“Fearing change is like wishing your children never grow up. It's inevitable, so be the positive force that shapes the future.”
"Born in Delaware County, I spent my childhood roaming the Catskills on my horse. I am passionate about preserving farming lifeways and protecting historic lands.
"As a mother, I know how difficult it is to raise kids in a rural area. I’d like to see expanded programming for parents of young children. I am also committed to supporting working families who are priced out of housing in their own communities.
"My professional experience ranges from teaching to building teams at bleeding-edge startups. I am excited to draw on my expertise to serve the residents of Rochester."
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The Rochester Democrats strongly endorse Alexis Albaugh for Town Council because of her ability to engage with challenging issues, find common ground with all sides of an issue, and collaborate effectively. These skills will complement and advance the work of our Town Council.
The DONATE button will take you an external link for Elect Alexis Albaugh to Town Council
If you prefer to donate by check, send your check to: Town of Rochester Democratic Committee PO Box 373 Accord, NY 12404 Attn: Alexis Albaugh campaign |
MEET ALEXIS
Growing Up in Delaware County
Alexis Albaugh:
I had one of those idyllic childhoods that everybody looks back on and thinks, “Oh, well, kids just aren't raised that way anymore.” We were very much free range, and it fostered in me a sense of independence and freedom and an appreciation for nature and for animals that's so important for me today.
Andrew Pekarik
Did you have any awareness of politics?
Alexis Albaugh
Delaware County has always had a feeling of division, of “us versus them”. For example, our road had three gay couples on it. And in the late ’80s, early ’90s, that was really unheard of. Over time it was really amazing to watch the community open up. When something that's different and that has been presented to you as scary and dangerous is right there in front of you it's an entirely different experience.
My father was really the first politically active person I knew. He would tirelessly protest against the fracking companies that were trying to get their tentacles into the Marcellus Shale. Even if it was just him alone with his signs, in the rain, he would be out there. He was pictured in the New York Times standing with his arms crossed and back turned during a public hearing. He was tireless. And those companies gave up trying to frack in New York and I believe it’s now banned.
My town of Hamden was technically, geographically, and culturally, Appalachia. My road was a long road in a hollow. My father would tell me I needed to be quiet at night, because you could sit and listen and hear the neighbors talking to each other. So even though it was remote and rural, there was that closeness, that was very interesting.
I have really good memories of my farming neighbors and I still think about those kids who would get on the bus early in the morning still wearing the clothes that they wore to muck out the milking sheds. There was an incredible culture of work associated with those families, and as I got older I became aware of the tragedy as these farms were being sold off, and it's still pretty heartbreaking to me to know that generations of that work ethic are just gone.
Andrew Pekarik
What is happening there now?
Alexis Albaugh
There is a shared desire to keep land parcels whole. A new generation of bohemians from the city have made Delaware County a pretty popular place to buy a piece of land. It still has a rural characteristic, but it's experiencing some of the growing pains that we have here in terms of attracting good paying jobs, and then affordable housing to keep up with it.
The Chobani facilities were really a lifeline to the dairy industry, and a source of good jobs, but it’s a mixed blessing because the large processors still prefer to source milk from big dairies. Family farms are still dying because the milk trucks don’t want to drive way up into the hills to pick up a couple hundred pounds from a small producer.
Working at Google
Andrew Pekarik
After studying anthropology and living in Argentina, you moved to California and eventually took a job with Google. What was it like to work there?
Alexis Albaugh
It was a really exciting time, because Google was still idealistic, the motto was still “don't be evil.” And we really believed that. It was incredibly exciting to be a part of that. I worked at Google proper, the “mothership” as we called it, and then a series of Google Ventures startups. I hired engineers for the Google X special projects, which was highly secretive.
The first startup after Google was a video game company, and at the time I was a hardcore video gamer. That was where I really got to understand how to negotiate salaries and how to create a work culture around equitability and an openness around salary and compensation. I helped the startup founders understand that if they wanted to really deliver on work-life balance, then they had to hire enough people so that if you went on vacation, you weren't just going to come back to a total chaotic nightmare.
The next job was in a really cool startup called Urban Engines, and the work there was related to using big data analysis to solve transportation problems. And after that, I did one more startup at Datanyze. They did business analytics through data scraping. There are a million of those companies and they're really profitable.
Andrew Pekarik
What do you feel that you learned in your California years?
Alexis Albaugh
I've learned that if you're capable, and you have motivation, then all you need is a door open for you. You can have all the brilliant ideas in the world, but if you don't do the hard work, then nothing happens. Hard work, assembling a team, and creating those connections -- that's how things get accomplished.
Moving to Rochester
Andrew Pekarik
What brought you back East, to our town?
Andrew Pekarik
After Datanyze I needed a break. I went on a motorcycle trip down to Baja, Mexico, and then did two years of a doctorate in clinical psychology. Then my father got really sick with lung cancer, and so I left to be with him at the end of his life, even though he was upset about it - he wanted me to stay in school. After my dad passed away, I got pregnant and decided to focus on building a family here in Accord. In some ways, it seems that my life has come around full circle. If I feel settled in this part of my life, it's because I need to be around animals, and I need to be occupying my time with animals.
Andrew Pekarik
And since you've been here you're with horses.
Alexis Albaugh
Somehow we started with two horses, and now we're up to six – or seven, if you count that my mare is pregnant. I’m aiming to breed a beautiful, rideable horse that is appropriate for amateurs, but can still achieve a high level of sport. And I’m thinking about getting back into competition.
Andrew Pekarik
When you came here, were you looking at what was going on in the town?
Alexis Albaugh
Not initially. My first inkling of things was when I received a letter about a public hearing relating to my property. It was a couple of days before the public hearing, and I was still moving, flying back and forth trying to move my stuff, and I didn't get the letter in time. Later I learned that there is an attempt to put a gas station next door. If something like a gas station goes in, that farmland will never be farmland again. That is a finite, precious resource and once it's gone, it is gone. And that's really sad, because it was once part of an important Colonial estate associated with the Rochester Reformed Church. The woman who built the Bevier House, the widow who built my house, is buried at the church. It was the first church in the area, and it's heartbreaking to think that if you're not involved and engaged, then there's possibly going to be a gas station on top of all that history and heritage. Nobody asked for this gas station, except for the people who are going to profit from it.
Priorities for Town Board Service
Making Documents Accessible
Andrew Pekarik
I think you've mentioned the Comprehensive Plan
Alexis Albaugh
Yes. The Comprehensive Plan lays out the philosophical underpinnings for everything that the board is aiming to do, at least idealistically. Of course, the town in 2006 had a little bit different set of challenges. But they had the foresight to think about global climate change and flooding and all the things that are going to impact this area, including the impacts from building up too quickly or not being smart about how building and development occur. I wish that there had been a little bit more discussion about affordable housing, and about community spaces. And these documents are meant to be revisited and revised as the needs of the town change. But I think that if more people read it and had an understanding, then it would at least inspire conversation about what kind of community we want to be.
I think it is a problem when the only time that people get involved in civics is when they have a crisis or disagreement. Wouldn't it be nice if we could just share ideas about building community and the future of our town before crises arrive? Sometimes people are working on a project and they can't anticipate why their neighbor might be opposed to it. With the gas station, it's pretty obvious why people would be opposed. But there are other projects that have proven to be controversial that I think caught the builders off guard about why wouldn't somebody want this? But if there's a sense of open communication and looking to the Comprehensive Plan to think about why and how we want to develop our beautiful town, then we can have that discussion before lawyers are brought in and lawsuits are filed.
Andrew Pekarik
The Comprehensive Plan is already 18 years old. Do you think it needs to be redone?
Alexis Albaugh
It's a long document, and there are a lot of visual aids in it. Wouldn’t it be great if there were some way to create a summary that's more digestible for the public? That's something I'm interested in doing with a lot of issues -- creating interfaces, so that the public can understand them easily. I really enjoy taking complex data and making them approachable, and I think it's an opportunity to involve people at the ground level in civic government.
Communication
Alexis Albaugh
I think that we have an opportunity to make the zoning changes more understandable by clarifying the philosophy behind the changes why they were needed. These changes have been in process for years, but when you get the notice of a change in the mail, you wonder, what does this mean for me and my property? And it's not supposed to impact the tax base, but it does have implications if you were to sell your property, so all those things need to be weighed. How could we have made that more easily understandable with a guide or quick graphic about each of those changes were, and then also create an opportunity for people to give feedback? I'm not criticizing the zoning changes themselves. I'm just saying that the process of communicating with the community could have been a little better.
Andrew Pekarik
Any suggestions on how to do that?
Alexis Albaugh
By creating and dispersing, especially to the impacted property owners, simple, understandable guides, and then if there was the time and the person hours -- to make a phone call to each of those people. And then also, I think they're revamping the website, which is needed because there should be a calendar of events that's easy to find. These are approachable things to be done. And possibly setting up one person who would be in charge of gathering up the feedback and sharing it, organizing it and analyzing it for trends. I also think it would be interesting if somebody on the Town Board could go and interview people who are undertaking big projects, like Inness, for example. Has anybody sat down to talk with them and said, Hey, what’re your plans like with the community? Have you talked to your neighbors? Just creating a more open plan so that everybody has an understanding of it, and bringing all those things into one place to foster better communication.
Andrew Pekarik
That's all going to be very important work. It's also going to be very time consuming.
Alexis Albaugh
When it's not possible to talk to people in person, then I'm willing to pick up the phone. Conversations don't have to be massive multi-hour activities. Sometimes it's useful to go with a set of semi-structured questions that you could also email to people who would be willing to respond that way.
Andrew Pekarik
In a way, your canvassing is doing some of that too.
Alexis Albaugh
I like asking people, “In a perfect world, if you were on the Town Board, what would you like to see happen in our town?”
Andrew Pekarik
Did people bring up anything in particular?
Alexis Albaugh
There are always questions about affordable housing and what that looks like for the town, how we can get more housing projects off the ground.
Andrew Pekarik
Many people today feel more comfortable with social media.
Alexis Albaugh
A lot of unfounded rumors were going around Nextdoor. It wouldn't hurt to make the public aware that the Town Board members are reading Nextdoor. You could also just use it as an opportunity to say, hey, there's a Planning Board meeting tonight, and put the link there. It's a tool like any other but it's not particularly well moderated. It's an opportunity for a dialog with the certain number of people who are reading it.
Andrew Pekarik
Would it be possible for the town website to have a social media component that is moderated and has credibility?
Alexis Albaugh
Yes, even a Facebook group is an opportunity, because you can have an appointed moderator to keep things civil, to keep the conspiracy theories to a dull roar. There's any number of things, depending on what the Town Board wishes to achieve by having that presence. I've done community moderation for video game forums. And I haven’t seen any local social media platform that is comparable to adolescent male gamers in terms of problematic language, so I'm not intimidated.
Meetings
Andrew Pekarik
What do you think about Town Board meetings?
Alexis Albaugh
I think that they could be more action oriented. There could be more making sure that everybody has access to the information beforehand and is able to really understand what they want to get through on an agenda. And this is not a Town of Rochester problem specifically. It’s a common problem with meetings. It all goes back to organizing information and creating good relationships, and then you can have an opportunity to create an agenda that you stick to. You can then figure out, what are the days when it really is worth it to stay the extra hour, and when are the days that you need to table something.
I think the Town Board needs to recognize that they hold a lot of power. And if they don’t act decisively and proactively, then other entities will come in and make decisions for them. By understanding who the stakeholders are, and anticipating how the public is going to react to a hot button issue, you can either harness or deflect that energy. You need to know what outcome you want.
And I think there is an opportunity to get information in front of the public through social media channels that’s not being taken advantage of. Whether that’s a Town-moderated Facebook page or whatever.
Andrew Pekarik
I've always thought of Google as being a leader in meeting processes. They even had anthropologists studying their meetings.
Alexis Albaugh
They did. And it was a problem at the Google Ventures startups, because everybody just wanted to cookie-cut the Google processes. To bring this back to local governance, one thing that I think that we have underutilized is understanding how our neighbors in similar-sized and -resourced towns are addressing things like housing, development philosophy, environmental protection, traffic, and things like that. But at the same time, you don't want to take it to the extreme where you're just going to say, “Hey, what works for them will work for us.” You have to be able to know what fits. But it creates a permission structure and a sense of comity.
Infrastructure
Andrew Pekarik
What do you think about infrastructure as an issue for our town at the moment?
Alexis Albaugh
FEMA flood maps are outdated. How can we creatively think about anticipating flood mitigation strategies based on more realistic data? This should inform every level of governing, from factoring into planning to protecting existing assets.
I was talking to a couple of people who work in EMS, and they told me about the amount of physical wear and tear on their bodies, not to mention the psychological strain they experience. And they don’t have a full salary or benefits for this work, and now we're talking about a tiny little property tax break as proper compensation for this? I know there's a hybrid model now, but when I was first moved here, it was an all-volunteer force.
Overly ambitious building goals would lead to a strain on resources like EMT and EMS services. Where would we get the money to support that? I think we have to be really careful about over-development, and think about how to address the infrastructure problems that come with development. Where will wastewater go during floods? As the climate changes there's going to be more flooding. I think local governance needs to have better communication with the state about what's happening with our roads, and who's responsible.
And then we need a realistic conversation with the public about the fact that if you want more stuff, then there needs to be more infrastructure. And who will have to pay for it? That way there will be no surprises later on. In addition, how do we protect our resources? Noise is becoming something that is not addressed until after the fact, when it causes a problem.
Andrew Pekarik
I recently saw that some towns around us got grants for electric car charging stations.
Alexis Albaugh
Well, hopefully I get on the board. That's definitely going to be a priority for me. There's no reason to turn down free money.
Alexis Albaugh:
I had one of those idyllic childhoods that everybody looks back on and thinks, “Oh, well, kids just aren't raised that way anymore.” We were very much free range, and it fostered in me a sense of independence and freedom and an appreciation for nature and for animals that's so important for me today.
Andrew Pekarik
Did you have any awareness of politics?
Alexis Albaugh
Delaware County has always had a feeling of division, of “us versus them”. For example, our road had three gay couples on it. And in the late ’80s, early ’90s, that was really unheard of. Over time it was really amazing to watch the community open up. When something that's different and that has been presented to you as scary and dangerous is right there in front of you it's an entirely different experience.
My father was really the first politically active person I knew. He would tirelessly protest against the fracking companies that were trying to get their tentacles into the Marcellus Shale. Even if it was just him alone with his signs, in the rain, he would be out there. He was pictured in the New York Times standing with his arms crossed and back turned during a public hearing. He was tireless. And those companies gave up trying to frack in New York and I believe it’s now banned.
My town of Hamden was technically, geographically, and culturally, Appalachia. My road was a long road in a hollow. My father would tell me I needed to be quiet at night, because you could sit and listen and hear the neighbors talking to each other. So even though it was remote and rural, there was that closeness, that was very interesting.
I have really good memories of my farming neighbors and I still think about those kids who would get on the bus early in the morning still wearing the clothes that they wore to muck out the milking sheds. There was an incredible culture of work associated with those families, and as I got older I became aware of the tragedy as these farms were being sold off, and it's still pretty heartbreaking to me to know that generations of that work ethic are just gone.
Andrew Pekarik
What is happening there now?
Alexis Albaugh
There is a shared desire to keep land parcels whole. A new generation of bohemians from the city have made Delaware County a pretty popular place to buy a piece of land. It still has a rural characteristic, but it's experiencing some of the growing pains that we have here in terms of attracting good paying jobs, and then affordable housing to keep up with it.
The Chobani facilities were really a lifeline to the dairy industry, and a source of good jobs, but it’s a mixed blessing because the large processors still prefer to source milk from big dairies. Family farms are still dying because the milk trucks don’t want to drive way up into the hills to pick up a couple hundred pounds from a small producer.
Working at Google
Andrew Pekarik
After studying anthropology and living in Argentina, you moved to California and eventually took a job with Google. What was it like to work there?
Alexis Albaugh
It was a really exciting time, because Google was still idealistic, the motto was still “don't be evil.” And we really believed that. It was incredibly exciting to be a part of that. I worked at Google proper, the “mothership” as we called it, and then a series of Google Ventures startups. I hired engineers for the Google X special projects, which was highly secretive.
The first startup after Google was a video game company, and at the time I was a hardcore video gamer. That was where I really got to understand how to negotiate salaries and how to create a work culture around equitability and an openness around salary and compensation. I helped the startup founders understand that if they wanted to really deliver on work-life balance, then they had to hire enough people so that if you went on vacation, you weren't just going to come back to a total chaotic nightmare.
The next job was in a really cool startup called Urban Engines, and the work there was related to using big data analysis to solve transportation problems. And after that, I did one more startup at Datanyze. They did business analytics through data scraping. There are a million of those companies and they're really profitable.
Andrew Pekarik
What do you feel that you learned in your California years?
Alexis Albaugh
I've learned that if you're capable, and you have motivation, then all you need is a door open for you. You can have all the brilliant ideas in the world, but if you don't do the hard work, then nothing happens. Hard work, assembling a team, and creating those connections -- that's how things get accomplished.
Moving to Rochester
Andrew Pekarik
What brought you back East, to our town?
Andrew Pekarik
After Datanyze I needed a break. I went on a motorcycle trip down to Baja, Mexico, and then did two years of a doctorate in clinical psychology. Then my father got really sick with lung cancer, and so I left to be with him at the end of his life, even though he was upset about it - he wanted me to stay in school. After my dad passed away, I got pregnant and decided to focus on building a family here in Accord. In some ways, it seems that my life has come around full circle. If I feel settled in this part of my life, it's because I need to be around animals, and I need to be occupying my time with animals.
Andrew Pekarik
And since you've been here you're with horses.
Alexis Albaugh
Somehow we started with two horses, and now we're up to six – or seven, if you count that my mare is pregnant. I’m aiming to breed a beautiful, rideable horse that is appropriate for amateurs, but can still achieve a high level of sport. And I’m thinking about getting back into competition.
Andrew Pekarik
When you came here, were you looking at what was going on in the town?
Alexis Albaugh
Not initially. My first inkling of things was when I received a letter about a public hearing relating to my property. It was a couple of days before the public hearing, and I was still moving, flying back and forth trying to move my stuff, and I didn't get the letter in time. Later I learned that there is an attempt to put a gas station next door. If something like a gas station goes in, that farmland will never be farmland again. That is a finite, precious resource and once it's gone, it is gone. And that's really sad, because it was once part of an important Colonial estate associated with the Rochester Reformed Church. The woman who built the Bevier House, the widow who built my house, is buried at the church. It was the first church in the area, and it's heartbreaking to think that if you're not involved and engaged, then there's possibly going to be a gas station on top of all that history and heritage. Nobody asked for this gas station, except for the people who are going to profit from it.
Priorities for Town Board Service
Making Documents Accessible
Andrew Pekarik
I think you've mentioned the Comprehensive Plan
Alexis Albaugh
Yes. The Comprehensive Plan lays out the philosophical underpinnings for everything that the board is aiming to do, at least idealistically. Of course, the town in 2006 had a little bit different set of challenges. But they had the foresight to think about global climate change and flooding and all the things that are going to impact this area, including the impacts from building up too quickly or not being smart about how building and development occur. I wish that there had been a little bit more discussion about affordable housing, and about community spaces. And these documents are meant to be revisited and revised as the needs of the town change. But I think that if more people read it and had an understanding, then it would at least inspire conversation about what kind of community we want to be.
I think it is a problem when the only time that people get involved in civics is when they have a crisis or disagreement. Wouldn't it be nice if we could just share ideas about building community and the future of our town before crises arrive? Sometimes people are working on a project and they can't anticipate why their neighbor might be opposed to it. With the gas station, it's pretty obvious why people would be opposed. But there are other projects that have proven to be controversial that I think caught the builders off guard about why wouldn't somebody want this? But if there's a sense of open communication and looking to the Comprehensive Plan to think about why and how we want to develop our beautiful town, then we can have that discussion before lawyers are brought in and lawsuits are filed.
Andrew Pekarik
The Comprehensive Plan is already 18 years old. Do you think it needs to be redone?
Alexis Albaugh
It's a long document, and there are a lot of visual aids in it. Wouldn’t it be great if there were some way to create a summary that's more digestible for the public? That's something I'm interested in doing with a lot of issues -- creating interfaces, so that the public can understand them easily. I really enjoy taking complex data and making them approachable, and I think it's an opportunity to involve people at the ground level in civic government.
Communication
Alexis Albaugh
I think that we have an opportunity to make the zoning changes more understandable by clarifying the philosophy behind the changes why they were needed. These changes have been in process for years, but when you get the notice of a change in the mail, you wonder, what does this mean for me and my property? And it's not supposed to impact the tax base, but it does have implications if you were to sell your property, so all those things need to be weighed. How could we have made that more easily understandable with a guide or quick graphic about each of those changes were, and then also create an opportunity for people to give feedback? I'm not criticizing the zoning changes themselves. I'm just saying that the process of communicating with the community could have been a little better.
Andrew Pekarik
Any suggestions on how to do that?
Alexis Albaugh
By creating and dispersing, especially to the impacted property owners, simple, understandable guides, and then if there was the time and the person hours -- to make a phone call to each of those people. And then also, I think they're revamping the website, which is needed because there should be a calendar of events that's easy to find. These are approachable things to be done. And possibly setting up one person who would be in charge of gathering up the feedback and sharing it, organizing it and analyzing it for trends. I also think it would be interesting if somebody on the Town Board could go and interview people who are undertaking big projects, like Inness, for example. Has anybody sat down to talk with them and said, Hey, what’re your plans like with the community? Have you talked to your neighbors? Just creating a more open plan so that everybody has an understanding of it, and bringing all those things into one place to foster better communication.
Andrew Pekarik
That's all going to be very important work. It's also going to be very time consuming.
Alexis Albaugh
When it's not possible to talk to people in person, then I'm willing to pick up the phone. Conversations don't have to be massive multi-hour activities. Sometimes it's useful to go with a set of semi-structured questions that you could also email to people who would be willing to respond that way.
Andrew Pekarik
In a way, your canvassing is doing some of that too.
Alexis Albaugh
I like asking people, “In a perfect world, if you were on the Town Board, what would you like to see happen in our town?”
Andrew Pekarik
Did people bring up anything in particular?
Alexis Albaugh
There are always questions about affordable housing and what that looks like for the town, how we can get more housing projects off the ground.
Andrew Pekarik
Many people today feel more comfortable with social media.
Alexis Albaugh
A lot of unfounded rumors were going around Nextdoor. It wouldn't hurt to make the public aware that the Town Board members are reading Nextdoor. You could also just use it as an opportunity to say, hey, there's a Planning Board meeting tonight, and put the link there. It's a tool like any other but it's not particularly well moderated. It's an opportunity for a dialog with the certain number of people who are reading it.
Andrew Pekarik
Would it be possible for the town website to have a social media component that is moderated and has credibility?
Alexis Albaugh
Yes, even a Facebook group is an opportunity, because you can have an appointed moderator to keep things civil, to keep the conspiracy theories to a dull roar. There's any number of things, depending on what the Town Board wishes to achieve by having that presence. I've done community moderation for video game forums. And I haven’t seen any local social media platform that is comparable to adolescent male gamers in terms of problematic language, so I'm not intimidated.
Meetings
Andrew Pekarik
What do you think about Town Board meetings?
Alexis Albaugh
I think that they could be more action oriented. There could be more making sure that everybody has access to the information beforehand and is able to really understand what they want to get through on an agenda. And this is not a Town of Rochester problem specifically. It’s a common problem with meetings. It all goes back to organizing information and creating good relationships, and then you can have an opportunity to create an agenda that you stick to. You can then figure out, what are the days when it really is worth it to stay the extra hour, and when are the days that you need to table something.
I think the Town Board needs to recognize that they hold a lot of power. And if they don’t act decisively and proactively, then other entities will come in and make decisions for them. By understanding who the stakeholders are, and anticipating how the public is going to react to a hot button issue, you can either harness or deflect that energy. You need to know what outcome you want.
And I think there is an opportunity to get information in front of the public through social media channels that’s not being taken advantage of. Whether that’s a Town-moderated Facebook page or whatever.
Andrew Pekarik
I've always thought of Google as being a leader in meeting processes. They even had anthropologists studying their meetings.
Alexis Albaugh
They did. And it was a problem at the Google Ventures startups, because everybody just wanted to cookie-cut the Google processes. To bring this back to local governance, one thing that I think that we have underutilized is understanding how our neighbors in similar-sized and -resourced towns are addressing things like housing, development philosophy, environmental protection, traffic, and things like that. But at the same time, you don't want to take it to the extreme where you're just going to say, “Hey, what works for them will work for us.” You have to be able to know what fits. But it creates a permission structure and a sense of comity.
Infrastructure
Andrew Pekarik
What do you think about infrastructure as an issue for our town at the moment?
Alexis Albaugh
FEMA flood maps are outdated. How can we creatively think about anticipating flood mitigation strategies based on more realistic data? This should inform every level of governing, from factoring into planning to protecting existing assets.
I was talking to a couple of people who work in EMS, and they told me about the amount of physical wear and tear on their bodies, not to mention the psychological strain they experience. And they don’t have a full salary or benefits for this work, and now we're talking about a tiny little property tax break as proper compensation for this? I know there's a hybrid model now, but when I was first moved here, it was an all-volunteer force.
Overly ambitious building goals would lead to a strain on resources like EMT and EMS services. Where would we get the money to support that? I think we have to be really careful about over-development, and think about how to address the infrastructure problems that come with development. Where will wastewater go during floods? As the climate changes there's going to be more flooding. I think local governance needs to have better communication with the state about what's happening with our roads, and who's responsible.
And then we need a realistic conversation with the public about the fact that if you want more stuff, then there needs to be more infrastructure. And who will have to pay for it? That way there will be no surprises later on. In addition, how do we protect our resources? Noise is becoming something that is not addressed until after the fact, when it causes a problem.
Andrew Pekarik
I recently saw that some towns around us got grants for electric car charging stations.
Alexis Albaugh
Well, hopefully I get on the board. That's definitely going to be a priority for me. There's no reason to turn down free money.
