(upbeat music) - Today, the Senate majority will pass legislation... - I will fight like hell for you every single day, like I've always done, and always will.

- Making it another stand for New York.

- Welcome to live coverage of Governor Kathy Hochul's State of the State addresss on your local public media station.

I'm Dan Clark, host and managing editor of New York Now, which we bring to you every weekend right here on PBS.

In just a few minutes, Governor Kathy Hochul is scheduled to give her first State of the State address.

It is an historic moment.

Hochul is New York's first female governor, so this will be the first time a woman delivers the State of the State.

You'll remember that Hochul took office in August after a report from the state AG's office found several claims of sexual harassment made against former Governor Andrew Cuomo to be credible.

He resigned about a week later.

Since then, Hochul has promised a new era of good government, transparency, and accountability, and today will be the beginning of her first test.

The state legislature also returned to Albany today for the start of this year's legislative session.

It runs through June, and that gives Hochul six months to make her mark and deliver on a change in administration.

Joining me in studio with more on what all that means are Dave Lombardo from the Capitol Pressroom and Jenna Flanagan from MetroFocus.

Thank you both for being here.

- Thanks for having us.

- Thank you.

- And I'm so excited to have Jenna here because she hasn't been to the studio in such a long time.

- It has been a minute, yes.

- I know, so this is really exciting.

It's an exciting day.

I really like State of the State day, because I think that it sets like kind of a baseline of where we are in terms of the year for the legislative session, so Hochul is going to lay out her priorities in a mega agenda.

As reporters, we've already seen a lot of it, and that's exciting for us, but what we have to see after this is what the legislature does with it and how she negotiates that over the next couple of months, so, Dave, what are we looking here in terms of the speech, in terms of what she's going to present to us?

What are you looking for for big takeaways?

- I guess, it's the four Cs for me.

It's Cuomo, COVID, criminal justice and campaign.

Cuomo, because he's just going to linger over all of this.

Everything's going to be viewed through his context.

COVID, we need to still figure out how we're going to get out of this.

We still need to figure out what a recovery looks like, so looking forward to hearing her talk about that.

And criminal justice is something that's on the mind of a lot of New Yorkers.

Polling shows it's one of the top things that they want to see.

The legislature address, so what sort of tone is she going to take with regard to criminal justice.

And campaign, this is the de facto kickoff of her campaign when she wants a full term as governor, so I'm really excited to see what sort of path she's going to carve for herself because she has a primary in June, potentially a general election in November, so those are two different audiences, so you kind of have to sort of walk a real straight and narrow line, so that's what I'm looking for.

- In a lot of ways, the campaign part is almost important here, right, because she's going to be delivering this address to the legislature, and we're going to be hearing it live on television, so presumably, voters will see it, and this is really her big start to what is she going to actually use this position for, because in the past four months that she's been in office, it's really been a lot about, let me get my feet on the ground, let me get running, and what's going to be produced from that?

Over the past few weeks, a little bump in the road, not a little one, COVID has really gotten out of control.

- That's more than a bump, definitely.

- It is more than a bump, a big mountain right now.

Hospitalizations just reached points that they have not been since April, 2020.

It's very sad.

Jenna, if I am Eric Adams, the new mayor of New York City, he was just inaugurated a few days ago, what am I looking for in this speech from Kathy Hochul?

Obviously, they have to work together to make a good and effective New York City.

- Absolutely.

And so it's ironic because perhaps a few years ago, you would have said, well, mayoral control would have been the top thing, but now it's-- - Trying to figure out where to get a (mumbles) from.

- Definitely going to be COVID, and COVID would be the top issue that seems to be preventing New York from functioning properly.

A lot of, right now, the big thing with Mayor Adams is that he's trying to encourage a lot of businesses to bring all of their workers back.

So many of the small businesses, particularly in Midtown, literally rely on the commuters and the workers in those businesses.

However, we're finding that there's a lot of employee pushback, people don't want to come back, and of course there is the fear of COVID that's shutting down a lot of businesses and places where people would usually be gathering in large numbers, so that's got to get handled first, and that's everything from testing to better understanding of quarantine care, and, of course, returning back to vaccinations, which, we still have not vaccinated the entire population.

- What's this thing about banks sending their employees?

Do you know about that, Jenna?

I'm reading articles in the past few days about some financial institutions in New York City, they are, I believe, sending their employees remote, and Eric Adams is upset about this?

- Of course, yes, and that's another huge sector for the city, not only because of just the number of people who were there, but the amount of spending power bankers have, which is going to, that's filling up restaurants, that's those infamous martini lunches, all of that stuff is generated largely by the banking and the financial industry, and with a lot of them, as we saw, once the pandemic kicked in, we saw people going, maybe what started to Airbnbs and second homes, that became permanent homes, so people have relocated to places like the Hudson Valley and even out of state, Vermont, New Hampshire, et cetera.

All of the money that they generate, those paychecks now go to those communities and they aren't getting spent in Lower Manhattan.

- Yeah, she caused some pushback.

I think she was delivering remarks to a Better New York, a group in New York City, people there in December or late November, I can't remember which, and she said that she had a goal of bringing people back to the office by early January, and she got a lot of pushback about that because of the COVID numbers, and also this point of, well, maybe in person isn't the permanent thing anymore, maybe we are going to go back to regular work in terms of, is regular work, does that mean in-person, or are we talking about hybrid?

I don't know where you land on that in New York City, because as you said, you can do remote work there, but a lot of the economy that's generated are those, like, people that go on their lunch break and go to the, like the bodega down the street, for example.

- Absolutely, absolutely.

I mean, even food trucks, there's so many areas where smaller businesses, and when I say smaller, I just mean not businesses where stocks, - They own a building.

- Are traded, exactly, where they own the building or something like that.

If you work in Panera, which is something that I think of, the building that I worked in in New York City, there were several small chain restaurants that were there, and the last time that I was in the city, what used to be a long line for lunch is now maybe just two or three people.

- Yeah, yeah.

I was thinking about the same thing because when I go down to the city, obviously, I need to eat, and when I'm going down there for work, I don't know where to stop to eat in New York City because I don't live there, so I'm just going to whatever's on the street.

They're a little mom and pop shop, whatever has food, and knowing that they're not getting that revenue, it has to be hard for them.

- It is, and it's going to affect, not, it's not just when you consider those small businesses, but it's the people who work in those businesses, so that of course becomes a lot of low wage workers.

A lot of low-income people are going to be hurt the hardest by the lack of people being able to have their spending power in the area.

- So I know that that's also on the mind of the legislature, Dave, so Kathy Hochul is delivering the speech to the legislature.

They are in the Assembly Chamber.

They will be in the Assembly Chamber, if they're not already.

What is her relationship like with the legislature?

We knew that it was tense at times between Andrew Cuomo.

- Tense, I think you are underselling it.

- There were moments where as reporters, we were waiting outside of room where Andrew Cuomo was meeting with leaders of the legislature and we would hear shouting and that was never a good sign, and they would emerge with a huff and puff.

What does it look like for Kathy Hochul in the legislature?

- Well, she has a fresh start, and what we're already seeing from her is an acknowledgement of the fact that there was not a good relationship in the past, and that she thinks that she can get more done with a collaborative mindset.

I think what that means though is that the legislative leaders are going to have more of an ability to set the agenda in Albany, because what we saw, at least for the first eight or nine years of Governor Andrew Cuomo, was that he was the one driving the bus.

He was the one setting the agenda.

This speech was so important because we learned what he was interested in, and the legislature would basically just work around the margins.

What we saw in the final two years of the Cuomo administration though was a legislature that was willing to flex its muscles a little bit, willing to engage a little bit.

They pushed back on some housing, they led the charge on some criminal justice issues, so in light of that, I think that Governor Hochul is going to have a legislature that's even more emboldened, and the fact that she wants to be collaborative seems to suggest to me that she's seeding even more of the high ground, and that means this speech is important, but maybe not as important as what we might hear in the coming days from Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, who have their own concerns, especially when it comes to criminal justice, healthcare, how we tax it and spend, so I'm really looking forward to what we see over the next coming weeks and really through the March 31st deadline for the state budget.

- Criminal justice is a really important issue when we talk about this, because Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, that is really what he considers to be his legacy.

- Yes.

- When he took the speakership, he said, I want criminal justice to be my legacy.

Fast forward, gosh, he took speakership in 2015, 2016, and so it was about three or four years later that we passed Bail Reform, and now there's an uproar over that, and there are a warnings that it may be rolled back on his side, so I think that he will fight really hard to preserve that in any way that he can, because, I mean, as he knows, the criminal justice system in New York has its problems, it also has its successes, and I think that there will be a more concerted push in the assembly to keep those changes then in the Senate.

Just for our viewers that are tuning in right now, we are awaiting Governor Kathy Hochul's State of the State address.

We're about 10 minutes after the hour right now.

The live feed, there's nothing there, so I opened it up on my laptop to make sure that it hasn't started yet.

The feed hasn't started.

Kathy Hochul is late a lot.

I don't know what to tell you, so we'll bring it to you when it happens.

- And to peel back the curtain on this process, 'cause we talked about COVID, this is a State of the State address unlike any other we've seen over the last 10 years, and not just because of COVID, but because Governor Cuomo delivered his speech with all the pomp and circumstance that was provided by the Empire State Plaza Convention Center, a room he packed with hundreds of people, one year, even giving it from enlarged podium that really, you know, major question, what was going through his mind that day?

- And the podium looked like the podium from the Assembly Chamber, and it was, the whole thing was weird.

- Yeah, it looked like-- - It was very strange.

- Yeah, it was uncomfortably large.

And now this year, though, we're seeing a return to the tradition of giving the speech in the Assembly Chamber.

The last governor to do that was Governor David Paterson.

But unlike that address, which was made to a full legislature, as well as your guests and esteemed politicos, this is a much smaller event.

Assembly members were flagging the fact that they got invites to the digital screening of this, which is right now not much of a show, (all laughs) so what we're seeing though is really the who's who in the chamber, and that also applies to the media.

We have a much smaller presence in there today.

We have a pool photographer, pool videographers, pool reporters, and it's just a reflection, not only of Kathy Hochul, but of the COVID world that we live in, so to say that COVID is a bump in the road or that we should all be back into offices by January is a real failure to acknowledge what's going on, and as someone who was in the Capitol this morning, it was a complete change of pace.

There were hundreds of law enforcement officials down there.

They were screening everyone for vaccination cards, whether you'd been tested negative for a vaccine.

They're limiting visitors to just the first floor of the Capitol, so it's a real big day and just a real change of pace for Albany.

- And I'm seeing on my laptop now, we do have some images from the State of the State coming in.

It looks like it hasn't started yet, the procession is starting, so a little bit of an informal part.

We'll of course bring it to you live when the governor starts speaking.

It looks like Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes is at the podium right now, preparing to deliver some sort of introduction.

State police are there.

We don't have it on our satellite feed, unfortunately, so I can't bring it to you right now.

So you're right, Dave, and just moments before we came on the air, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie put out a statement, saying that just about an hour ago this morning, he had two rapid tests for COVID, and they came back inconclusive, and now he's waiting his final result from a PCR test, so it's a wake-up call for the legislature, I think, and I'm told that Democrats did meet behind closed doors in the assembly, yesterday morning in the assembly, so... - They had a conference of their members in the legislative office building on Tuesday, which is where they begin to set their agenda.

When we talk about what they're interested in, it stems from those conferences, and they already didn't plan on having a legislative session that was more akin to last year's session, which didn't have 150 assembly members, 63 senators, all gathered in their respective chambers at once.

Instead, they would have just a handful of people present at any given time in the assembly.

You could even speak remotely.

At the Senate, you had to be present.

They're planning on doing at least those same protocols for the foreseeable future, so yeah, like you said, it's real different day at the Capitol.

- Yeah, go ahead, Jenna, sorry.

- Oh, no, I was just going to say that that speaks, of course, to going back to the issue around COVID.

I mean, that's part of the reason why it's so hard to get people to agree to come back.

A test saying that you're negative means you're negative in that moment.

It does not mean that two hours later, you can't come into contact with somebody who's contagious and then bring the virus back home.

- Yeah, yeah.

It's a scary time for New York, I think.

As I mentioned before, hospitalizations are above 10,000 now, a number not seen since April 30th, 2020.

The COVID-19 positivity rate, the seven-day average, is now at levels that we haven't seen since April 2020 as well, despite a high vaccination rate in the state, relative.

- Well, also, I would say getting everyone to agree on how to handle it simply because when the governor put out her decree about how, what were going to be the mandates, it was still left up to the counties to decide who was going to enforce, so you have some counties where there's a mask mandate and everyone has to wear a mask, and you can drive a few miles and do what you want.

Like it's, there has to be some kind of consistency statewide if the state is going to get its arms around us, but as long as we're sort of every man for himself thing, or every county for himself thing, we're going to continue to find these piecemeal results.

- Yep, that has been one of the complaints from the counties early on as they said we need an overarching approach from the state and that had not been happening.

The governor has since been trying to do that.

She has a winter surge plan, Winter Surge Plan 2.0, which includes a lot of testing kits, a lot of mask advisories that aren't really being enforced, so, I mean the long and short of it is we just don't know when this is going to end and that's unfortunate, and I don't know if we know the best strategies to tackle it at this point in a state that is so politically divided, geographically and both ideologically.

In areas of the state where COVID isn't so much a priority in terms of regulation, and other parts of the state where it's, there's very tight regulations, New York City, for example.

- Of course.

- Well, Dane, when we talk about COVID and the response, I think we always need to consider our healthcare system, and the speech is going to make some references to the state of healthcare in New York right now, and what needs to be done to bolster the system as we try to weather the storm with the pandemic, but there's also going to be a focus on the aftermath, and that's what we're going to see with a lot of different sectors, but in healthcare particular, we had a staffing shortage in the healthcare field leading into the pandemic, something that's been exacerbated by the pandemic, whether it's just the exhaustion of the workforce, as well as vaccine mandates that have forced a drop in staffing levels, so I think that Governor Hochul needs to acknowledge that and needs to make some sort of investment for the future.

She needs to figure out a way to attract a larger workforce, to retain a healthcare workforce, and that's going to cost a lot of money, and that's not just in institutional settings, like hospitals and nursing homes, there's going to be a push possibly from her, most likely from the legislature, to also boost the investment in the home care workforce.

And then there's also the pressure on her in terms of the healthcare agenda to make healthcare more accessible, make affordable healthcare, affordable high quality healthcare more accessible, and what we're not going to see from her is a push today for the New York Health Act, which would basically see a state takeover of health insurance in New York.

Instead, we'll see probably some actions around the margin, whether it's expanding access to the Essential Plan, which is a low-income health insurance plan, maybe some changes to Medicaid, so that could set up to be one of the major fights too.

And then we also just need to think about that, again, back to those Cs that I mentioned at the top, the campaign, because she's trying to walk that very narrow tightrope of not angering the left that wants the health act and not angering the center and center right that just likes the private insurer healthcare model, so healthcare is going to be a big part of the speech when, and if, we ever get to hear it.

- Well, you know, on that note, let's switch gears now, because, so we were given the State of State book under embargo as reporters for 1:00 PM, it's now 1:18 PM, so let's just start talking about what's in the State of the State, I guess, if we're not going to get to it immediately.

Dave, what are your takeaways so far not looking at the speech because I, the important thing here is I think the book is about 280 pages long.

It's very long.

I didn't get through all of it before when we got it at-- - It could have used more pictures, frankly.

- You know, I would have loved more pictures.

So what are your takeaways so far?

I think the speech will determine what she really wants to focus on, but there is a line here.

- Yeah, and you make a really good point that the book, and eventually the budget, have more of the details, more of the meat, and this speech is more about rhetoric, more about the campaign, so I think that the environmental portion of this is pretty interesting to me, because this is an area where she makes some pretty bold gestures, whether it's regarding investment in electric vehicle infrastructure.

This is something that we need to really grow out over the next five to 10 years.

We want to hit some of our greenhouse gas reduction goals.

There's also plan to electrify 2 million homes by 2030.

There is an effort to ensure that greenhouse gases are not produced by new construction in the future.

That's something for 2027, I believe.

We already knew about this from 2021, but she's going to make a pitch for that $4 billion Bond Act, something that got scuttled when it was a $3 billion Bond Act under Governor Cuomo because of the finances at the time, so that $4 billion is going to be a big chunk of change that I think a lot of people are excited about.

And also in this sector, there is a $500 million commitment to offshore wind, so I think there's a lot that the environmental community is going to be happy about here, and I think when we think about what she does to appeal to her left flank, I think what we've seen is that she's making a stand on the environment.

This is where she's making an appeal.

I mean, we don't see anything that's going to be too egregious in terms of angering the center and the center right.

There's no carbon tax in here.

There's nothing that's allegedly going to drive up the cost of energy in New York, so I'm really intrigued by this environmental portion, and I think this is something that the legislature is going to really just embrace with both arms, so that's where I'm looking at right now in terms of where she's really taking a big swing.

Other parts of the speech and the book don't seem as exciting to me.

There are a lot of retreads, there're the executive actions and launching of blue-ribbon panels and the study to look at this and that, which we get all the time from governors, there's also the continuation of certain policies that were begun under Governor Cuomo, whether it's middle-class tax cuts, whether it's a tax breaks in the agriculture sector, and so there might be some talk around the margins about accelerating those, expanding those, but between you and me, Dane, and whoever is watching at this point, and Jenna, I'm sorry.

I apologize, - Jenna's here.

- I'm not that excited about all that stuff.

- There's a lot of crumbs in here.

There's some stuff that I would consider to be big in terms of how it could impact things, but maybe small in, I don't want to say, in the description of it necessarily.

- Well, it's small, not, maybe not small in terms of the description, but definitely small, it could be small in terms of how it's sold to the public, because while a lot of the things that we were talking about in terms of the environmental initiatives that she's going to be pushing for, if there's not, if she doesn't sell this to the public, then people are going to be more focused on what their gas prices are and what their heating oil costs are in the middle of winter.

- Right.

You know, Jen, I did want to ask you, so the governor has been in New York City quite a bit in the past few months.

What does it look like for her there?

I think that she was pretty unknown in New York City when she took the office of the governor.

I think that she's made a point to be there to really introduce herself.

- Yes.

- What's the vibe in New York City for Kathy Hochul?

- Ugh, well, I mean, first and foremost, the vibe in New York City is somewhat exhausted.

The, just with the turnover of executives for the city, I think, has been a lot for new Yorkers as it is.

In terms of what people are waiting to see from her, I think the biggest thing is going to be what is going to be her relationship with Mayor Adams.

We, of course, had a front row seat to what happens when the mayor and the governor don't get along, and that does nothing but actually harm New York in the long run because you have-- - Well, do you think De Blasio and Cuomo didn't get along?

- I know, it was really shocking.

There were times-- - They did a pretty good job hiding that.

(mumbles) Saratoga Springs, I had no idea, so thank you.

That's interesting.

- The love that was, the relationship that just wasn't.

- Okay.

- Yes, so I think that's where most people are looking for.

How are these two individuals going to work together and who's going to win the battle, if you will, of wills over whose agenda is going to take front and center stage because of course that's where the spotlight is, so who's going to suck up the most oxygen in the room.

- Yeah.

So far, I think that they've had a cordial relationship, Eric Adams and Kathy Hochul, but I can tell that Eric Adams is a very strong personality.

- Yes, indeed.

You have to be to be mayor of that city.

I will say though that criminal justice will definitely be something 'cause right after COVID, criminal justice is the next big issue.

There has been a significant increase in crime and even large for the winter time, which is usually when we see crime fall off.

Now, a lot of social justice activists could say that you could tie a lot of the crime and a lot of what's happening to, back to COVID, and a lot of the ripple effects that COVID has caused, but the bottom line is that how she addresses criminal justice is definitely going to be something that's going to take a lot of attention in New York.

- Absolutely.

The governor has begun her State of the State address.

We are working on getting the feed right now.

It should, we should have it in a few moments, I'm told in my ear from the control room, so just keep a look out for that.

All right, we're going to go right to the State of the State.

- Thank you, Lieutenant Governor, and you have been doing such an outstanding job in an incredibly short time, and I'm proud to have you by my side as we deliver for the people of New York.

I also want to join him in thanking my partners in government.

State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, our Attorney General Tish James, Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins of the Senate, Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes, and we do hope that Speaker of the Assembly Carl Heastie gets well soon.

I also want to thank Pastor Soloman Dees and Allie Navarette for representing the Girl Scouts so well.

As I stand before you, I'm well aware of the significance of this moment: the first time in New York's history that a woman has delivered this annual address.

But I didn't come here to make history, I came here to make a difference.

And to be sure, I've a deep reverence for our State's remarkable past, and we're honoring it by coming together in this beautiful Assembly Chamber, its original, and rightful, setting with elected leaders, joined together to serve the public.

I'm rather fond of quoting a former member of this body, one-time Governor, Teddy Roosevelt, who said: "It's not the critic who counts...

The credit belongs to the man, or shall we say, the woman, who is actually in the arena."

To my colleagues and partners in government, for too long, Albany's Executive and Legislative branches were fighting each other in that arena.

No more.

That ends now.

What I am proposing is a whole New Era for New York, and the days of Governors disregarding the rightful role of this legislature are over.

The days of the Governor of New York and Mayor of New York City wasting time on petty rivalries are over.

The days of New Yorkers questioning whether their government is actually working for them are over.

And the days of three men in a room are clearly over.

Just ask the Majority Leader.

And we know that women are always held to a higher standard, so I know that I must not just meet but exceed expectations for this to no longer be an historic achievement, but rather the norm.

So we will do things differently.

From now on, we will share success.

We will find common ground.

We will restore trust in this government, because it has been eroded for far too long.

And we will fight like hell, not for turf, not for credit, but for New Yorkers.

I've been proud to stand with the members of this legislature, signing more than 400 of your bills into law since September, and we're just getting started.

New Yorkers need the help of everyone in this room to pass an ambitious agenda, one that responds to the Covid-19 pandemic, but also rebuilds our healthcare and teacher workforces, provides tax relief to those who need it most, speeds up economic growth and creates good paying, middle-class jobs, strengthens our infrastructure and confronts climate change, secures public safety, makes housing more affordable, ensures that every New Yorker has a roof over their heads and enact, yes, bold reforms for our State government.

My fellow New Yorkers, this agenda is for you.

Every single initiative is filtered through the lens of how it will help you and your families 'cause I know you're exhausted, I know you want this pandemic to be over, I know you're worried about the economy, inflation, your kids, their education and what the future holds.

We've endured so much hardship over these past two years.

We've buried loved ones, experienced seismic shifts in our daily lives and missed out on so many of life's precious milestones, holidays, weddings, graduations, even the birth of a grandchild.

There has been so much loss of too many lives, and of too many of our hopes and dreams.

And now, just when we thought we were turning a corner, there's a new variant, another surge in cases.

It feels like déjà vu.

And I know you're all asking, will we ever get through this?

Yes.

We will.

We're New Yorkers.

We've been knocked down before.

We've been counted out.

But in response, we never fail to defy the odds and rise to new heights.

New York always rises from the ashes.

That is why I believe that this is not a moment of despair, but a moment of great possibility, because while we are in the midst of an all-consuming crisis, we also remember that if we make the right choices right now, it will end.

But first, we must weather the storm around us.

And that means controlling this virus, but not letting it control us.

When I took office, we immediately enacted a comprehensive pandemic plan, and we've continued to adapt as new variants like Omicron have emerged.

We're doing everything we can to keep New Yorkers healthy, setting policies that have made our vaccination rate one of the highest in the country, activating a military-style operation with vax and test sites, deploying the National Guard to our hospitals and nursing homes and sending out 37 million tests across the state.

During this winter surge, our laser focus is on keeping our kids in school, businesses open, and New Yorkers' lives as normal as possible.

We are attacking this virus head-on, armed with a tactical, science-based approach, and we are ready for whatever comes next.

But as we all know too well, this is more than a public health crisis.

We now need to support the people, the places and industries that were hit the hardest, starting with the New Yorkers who have been on the frontlines since day one.

During those terrifying early months, while many hunkered down at home, our healthcare workers and first responders showed up, day after day, night after night, double shift after double shift, putting their lives on the line to save others.

They're not only physically exhausted, they're emotionally exhausted too.

I know I've seen it in their eyes, in hospitals from Buffalo to Potsdam just this last week.

That exhaustion, combined with pre-existing staffing shortages, has resulted in a crisis.

We simply do not have enough healthcare workers in our hospitals, or in our long-term care facilities, in our ambulances or in the homes of our loved ones.

The health of every New Yorker depends on strong, stable, and equitable healthcare system and these workers are its very foundation.

Bold action is required before any more time passes.

First, we must stop the current hemorrhaging of healthcare workers, and we're going to do it not just by saying we owe them a debt of gratitude, but actually paying them the debt we owe, starting with a retention bonus of up to $3,000 for our health and direct care workers that will drive higher salaries throughout the healthcare workforce, so those doing God's work here on earth are no longer paid a minimum wage.

Beyond salary, we will make it easier for doctors and nurses from other States to practice with their existing licenses here in New York.

We'll expand the capacity of our medical institutions so more students can train for high-demand healthcare jobs, and we'll make it possible for them to get that training with free tuition and stipends if they remain here after they graduate.

A once-in-a-lifetime pandemic demands a once-in-a-lifetime response, and that's why I'm setting an ambitious goal to grow our healthcare workforce by 20% over the next five years.

And we will make the largest investment in healthcare in State's history, $10 billion.

And as we bolster our bone-tired healthcare workforce, we know they aren't the only heroes of the pandemic.

I am so grateful to the county leaders, school superintendents, administrators, parents and teachers who work so closely with us to get kids back to school just this week.

The role of a teacher is irreplaceable in a child's life, and as the last two years have hammered home, they're irreplaceable in a parent's life, too.

As a mother, I know this firsthand.

This workforce is also stressed and overworked.

So we will ramp up efforts to recruit and retain teachers, with more effective training and support, faster and earlier certification, and stronger career pipelines and ladders.

And we will add more mental health professionals in schools to heal the wounds inflicted during the isolation of remote learning.

Others are hurting as well.

Families, small business owners, farmers, they all need our help, and they need it now, and they're going to get it.

We will accelerate a $1.2 billion-dollar tax cut originally scheduled to take effect between now and 2025, so that it all occurs a lot earlier.

That's means more than 6 million middle-class taxpayers will get more money in their pockets sooner at a time when inflation is robbing them of any gains in income.

To help with property taxes, we will provide a $1 billion middle-class property tax rebate to more than 2 million homeowners.

And to help parents get back to work, we're going to expand access to affordable childcare to 100,000 more working families and invest $75 million in childcare worker wages.

And we will also deliver $100 million in much-needed relief to nearly 200,000 small businesses to keep their doors open and weather what the next few months bring.

These businesses are the economic engines of small towns and big cities alike, they're what make our communities unique and give them personality.

I should know, I've shopped and eaten in diners in most of them.

Also, I helped my mother start a small flower shop and my sister started tech company, so I know firsthand how hard it is.

I know the risks taken by owners and entrepreneurs, and the barriers faced by women.

So many small businesses were pushed to the brink.

Thousands of bars and restaurants, the souls of our neighborhoods, have had to close.

For others, hanging on by a thread, survival depends on whether they can create more space outdoors, a tough task during our New York winters.

To help offset these costs, we will provide a tax credit for COVID-related purchases, like outdoor heating and seating.

We're also going to do something our bars and restaurants have been asking for, to once again allow the sale of to-go drinks, a critical revenue stream during the lean times last year, so cheers, New York.

And the farmers who supply our restaurant kitchens, and our own, they need a lifeline as well.

I've visited farms from Genesee County to the North Fork of Long Island, and life is tough, even in good years.

So we're going to support them through a tax credit for the overtime hours they are paying, an increase in the Investment Tax Credit and an extension and doubling of the Farm Workforce Retention Credit.

This will also begin to address the workforce shortage so many farms struggle with as well.

So, this is how we will begin to help healthcare workers, educators, small businesses, farms and families deal with the devastating economic impacts of COVID.

But beyond the pandemic, my agenda reflects my belief that we cannot allow the virus to grip us so tightly that it constrains us from looking to the future.

And longing for a simple return to our pre-pandemic world and way of life would only, not only be timid and unimaginative, it would ignore our history and go against everything that makes New York, New York.

If we can't embrace the possibilities that come out of times like these, then we fail to honor the legacy of the daring, visionary New Yorkers who came before us.

The portrait of Franklin Roosevelt that hangs above the mantle in the Governor's residence is my daily reminder of what leadership during a crisis is all about.

First as Governor, and then as President, FDR literally rebuilt the economy from the ground up after the crash of '29.

But more than giving people jobs, he gave people hope.

And the policies of his New Deal didn't just help families who lost everything, they spurred decades of economic growth and the birth of the middle class.

Again and again, he focused on the storm swirling around him, but kept one eye on the horizon, always planning for the day when the clouds would part.

That is exactly what we are doing now.

This pandemic did not create all the problems we're facing today, it simply forced us to hold up a mirror and see the cracks in our society that had been too easy to ignore before.

This crisis has created an opportunity to redefine ourselves, and we must embrace it.

But as we embark on this New Era for our State, we need to take a hard look in that mirror and deal with harsh realities.

Like the fact that 300,000 New Yorkers left our State last year alone.

That's the steepest population drop of any State in the nation, an alarm bell that cannot be ignored.

To those who left temporarily because of the pandemic, or are trying to decide their next steps during these uncertain times, I have one message, you do not want to miss what's going to happen next.

Right now, in real time, we are building a new New York worthy of your talents and ambitions.

We're going to jumpstart our economic recovery by being the most business-friendly and worker-friendly State in the nation.

To entice people and businesses, we're investing millions of dollars to transform the downtowns of our cities into magnets for new jobs and new opportunities and position both legacy and emerging industries for success.

We all know New York is already home to some of the most consequential industries in the world.

Finance, retail, healthcare, technology, fashion, entertainment, just to name a few.

But there is plenty of room for growth.

More shovel-ready sites for new manufacturers and warehouses, improvements in our freight infrastructure and investments in the technology that will power the jobs of the future.

And we're going to make sure we have a workforce trained to step into these jobs.

That's why we will invest smartly and strategically in workforce development programs, which simply means matching people to training, to jobs.

I know the demand is strong.

At every one of the thousands of workplaces I've visited, the universal complaint is not having enough trained workers.

Every single place, it's the same.

And that's why we will reboot our Workforce Development Office, house it in Empire State Development so we can build stronger partnerships with employers and move funding through our Regional Economic Development Councils so we grow programs that train for jobs that are actually in demand in different parts of the State.

And the smart way to do this is to have school districts, community colleges, SUNY and CUNY, all focused on the same objectives.

We are going to incentivize success, by tying a portion of workforce funding to high job placement rates.

And we're also going to make it easier to qualify as an MWBE, so everyone can have access to opportunities.

It's a commonsense approach, and backed by an uncommon level of funding.

And it's going to help supercharge our economy.

Our goal is for New York to be known nationally as the place that grows and attracts the talent, and the businesses will follow.

And for businesses to succeed, they need a well-trained and educated workforce.

And I believe to my very core that there is nothing more valuable than education and training when it comes to unlocking opportunity and prosperity.

It changes lives across generations.

I know what education did in my own family's circumstances.

My grandparents fled Ireland as teenagers because they had nothing, they were poor, with no hint of opportunity in their home country.

My grandfather first became a migrant farm worker in the fields of South Dakota, then later he and Grandma were domestic workers.

Then it all changed when he heard there were great jobs in a place called Buffalo, New York at the Bethlehem steel plant.

And grandma found a job at Bell Aerospace, making parts for our planes during World War II.

That was their ticket to the life that they came in search of.

But what really transformed my family was the fact that my father was able to get a college degree, at night, while working by day at the same steel plant as his father.

If he hadn't taken that leap, and invested in his own education, I would be living a very different life today.

My whole family would be.

And that's why I am so focused on expanding educational opportunities, starting by making the State's tuition assistance program available to part-time students.

I believe that SUNY and CUNY are engines of social mobility and have untapped potential that still needs to be unleashed and harnessed.

So today, I am outlining a vision to make SUNY the best statewide public higher education system in the nation.

How?

First, recruiting world-class faculty, and creating flagship institutions at Stony Brook and the University at Buffalo, investing more in our premier research facilities at Binghamton and Albany, and leaning into the strengths of our four-year comprehensive colleges, our technology colleges, and our community colleges.

We'll also be providing childcare on each campus, and let's increase enrollment to 500,000 students by 2030, making SUNY a national leader on equity, and increasing the number of diversity in every community, with degrees and credentials that'll launch middle class careers and ensuring that SUNY campuses spur economic growth in their own surrounding communities.

As we upgrade our Statewide higher education institutions, we also acknowledge that there are populations at risk of falling through the cracks unless we target job training and educational opportunities to them as well.

For example, we know that incarcerated people who participate in correctional education programs are far less likely to reoffend and 13 times more likely to obtain employment after returning home.

That outcome benefits the formerly incarcerated, employers in need of workers, and taxpayers of New York State, and it's the right thing to do.

So today I'm announcing a new "Jails-to-Jobs" initiative, so incarcerated people have the support they need to find employment during re-entry.

We're also going to restore the Tuition Assistance Program for incarcerated people, again, ending a 30-year ban.

As we create economic opportunity in every sector, there's one industry that will be working around the clock for years to come, my friends in the construction trades, building infrastructure the likes of which we've never seen.

Infrastructure can mean different things to different people.

To me, it's exciting, because it's all about creating connections.

Connecting neighborhoods, connecting people to jobs and connecting people to their families.

Substandard infrastructure can mean long commutes, lost time from family, even missing a child's bedtime.

Time in a tire repair shop after hitting a pothole adds more stress than anyone needs.

And that's why I view building and improving our infrastructure as a quality of life issue.

In November, I stood with my former colleagues in Congress on the White House lawn when President Biden signed the historic infrastructure bill, giving us a once-in-a-century chance to invest.

We cannot let this moment slip by, and we won't.

New Yorkers demand the best, and that's exactly what they're going to get.

Just look at what my administration has already announced over the past four months.

We will finally transform Penn Station into world-class facility worthy of our city, ensure that the Gateway Project finally moves forward.

We'll deliver long overdue upgrades at both LaGuardia and JFK Airports, and finish the 2nd Avenue Subway to connect East Harlem to jobs.

But we're just getting started.

Today, I'm announcing a bold idea, take an old, unused, 14-mile-long right-of-way and create what we're calling the Inter-Borough Express, a new rail service that will connect Brooklyn and Queens.

I am directing the MTA to immediately commence an environmental review, so we can get this project rolling down the track.

I'm also directing the Port Authority to get moving on the Cross-tunnel, Cross-Harbor tunnel.

As I said, infrastructure is all about connections.

And we need to reconnect neighborhoods that were severed by asphalt highways, disproportionately impacting communities of color.

We're going to reverse the damage that was done more than half a century ago, with projects like the Kensington Expressway in Buffalo, I-81 in Syracuse, the Inner Loop in Rochester, and the Cross-Bronx Expressway.

You know, I've traveled to every one of our 62 counties in each of the past seven years, so I know nearly every road and highway and bridge.

And I think I have a personal experience with just about every pothole in New York as well, especially on the Long Island Expressway.

I'm coming after them, too.

And we are making the largest ever investment in New York's digital infrastructure, putting $1 billion into connecting more New Yorkers with high-speed internet.

This investment will boost innovation and economic growth, especially in our most remote communities.

There's one more piece of critical infrastructure in our plan to rebuild, making it, our infrastructure, more resilient against climate change.

I remember, just days after being sworn into office, we were slammed with Hurricane Ida.

I walked the streets of East Elmhurst, Queens, and witnessed the aftermath of an epic collision between Mother Nature and our inferior infrastructure, with devastating consequences.

It was a cruel reminder that too much time has already been lost in the fight against climate change.

And these events are no longer rare, the next one is coming.

Look no further than the Upstate counties constantly battered by so-called "500 year" flooding, or the tunnels in New York City, and communities on Long Island are still undergoing repairs more than a decade after Hurricane Sandy hit.

This is a threat to our way of life, here and now, and that's why we must, and we will, implement an ambitious agenda to meet this moment.

We've already started with increasing the Environmental Bond Act to $4 billion to go on the ballot this Fall so we have the resources we need.

I'm now announcing a nation-leading, $500 million investment in offshore wind energy that will create thousands of good-paying green jobs.

As we build out our wind-energy capacity, and continue our transition to clean energy, our reliance on fossil fuels must be phased out.

In September, I announced two clean energy mega-projects to put us on a path to achieve the ambitious goal of cutting 80% of New York City's power plant emissions by 2030.

New construction in the State will be zero-emission by 2027, and we will build climate-friendly electric homes and promote electric cars, trucks, and buses.

You know, protecting our environment is personal to me.

I was born at a time, and in a place, where orange smoke billowed out of factory smokestacks, literally blocking the skies, with a horrible stench I can still recall to this day, all the while dumping toxic waste into one of the world's largest freshwater lakes.

I lived surrounded by the causes of climate change, and now I'm living with its effects.

So while we confront the climate crisis, we will address one of the most basic of human needs, and that is to also feel safe, on streets, in schools, and in homes.

Time and time again, New Yorkers tell me that they don't feel safe, they don't like what they see on the streets, and things feel different right now, and not always for the better.

And it's not just New York City, it's cities all across America.

And many factors contribute to our states, our streets feeling less safe, including a very real uptick in gun violence nationwide since the start of the pandemic.

Now, this is not a return to the dark days of the 70s and '80s and '90s.

But that's not our metric for success.

We need to get back on track.

In October, I signed a bill that closed loopholes in gun possession and registration, making it easier for law enforcement to track down weapons used in crimes and prevent gun trafficking.

And we banned the sale of ghost guns.

Going forward, we will double down on practical, proven law enforcement strategies to combat gun violence.

Working with Mayor Adams in New York and the Lieutenant Governor, I've, who I've asked to take the lead for our administration, we will form a new consortium, unprecedented cooperation between the New York State Police, the NYPD, and other law enforcement agencies, including our neighboring states, and we'll trace guns used in crimes and stop the flow of guns into our State.

Meanwhile, we'll triple the resources for both our gun-tracing efforts, as well as for successful community-based programs.

Fighting gun violence is critical, but we must address other factors contributing to the pervasive unease that many are feeling on our streets.

And that includes the humanitarian crisis unfolding right before us: the rise in street homelessness.

Our fellow New Yorkers who are in this situation deserve our compassion, and they will receive it, along with our support.

We will create teams of mental health professionals and social workers, who will partner with New York City, and we'll reach homeless individuals and move them into shelters and housing.

At the same time, we know that street homelessness only accounts for a small fraction of the homeless population.

Beyond those sleeping on the streets, tens of thousands more people move in and out of shelters as they try to secure a place to call home, and tragically, many of them are children.

We need to focus on addressing the root causes of homelessness, unmet mental health needs, poverty, addiction, and housing insecurity.

Every New Yorker deserves access to affordable housing, whether they are at risk of homelessness or simply struggle to pay the rent on time each month.

So many people not only face tremendous economic hardship, but here is the double hit, housing prices have also contributed to escalate that possibility out of the reach of many, worsening the situation even more.

And that's why I am launching a new, five-year housing plan to create and preserve 100,000 affordable homes, including 10,000 units with supportive services for high-risk populations, like runaway youth, and formerly incarcerated individuals.

And we can no longer ignore the plight of NYCHA residents living in sometimes deplorable conditions.

The Lieutenant Governor and I will work with the City of New York and this Legislature on concrete action this session.

So, we'll also fix outdated land use laws that hold back our housing supply.

We'll encourage transit-oriented development and the conversion of hotels and offices into housing as part of our overall housing strategy.

Accomplishing everything I've proposed thus far hinges on one thing, a government people trust.

Across the country, trust in government is reaching all-time lows.

We know why.

Misinformation and lies on social media, a widening partisan divide, gridlock in Washington, even outright attacks on the right to vote.

It's getting harder and harder for people to believe in their elected officials at all levels of government.

And here is the question, how do we restore their faith?

Here in New York, our answer is to demonstrate what good and honest governance looks like.

And we've already announced our first step.

We are submitting a proposal to the legislature to enact two term limits for Statewide officials.

For government to work, those of us in power cannot continue to cling to it.

We need to continually pass the baton to new leaders with different perspectives and fresh ideas.

Our reforms include a ban on outside income for Statewide officials because our only job should be to serve the people of New York.

But that's not the only part of the system that's not working.

It's no secret that recent events have called into question the effectiveness of the Joint Commission on Public Ethics, JCOPE.

I will introduce legislation to replace that commission with a new ethics enforcement watchdog, one with real teeth, one that answers to New Yorker, and not politicians.

None of these changes will fix our government overnight and having these safeguards in place won't mean most of us in elected office still won't stumble and make honest mistakes once in a while.

But by putting in much-needed reforms, we can at least begin to restore public trust by focusing on what really matters to our constituents.

Now what you've just heard is a mere sampling of the more than 220 proposals that fill a book that we're releasing today.

Quite an extraordinary accomplishment given our 134 days in office.

And I commend the hard-working staff who helped me shape this agenda, and I'm proud to have the most diverse, talented team New York State has ever had.

Before we leave here and get to work, I want to pause a moment to reflect on our State's unique story and the destiny that lies before us.

Since its beginning, our country has attracted people from around the world, in search of an ideal that made leaving their homeland worth the risk.

Two simple words, the American Dream.

And in pursuit of this, millions found their way here, to us.

New York has always meant the promise of a better life, for those immigrating through Ellis Island, fleeing slavery in the South, or resettling here as refugees from Afghanistan.

And our state is nationally recognized as the birthplace of movements for equality and progress, the labor movement, the women's rights movement, the LGBTQ+ movement, the environmental movement, the racial justice movement, they were all started here by enlightened New Yorkers.

We attract the best, the brightest, the boldest.

We embrace and celebrate racial, ethnic and gender diversity, culture and entertainment, where a single word like Broadway says it all, where the unsurpassed beauty of Niagara Falls, the Adirondacks, Jones Beach, the Finger Lakes, Erie Canal and the Hudson River Valley, as well as the grandeur of the New York City skyline aglow at night, it's breathtaking.

This is who we are and we are proud of it, the keepers of the flames of movements past, stewards of the natural treasures entrusted to us and the visionaries who will lead our State into the future, with courage and with confidence.

While we may be imperfect, New Yorkers have always been the risk-takers, the entrepreneurs, the innovators, the builders, the new immigrants, the students, the true believers and the dreamers, who know that there truly is only one New York.

My fellow New Yorkers, members of the legislature, the time has come for a new American Dream.

A better, fairer, more inclusive version that I call The New York Dream.

For New York is not just a place, like other States, it is also an ideal.

One that embodies excitement, energy, and endless possibilities.

Just as we are inspired by the history bequeathed to us by the great New Yorkers who led our nation's social justice movements and leaders, like I said, like FDR, who navigated us through a crisis with a calm, steady hand, so too will history look back at our time.

How we are judged will be determined by what we do right here, right now.

Let us seize this moment with great confidence and optimism, and create a legacy of accomplishment that will endure through the ages, A New Era for New York.

And May God bless the people of the great State of New York and our Nation.

Thank you.

(audience claps) - All right, we have just wrapped Governor Kathy Hochul's State of the State address, a speech that lasted about 40, 45 minutes, touched on a lot of different points.

It's a very different vibe than years past because of COVID.

As you saw, the Assembly Chamber was mostly empty.

We did see a few of the legislative leaders there, right behind the governor at the dice there.

The State Attorney General, the State Comptroller were both there.

Something striking about this speech is that nobody clapped the entire time because there were only about 10 people in the Chamber, it looked like, so it sounded a little sad and awkward.

So let's break down the speech with Dave Lombardo from WCNY's Capitol Pressroom and Jenna Flanagan from MetroFocus.

Thank you both for being here again, If you're just tuning in.

So not a lot in the speech, as opposed to the books that we were talking about before.

I want to start with the ethics reform component of this, Dave, she is proposing term limits for statewide elected officials, so we're not talking about the legislature, we're talking about the four statewide officials, the governor, the LG, the comptroller, and the state attorney general.

You had State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli on your show this week to talk about this proposal, because Hochul had announced it a little bit earlier in the week.

What did he say to you?

He was against it, right?

- Yeah, he was basically, thanks, but no thanks.

I'll pass on this one.

As the Comptroller now is pursuing his fourth full term in office in 2022, it remains to be seen how the legislature will respond to this.

There are some members already who don't like the idea of term limits at all, because they're worried about it applying to them.

(mumbles) you know, we get the ball rolling for statewide, why not do it for the lawmakers themselves, so I don't think there's going to be a huge amount of momentum for this proposal.

In terms of the ethics package overall, I think for people like us who follow state government with just, at an intensity that most people in New York do not have, the big takeaway is that she wants to reform the Joint Commission on Public Ethics, which is known as JCOPE, and which is known as J-Joke because of the fact that it's been seen as a toothless tiger, she wants to make a structure that theoretically will be a better police, watchdog, for New York state.

People don't really care about that.

No one's going to vote for Kathy Hochul because she's changing the five people who are going to be responsible for this.

They just want lawmakers to stop getting arrested and stop sexually harassing people, and so they don't really care who's responsible for policing overall, so I mean, the ethics thing seems like kind of a big yawn to me.

- Well, and also with JCOPE, the problem with JCOPE, the perceived problem is all of the appointees on JCOPE, it's a commission, are appointed by politicians.

They're appointed by people in the state legislature and they're appointed by the governor, so how do you appoint people to then investigate yourself?

Like, how can you rely on those people to be independent?

And as we have, I don't want to say seen, because like, there's no way to prove it, but as people have said in years past, the commission has really been favorable to the people that appointed it.

- Shocked.

- Exactly.

With governor Cuomo, we saw JCOPE really not go that hard against him until he was out of office, and then they went against him on the book deal, so a really interesting thing there, and as you said, it's going to be a big change in terms of New York state.

We could see a constitutional amendment, which is being sponsored by Senator Liz Krueger from Manhattan.

That's something that's been floated, but didn't gain a lot of steam, so maybe now with Hochul on board, if something like that.

- But that could be done without the governor's involvement.

A constitutional amendment could be done solely by the legislature and the fact that the legislature has never done that indicates that they also don't care about changing the beat-cops, they like the system, so yeah, I don't see why it makes a big difference.

- Some lawmakers have been very outspoken, saying yes, get rid of JCOPE, for sure.

But then you get to the more like senior lawmakers in the legislature and you ask them.

- The legislative leaders, yeah, they don't care.

- They are basically like, JCOPE is there, it's doing its thing, it doesn't affect us, why should we put a lot of effort into it?

We haven't really seen any strong proposals from the legislative leaders on how to boost ethics in New York.

Maybe this year that will change, with Andrew Cuomo, everything happening with him last year.

- Okay, Charlie Brown.

- Yeah, I can't say that, you know, hope springs eternal.

- Yes, it definitely does.

- Jenna, what were your takeaways here?

There was a lot that went through it.

- Yeah, there was a lot that went through it.

I guess some of the big things that really stood out to me, especially working downstate in the New York City area, was when she talked about infrastructure.

Of course, roads and bridges are very important and God knows things like the Gateway Project and improving the Second Avenue Subway, those are critically important, but one of the things that seems to always get overlooked when we talk about infrastructure is, and it's not sexy term, but plumbing, it's huge, and a lot of cities, especially older cities like New York, and even Upstate, in like Rochester and Syracuse, those pipes were put in like hundred, over a hundred years ago, - Oh, yeah.

- So they need to be upgraded, and we see a lot of times now, especially with these hundred year storms coming every, what, five years, every other year now, it is huge.

A big problem in New York is that there's not proper drainage that's done for the city, and so drains get overwhelmed, they start to overflood, and then of course, neighborhoods flood, and then you have huge flooding problems that causes water damage, and so, and I mean, it just compiles, and that seems like that really needs to be a top issue.

That in addition to things like the Berm that they're building in Lower Manhattan to be able to deal with storm surge and things of that nature.

I mean, somebody's got to one day at least be willing to do, what, like a ribbon-cutting in front of a bathroom or set, because it's just, it's a huge thing that we put in the ground, and we stopped thinking about.

- Well, we saw this during the remanence of Hurricane Ida in September, right?

- Yeah.

- So it's not an issue that people don't know about in terms of lawmakers and the governor, and I think it's something that she had mentioned in September when Ida happened, that she said she wanted to do something about this.

Whether that actually happens, I don't know.

We were looking through the State of the State book before we tossed to the speech.

I didn't see anything in there about basement dwellings.

- No.

And yeah, that was a huge thing that we saw during Ida.

I mean, through all the storms that we have come through is that, again, because of the drainage issues, it's so easy for those basement dwellings to flood over, and then you, in addition to the water damage, there's mold and then there's sickness that that causes, and then on top of that, how do the residents, what exactly are the landlords going to be responsible for, what are the residents responsible for, and which would tie us into another issue that I didn't hear, affordable housing came up, rent relief did not.

- Yes.

And the eviction moratorium expires on the 15th of this month.

- Yes.

- There's already some push for that to be extended.

Lawmakers have a very short window to make that happen.

I read an article from The CITY, the nonprofit news organization this morning, saying that the governor actually has been quietly behind the scenes pushing to let it expire, and the state has asked for about a billion dollars more in rent relief.

We're not getting that money as of now.

So did we see anything?

I mean, what did we see in terms of housing, Jenna?

What's there that would light the eyes of tenants, I guess?

- Oh, goodness, light the eyes of tenants, I'm not-- - Well, there's the five-year housing plan, so that's something that people on the affordable housing front are really looking for.

She's talking about a hundred thousand new affordable housing units and making this sort of long-term investment is something that's really a big deal.

Who ends up getting access to that housing is something that we're going to watch.

- And that's where I think the big deal is going to be.

I mean, even when she talked about something like NYCHA, so many people have talked about addressing NYCHA year after year after year after year, and tenants languish in even more decaying buildings, et cetera.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, housing has been an issue over the past few years, I think.

And especially since Democrats took control of the legislature, they've really made a concerted push to install more tenant protections.

Something that we may see in this legislative session is something called Good Cause eviction, which was first enacted in the city of Albany over the summer.

I think it was July or August that they did it.

The bill would basically make it so landlords would need a good cause to evict somebody, so they can't just put an eviction notice on somebody's apartment.

I didn't see that in the book.

Did you, Dave?

- No, and and that's not going to be something that she prioritizes in any way, shape or form.

If that happens, it's going to be the legislature deciding to, again, flex its muscles and take the lead on that because Governor Hochul does not want to do that.

Attorney General Tish James, when she was running briefly for governor, had made a big push for Good Cause, but for the most part, Governor Hochul avoided any really controversial measures like Good Cause, but she did, I think, potentially create some headaches for herself with regards to a couple criminal justice items.

She announced that she's backing Clean Slate legislation, which would essentially wipe criminal records so that people aren't dogged by those in the wake of their convictions, and she also wants to bring back tuition assistance for incarcerated new Yorkers.

It's something that got rolled back 28 years ago in 1994-ish in New York state, basically ensuring that people in prison can have access to higher education.

A lot of those services right now are just provided by private entities.

And then in terms of something that was missing though, something that I know we've covered a lot in our show, you've covered a lot, childcare.

There was a lot of hope, a lot of expectation, a lot of buildup to the speech that she might make a big push for universal childcare access.

That did not happen in any way, shape or form in the speech, so what we're going to probably see from advocates over the next couple of weeks though is a push to get her to make an investment in the state budget because they maybe would say, okay, she hasn't done it now, she hasn't quite missed her opportunity, so that's one of the things I think we'll wait and see what happens between now and the end of January with that executive proposal.

- Yeah, just for some contrast for our viewers and listeners, childcare is a huge investment if you're going to expand access.

I've done a lot of reporting on this over the past few months.

Even the State Office of Children and Family Services says that to maintain the current amount of assistance for childcare that we have now, we have to invest an additional $2 billion every year.

Why do we need $2 billion now?

Because we got that money from the federal government to invest in this last year during the pandemic, and now suddenly, we have this gap to fill, where, if we just let this money run out, then suddenly we don't have money to give subsidies to low-income families.

It's a really tricky situation.

Meanwhile, we have $75 million here to expand access.

- And I did some back-of-the-napkin math, Dane.

I'm just carrying some ones and two, and it appears, and you can check me on this, Jenna, 2 billion is much, much, much, much, much, much more than 75 million.

- And I got to point out-- - It is a little bit more.

- It is a little bit more.

I got to point out, $2 billion is what OCFS says, right, so then you have Senator Jabari Brisport, who is the chair of the Committee on Children and Families.

Yes, you're right.

He says that to create universal childcare in New York, we would need an investment of $5 billion every year.

I think that might be more than $75.

- Yeah, well, I don't have that kind of time to check.

- I know, I know, we'll get a calculator.

- Well, in addition to childcare, the other thing that I didn't hear come up, and that, of course, was more funding for the public school system, and that's another thing that definitely in lower, Downstate New York is a big issue.

Childcare and school go hand in hand for a lot of families.

You cannot have the workforce or expect a lot of the workforce to go back if you don't have schools open and schools safe.

And if schools are fully funded and if there's going to be a problem with teacher shortages, which we're starting to see, people, much like healthcare workers, are getting burnt out as a result of the pandemic.

- And I'm surprised about that because she had mentioned basically, right, when she first took office, that she wanted to fulfill the lawsuit of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, which is a decades-old lawsuit that resulted in a decision basically saying that the state wasn't giving enough money to school districts to meet the constitutional requirement of education.

I forget how it's worded, but it's a specific wording that we have to provide equality education.

- And that's one of the big feelings of this speech because the money is going to be there.

In the book, it talks about the record levels of funding that are going to be there, and I think that kind of speaks to a speech that was kind of all over the place.

She spent 30 to 40 seconds on one topic and then moved on to another one without any seeming flow, so if I was giving letter grades out for this speech, I wouldn't say that she's going to be valedictorian.

She's probably passing.

You know, she gets C+, maybe a B-, if we've got a soft grader, but that's just a real big omission not to make a headlines over that, which would be a big, big talking point in previous speeches.

- I will give her some credit.

It's her first really, really base speech.

- Easy graders.

- Her nerves have got to be high.

- Sign up for Dan Clark class.

- It's such an important moment for her.

As we were talking about before, for the campaign, especially this was her moment to say, I am your governor now, and I want to be your governor for the next four years, and here's what I'm going to do in the next six months to convince you that that is going to be the case.

And Tom Suozzi, the Congressman from Long Island, who was running against her, has probably been the most outspoken critic of her in terms of all of her policies.

It's going to be interesting to see what she says.

We have about a minute left.

You know, I'll end it with you, Jenna.

Anything else that you want to mention that you really saw that just really stood out to you?

- Well, I guess the only other thing that really stood out to me was the fact that she wanted to address, the way she was going to handle the colleges.

Again, that's that sounds like a really great investment for the state, but the devil, like so many other things, is in the details.

One thing that did kind of throw me was to have the childcare on campus, but more importantly, what we found with a lot of these projects that are supposed to help with tuition is that it's not tuition that's holding kids back.

There's all the additional costs of going to school, and that there was nothing there to support that.

- I do have to cut you off, I'm so sorry.

- That's quite all right.

- We will see you here this weekend on New York Now.

Thank you so much for being here this afternoon.

Be well.

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