George Borrello
State Senator George Borrello was disappointed in the lack of emphasis on public safety in Governor Hochul‘s State of the State address.
Borrello said he thought it was good and important that Hochul addressed crime in her speech, “I have my doubts that she’s going to be able to convince the progressives, who really run the State Legislature, that there need to be more changes to bail reform but I’m glad to hear her acknowledge that.”
He also was glad to hear of mention of the out-migration problem the state has as well as the proposed investment in mental health, “New York State has really done a lot of damage in the last couple of decades, closing down institutions that help people who have severe mental illness, closing so many, hundreds and hundreds of mental health observation beds, tying the hands of our mental health professionals, all in the name of, ‘We don’t want to stigmatize mental health.’ It’s turned the streets of our communities into mental institutions.”
Borrello said he took issue with Hochul’s proposed Housing Compact, saying that housing affordability is an issue across New York and that a lot of it is due to bad state policy, “So, if you want to encourage new development, you need to do so by removing so many of the restrictions we have on developers, addressing the high taxes and over-regulation that we have; and trying to force communities to increase their housing stock, particularly by saying, ‘We’re going to override your local zoning,’ which is a lot of what this Housing Compact will do, it will say, ‘You must accept multi-family dwellings. You must accept low-income housing.’ That’s not the way to approach this.”
Borrello added he is planning to reintroduce a bill which is a stronger version of Kendra’s Law. The legislation would strengthen Kendra’s Law by allowing longer hospital stays for people who fail to follow their court-mandated, assisted outpatient treatment. Current law allows for an involuntary 72-hour hospitalization. Borrello and now-retired Democratic State Senator Diane Savino co-sponsored the bill last year, but it did not pass. Borrello said he’s hoping to find new, bipartisan support for it this session.
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