh, which I created. And the purpose of these was for people to meet each other, to diminish the social isolation which many people feel, and to give them a space to do whatever constructive they wanted. They want to have drumming classes. They want to have childcare. They want to have a religious service. They want to have a discussion about politics. They want to play chess. A thousand things could go on and did go on. But these spaces, space is very important. We're too much in our own space. The space is these computers, these phones, and we're isolating ourselves. So I have a lot of ideas for social engagement. Of course, the government shouldn't be forcing anyone to do this. That's not the point. I'm not going to tell you you have to, but I want to give you opportunities, you and your children, so that if you want to have more engagement with your neighbors and community, there's a way to do it. And you don't have to create it yourself every minute. So those are some ideas to deal with the issue you raised. Yeah, yeah, that's good ideas. Thank you so much, Boyd. So yeah, I definitely will pass this message to the audience and let them know, then go out and vote. Well, again, we have a number of candidates running. Usually the row A, which is the Democratic Party's line, has not been that active in our county. But I'm hoping that we have two parties that are really functioning. You know, many of the people watching this may be from China and they're used to two parties, competition of ideas. They have one party that dictates to the people. And this is not the American way. The American way is a competition of open ideas, which is very important. It's not cancel culture. I'm not going to listen to you because I don't agree with you. It's listening and trying to have a dialogue, okay? That's very important to our society and its future. So I encourage people from your listeners, your watchers to be involved. Voting is the first step, but there's more that can be done. So thank you for a few minutes. It's nice to be with you. Appreciate you taking the time.