Paul Szmal: We're joined on Zoom right now for our monthly visit with State Senator Rachel May who represents the 48th Senate District. That's points east in our listening area. Good morning and welcome back.
Rachel May: Hi Ted, good to talk to you. It's always good to have you here.
Paul Szmal: The City of Auburn has done a great job in the last few years leveraging funds from various public programs and private programs, state, federal money. One of those projects is the repaving of State Street which they got done thanks to the good weather in record time, about a month or so. So tell us about this state touring route program that allowed for that job to be done.
Rachel May: Yeah, I was able to go and see they did a great job there. So the state has for a long time provided something called CHIPS funding which is a road and bridge infrastructure funding that goes equally to all communities according to population I believe. But the cities typically have a lot of roads that all the other communities depend on because they are the hubs for their areas and so the cities were always underfunded with the CHIPS funding. So this touring route money is designed to really compensate cities for the fact that they have a lot of state and county roads that go through them and a lot more traffic. So it's really been a huge help I think to Auburn and Syracuse to be able to repair some of the roads that were getting in pretty bad shape and I gather Auburn is close to having to its goal of really having the roads in good shape around the city.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, they've been doing, because I talk with Chuck Mason the city clerk every week after the council meeting, they've been taking care of it in quadrants around the city over the last few years and then again that touring route money made it possible because that's, oh I'm gonna forget, it's either route 34 or 38. Do you remember which one? State street is, I think it's 38. I don't remember. Don't have my map right here in front of me.
Paul Szmal: So here's, I missed this one, there's a brand new boat launch on Cayuga Lake and again that's through a state project. It's the New York Waterfront Revitalization Project. So tell us about that one.
Rachel May: Yes, this was really exciting. I went to the ribbon cutting on last week that was in Frontenac Park in Union Springs and it's a boat launch for kayaks that is designed in such a way that if you're in a wheelchair you can just pull your boat down the ramp with a strap and then there's a whole apparatus for helping you get into the boat without assistance and then paddle away and it makes so much perfect sense. Paddling is a perfect sport for someone who, you know, can only use their arms but they haven't had that accessibility before but now this is the first one on Cayuga Lake and only the second one in all of the Finger Lakes to make paddling accessible for the population that needs it.
Paul Szmal: You know what, those are fantastic. I have one not far from my house in Yates County. It's on the West River and even if you're not disabled, just for anybody, they're great because you don't have to, you know, you put your boat right on it. It's got rollers so you put your kayak right on the rollers, you sit down in it and it's got the handrails and you can just pull yourself right off the, you know, you roll right in, roll right out. It makes it very easy for everybody so that's a fantastic addition to Frontenac Park.
Rachel May: Yeah, I'm looking forward to using it for mine. I have an Adirondack canoe and you have to get in the water up to, you know, a few feet in order to get into it typically but this way I won't have to get my feet wet.
Paul Szmal: Oh, that's perfect, exactly.
Paul Szmal: Also, you went recently with the Awasco Watershed Lake Association and we talked to some of the watershed groups all over the Finger Lakes each month. What's the latest with Awasco Lake?
Rachel May: Well, I think everybody knows how bad the harmful algal blooms have been at the end of the summer. It's, Awasco Lake just feels like everybody who lives on the lake is really upset and concerned about it and I know the City of Auburn is concerned because it could affect drinking water quality and so it's a huge issue and I was proud to be able to go and meet with Ala and talk about what we're trying to do at the state level. I've got a number of bills, we did put a little money in the state budget for the Eastern Finger Lakes essentially for the soil and water conservation districts to help with trying to address runoff into the lake but there's clearly a lot more to do. I'm so impressed with how active the Lake Association is though because they really are on top of everything.
Paul Szmal: And one of the things I, we might have talked about this a couple of months back but I don't remember, is your bill to increase the supply of native plant seeds because one of the things that threatens the lakes are these invasive plant species.
Rachel May: Right, yeah, so there is a very strong interest in planting more native species because they stabilize the soil. One of the issues is soil runoff into the lake so they stabilize the soil, they support pollinators and birds. They are beautiful, there are a lot of different reasons to promote native plants but we just don't have enough supply. So yeah, Janice Wiles on Skaneateles Lake has a farm where she is actively producing more more plants and seeds but we we need to support that effort and so yeah I do have a bill for that.
Paul Szmal: I also, I didn't know this, there's a green committee in the city and town of Geneva in the school district that work together and they just had a native plant sale and we did an interview before that and many of the outside species do not host pollinators like bees where the native plants do so there's even another benefit.
Rachel May: Right, exactly, we pay a lot of attention to honeybees which are not native but there are hundreds of varieties of native bees that some of them are very specific to particular plants and so yeah we need the whole ecosystem to be working.
Paul Szmal: Now we just heard your name in the news, I love when that happens right before my guests come on, about the library funding. So tell us about this money that a number of libraries in the district are going to get.
Rachel May: Yeah, so we in the state legislature have worked really hard to make sure that we're funding libraries at the level they need and they could always use more but we have capital funding for libraries and I know the Hazard Library in Ledyard is under construction. There's a lot of funding now that libraries are able to use for for expanding. I wasn't able to hear the details of what was reported but I am a huge supporter of libraries and last week was banned books week. I also carry the bills to prevent the banning of books in public libraries which I think is really important because we want people to have access to information as they seek it.
Paul Szmal: I'm a librarian's husband so I agree with you fully.
Rachel May: Oh nice.
Paul Szmal: So let's talk about the upcoming elections and just making sure that we're all registered to vote. We know that it's going to be a very consequential presidential election, whichever side you're on, and there's a lot of other votes as well. So just talk to us about the importance of being registered and doing your civic duty and casting a vote.
Rachel May: Oh absolutely, yeah. So one of the things I'm most proud of is in my six years in the legislature we have vastly improved New York's election laws and made it much easier for people to register and vote. And we now, voter registration, you used to have to register a long time before the election but now you can register up to October 26th which is also the first day of early voting. So you could actually go to an early voting site and register and vote on the same day. If you don't know if you're registered to vote or if you want to register to vote you can just go to elections.ny.gov and it'll walk you through the process of registering to vote. You can also get early mail ballots now which used to be much harder to get but we've made it easier so people can vote through the mail as well if that's the better option for them.
Paul Szmal: And you sent me the links for the boards of election for Cayuga County. It's cayugacounty.us and you can look for the link for voter information. And in Onondaga County it's onondaga.gov and you can see the election information. Also I'm sure you can that's where you can find your early voting locations and like the senator said it's easier and easier now you can you can just get your ballot requested ahead of time and cast your vote.
Paul Szmal: We've been talking this morning with State Senator Rachel May representing the eastern part of our listening audience. We appreciate the update as always and thanks for what you're doing in Albany.
Rachel May: Absolutely, can I say one other thing?
Paul Szmal: Absolutely.
Rachel May: Make sure you turn your ballot over and vote on Proposition 1 which is the Equal Rights Amendment.
Paul Szmal: Thanks for that reminder. We had a conversation about that just recently as well. So thanks again for the time. Appreciate it.
Rachel May: Thank you, Ted.
