Meet The Candidates: Garrett Petersen In The 7th Assembly District

EAST ISLIP, NY —Democrat Garrett Petersen is seeking election to the 7th Assembly District on Nov. 5.

With Election Day just around the corner, Patch has been reaching out to the candidates to find out why they are running this November.

Here is what he had to say:

Name: Garrett Petersen

Campaign website: GarrettForNY.com

City or town of residence: East Islip

Office sought: New York State Assembly, District 7

Party affiliation: Democratic

Education: BA History, Stony Brook, 2008; MS Ed, Dowling College, 2012

Occupation: Office for People With Developmental Disabilities Clinician

Family: Married for 15 years; One son, age 9, a baby girl on the way

Does anyone in your family work in politics or government? In a paid capacity, absolutely not; my wife and I are both active in our local Democratic Party organization.

Age: 43

Previous public office, appointive or elective: None

Why are you seeking this office?
Primarily, I don’t believe any of our electeds, of either party, should have uncontested elections. Furthermore, I want to more strongly advocate for the needs of the OPWDD and mental health communities. There is a terrible crisis of funding in these sectors, which are charged with caring for the most vulnerable New Yorkers.

What are the major differences between you and the other candidates seeking this post?
The difference between my opponent and I is, fundamentally the differences between our two parties. I support Prop One, to enshrine reproductive rights in the New York State Constitution. The Republican party’s ideology is focused on the 19th century — at best, turning the country back to an idealized past that never actually existed; I’m looking to the 21st.

What other issues do you intend to address during your campaign?
As previously mentioned, we have a dire crisis in the OPWDD and mental health worlds. The agencies responsible for caring for our most vulnerable New Yorkers have been dealing with severe staffing shortages even before Covid-19, and if we don’t do something about this then it’s just a matter of time until tragedy strikes. Outside of the OPWDD world, increasing funding for social services and mental health services would decrease crime and help those on the margins of our society.

What accomplishments in your past would you cite as evidence you can handle this job?
I have a long career of helping the most vulnerable in our society, and, as my experience grew, supervising programs doing the same. My entire career has been public service in its rawest, most basic form. Serving our community would merely be the next evolution of that work.

What problems facing your district would you look to solve if you are elected/re-elected?
To my opponent’s credit, he has been working on several of the problems facing AD7 — namely, sewer expansion, protecting the coastline, and untangling the snarl of the Oakdale merge. The reality of state government is that, as a member of the governing majority, I would be more effective at advocating for the funds to accomplish all these tasks.

Additionally, we have a real housing crisis not only in the district but across Long Island that requires stakeholders at all levels of government to work together to solve.

Cancer is a prominent health issue for Long Islanders and is a leading cause of death for children. What measures would you take to help lower cancer rates and bolster research in the field?
Over time, clearing up groundwater contamination and expanding renewables will remove many of the environmental factors contributing to higher cancer rates. It’s unfortunately not an issue that can be resolved overnight. It’s important to hold the companies responsible for groundwater contamination legally liable for the cleanup.
We have a world-class research institution in Suffolk County in Stony Brook University, aggressively pushing for Long Island’s fair share of the pie to fund new research programs. This would, again, be far easier as part of the governing supermajority than if a member of the minority party tried.

What would you do to help small businesses struggling with inflation and the cost of goods needed to manufacture their products?
Ultimately a lot of these problems are beyond the scope of state government. The global supply chain might arguably be beyond anyone’ scope to handle. Locally, what we can do is ensure state and local government is responsive and flexible to the needs of the community.

Beyond that, investing in infrastructure improvements can help bring down costs. Rail and road transport are both part of the equation; bringing down energy costs is another. Expanding sewers so some of our downtowns can support local businesses like restaurants more easily is another thing we can assist with on the state level.

While not applicable for every type of small business, I do think it’s worth looking at occupational licensing for certain professions and see about streamlining the acquisition of licenses and permits for folks like barbers to be more in line with how it’s done in states like Colorado, Utah, or Arizona.

Water quality is critical to the region. What plans do you have to help improve water quality and keep it safe for generations?
Sewer expansion has been a bipartisan solution to part of this problem for well over a decade now, and for a good reason — it works. Beyond that, the concerns are more esoteric. Certain types of pesticides have already been banned, and for good reason, but we have to cut down on pollution from as many sources as possible. Encouraging more renewables means, over time, less heating oil and natural gas burned; the former, especially, in legacy underground tanks, can be a ground contamination issue. Along this vein, a rebate-based program to have the remaining underground tanks grandfathered in and replaced with above-ground systems can help eliminate one potential source of contamination.

How can the immigration crisis be addressed at the federal and local level? Can federal and local officials work together?
“Solving” immigration ultimately is a federal issue; it’s worth noting that twice the Republican party has walked away from a bipartisan solution to it, both in 2013 (the so-called “Gang of Eight” plan) and then again this year.

The reality is, in the long term, immigrants are a net positive to our economy. Long Island is already dealing with a declining population; bluntly, we need people for further growth. Obviously, we need to accommodate these folks with housing and services, and the state and the federal government should both be contributing to make that happen, but we should look at this as an opportunity instead of a burden in the long term. I think a good deal of the feeling of crisis stems from not having enough resources made available from higher levels of government to make folks feel welcome coupled with local folks more worried there’s not enough of the pie left for them instead of realizing with new blood we can grow the pie.

What can be done about inflation, which some say can be attributed to price gouging?
According to most economic measures, real inflation, aside from housing, has returned to pre-pandemic levels. This isn’t to minimize any pain at the pump or the cash register folks have experienced in the past couple of years, but the crisis point has passed. Unfortunately, on an across-the-board scale, you can’t run back the clock on prices-deflation tends to cause even larger economic problems. The main exception is housing, and I’ll address that more deeply in the next question.

The median cost of renting on Long Island falls between $2,000 and $3,100. How can more affordable housing options be created?
The reality is we’ve gotta build housing. I understand concerns about changing the character of our neighborhoods with development, but we are faced with two futures. We can either build housing-using creative and flexible solutions like multi-family zoning, smart and affordable development, and sacrifice a little but keep the essential character of our communities intact, or we can watch our young people continue to leave Long Island because of affordability and have our towns slowly hollow out like similar communities in the Midwest. If that happens, eventually, it’ll all be bought out and redeveloped anyway, but given our location and natural population pressures, Long Island will actually become an extension of New York City in terms of population density and development.

Those are the only two options. Long Island was our country’s first suburb; if we want it to remain one, we need to define what that means in the 21st century.

What is your stance on SALT (State and Local Tax Relief)? Restoring SALT is a federal issue. Obviously, I support restoring it, perhaps with some sort of top-end restrictions (middle-class families should qualify; multi-millionaires shouldn’t).

The DWI/DWAI rate is escalating island wide. What measures can you fight for, to address the escalating addiction crisis?
As I’ve mentioned previously, my career is oriented around the OPWDD and mental health services world. Increasing funding to the web of agencies, both public and private, that provide these services is essential.

What is the best advice anyone ever gave you?
I’m not sure it’s something that could be attributed to any single person, but one of the things I’ve learned about leadership is to never ask a subordinate to do something you wouldn’t be willing to do yourself. That’s at the core of leading by example and I think it’s foundational to the entire concept of leadership.

Is there anything else you would like voters to know about yourself and your positions?
The reality of politics in New York State is that the majority party dictates policy and has a far easier time securing resources for their districts. Long Island is New York’s forgotten stepchild precisely because, with a handful of exceptions, our elected officials are not part of the governing majority.

There’s a worthwhile discussion to be had about how fair that is, and for what it’s worth I agree that it’s unfair, but in the interim we have to do business in the world that we live in now while working to make it better. I will be able to more forcefully argue for the resources Long Island needs as part of the governing majority than the entire LI minority party caucus, and a pragmatic voter should consider that.