Several Committees of the Rockland County Legislature are meeting tonight with various issues on their agendas. The committee meetings being held tonight include Environmental, Government Operations, Multi-Services, Planning & Public Works and Budget & Finance. The first starts at 5:30 tonight in the Legislature’s Chambers of the Allison-Parris Office Building on New Hempstead Road in New City. If you can’t attend in-person you can watch on the Legislature’s YouTube channel.
Debate Over Debates Continues in NY Governor’s Race
Neither major party candidate for governor in New York has yet agreed to debate terms, there’s just been debate over the debates. Long Island GOP congressman Lee Zeldin reportedly wanted several debates in various locations around the state. Governor Kathy Hochul said she’d debate Zeldin on NY1 TV on October 25th, but Zeldin rejected that idea. Rockland state senator, Democrat Elijah Reichlin-Melnick, says Zeldin’s moves are a tried-and-true strategy…
Rockland assemblyman, Republican Mike Lawler, says ultimately, it’s the voters who end up with less information…
Most polls have the governor leading Zeldin by double digits. Election Day is Tuesday, November 8th. In addition to the governor, U.S. Senate, and other state-wide races, there are contested races locally for Congress, state Senate districts 38 and 40; Assembly districts 96, 97, 98 and 99; Ramapo Town Justice, Stony Point Town Council and Superintendent of Highways, Trustees in the villages of Haverstraw, Nyack, Piermont, Sloatsburg and Suffern, and Justice for the village of Suffern.
Rockland Poll Workers Look for Increased Pay as Election Work Grows
Some poll workers here in Rockland are looking to get some more money for the work they do but Rockland’s County Executive says that’s up to the election commissioners. Ed Day told “The Morning Show” recently that the two commissioners would have to make the request in their budget submissions to the county…
Poll workers have had a more difficult job of late, as COVID has resulted in additional days of early voting, and this past summer featured two separate primaries, in addition to local school board and village elections, and of course, the next election coming up in November.
Area Police Grapple with Murder Claims from Suspected Serial Killer
Over the summer, a jailed serial killer, who’s claimed to have killed 100 people, said he was involved in two murders in Rockland County. The so-called “Torso Killer,” 75 year-old Richard Cottingham, claims to have killed a woman in South Nyack in 1970 and a Nanuet high school student in ’74. Rockland Sheriff Lou Falco says there are about a half dozen cold cases in the county, and they’re actively working on a few of them…
Falco says so far, Cottingham’s Nanuet story isn’t holding up, but the South Nyack case seems to be legitimate. Cottingham is also known as the “Times Square Killer.” He has been in a New Jersey State Prison since July 1981, serving a life sentence for multiple murders.
Fentanyl Linked to Increased Suicides, Drug Overdoses in NY Seniors
Older people in New York are dying from drug overdose or suicide at much higher rates now compared with a decade ago. That’s according to the latest America’s Health Rankings Senior Report from UnitedHealthcare. The report found in New York, suicides have increased nearly 10-percent, frequent mental distress is up about nine-percent and drug deaths among people 65 and older have doubled in the last 10 to 12 years. Aleks Malejs is with a peer support group in Buffalo for people struggling with addiction. She points to fentanyl as a major cause of the uptick in drug-related deaths, because it’s 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine, and it’s showing up in heroin, cocaine, oxycontin and other drugs with more and more frequency…
Malejs notes more than eight-thousand people have called for help this year alone.