Gov. Cuomo On TZ Bridge, East Ramapo Schools (VIDEO)

Back in January, Governor Andrew Cuomo gave his State of the State message in Albany. Since then, he and his staff have been traveling to different towns and counties. About a week after his speech,  where he presented a powerpoint and fielded questions.

On Tuesday, Cuomo stopped in Nanuet at the Pascack Community Center to address a crowd mixed with local elected officials, residents, non-profits and many more. Patch did live video coverage during the meeting. Check out the short 30-second snippets here. The shortened version of Cuomo's powerpoint from Perales' meeting is attached to this article as well.

Clarkstown Supervisor Alex Gromack introduced Cuomo. Cuomo's big push was “NY one-two punch: Jobs and Education.” In an earlier article, Patch summed up Cuomo's points on the economy and jobs as well as his stance on guns and education.

Cuomo said that the state must review what happened in Storms Irene, Lee and Sandy.

“Climate change is real, is inarguable, is a scientific fact. The sea is warmer and there is a changing weather pattern,” he said.

Recreate New York

“I want to rebuild smarter and better,” said Cuomo. “If we have houses that are in places that tend to flood, let’s rebuild them in a way that can deal with the floods when they come. I’d rather spend a little bit more and build the house right than build the house every two years.”

He added that “there are also places that Mother Nature really owns and there are some people who have rebuilt their homes two or three or four times in the past five or six years. If people want to decide that they want to move out and want a buy out.”

New York State plans to offer certain individuals a buyout program that says, “if you want to move, we’ll pay you for the price of the home, we’ll leave the parcel vacant and you can find somewhere else to live. It’s their choice,” said Cuomo.

As part of the plan to recreate New York, Cuomo plans to focus on hardening infrastructure, building flood-prone roads with a different design, redesign fuel delivery system and the utility system.

“It can’t be that every time the wind blows, a tree falls and a line comes down and everyone’s in the dark for weeks,” said Cuomo.

The governor also wants to coordinate a state-wide volunteer corps so that “we know who’s prepared to help, who’s equipped to help and have them ready to deploy when we need them.”

He’s also encouraging the local communities to also come up with “their own reconstruction plans and we’ll fund their plan and their vision.”

Read more about his plan on emergency responders in this Patch article.

East Ramapo School District

Outside the Pascack Center that day were protestors with questions about whether or not the state can step in to appoint a monitor to run the East Ramapo school district.

“That’s supervised by the New York Department of Education and they are looking at this matter,” he said, adding that the East Ramapo School District is not under direction of the governor’s office and that he does not have any power or authority over the decisions of the state’s education department, “which has great management and they’re looking at it and I’m sure they’ll do the right and proper thing.”

Other Issues

As for his run in 2016, Cuomo said, “I’m not looking at 2016. I’m looking at this year. I’m thinking about this week … Next year will be my fourth year so it’ll be a re-election year for me so that’s my political agenda.”

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