Spending the morning with the pom-pom waving kids of P.S. 398 in Queens, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced $10 million in state aid to build a new children’s community center in Jackson Heights.
“Someone said, ‘Well, they need $10 million to put shovels in the ground.’ I said, ‘What are we waiting for? I want shovels in the ground,’ ” Hochul said.
Just hours earlier on Tuesday evening, Hochul was in a fierce debate on Spectrum News with her Republican challenger, Bruce Blakeman.
The official government event at the Queens school had the trappings of a political rally, where Hochul promoted her efforts to curb social media for minors and cellphones in schools, and Democrat after Democrat praising her for the funding.
“There’s no debate on who’s been the best governor for Queens since I’ve here; that’s been Governor Hochul,” Queens Borough President Donovan Richards told the audience.
But don’t call it a Rose Garden strategy.
“Unless my rose garden has been existing for five straight years, I disagree with that characterization. We have been supporting our communities,” Hochul said.
She also reflected on her debate performance.
“I thought we did well. I thought it was an opportunity to show stark stark differences between our vision for New York State, between someone who literally in his own words said he would bring Trump-style leadership to New York,” the governor said.
Blakeman spent the day after in the Town of Queensbury, in the northern part of the Capital Region, upstate.
“If you saw the debate last night, Kathy Hochul could not defend her record because it’s a record of misery,” Blakeman said.
He promoted his tax cuts plan and vow to declare an energy emergency to frack for natural gas, to bring utility prices down.
“Kathy Hochul admitted in the debate last night, she admitted that we don’t have enough energy going forward and she has no answers for creating that energy, except putting up more of these wind turbines and solar farms in upstate New York,” Blakeman said.
When asked whether President Donald Trump reached out after the debate, Blakeman said he hadn’t heard from him. But Blakeman says he’s heard from Democrats and independents who watched the debate and who he claims are ready to vote Republican.
Source: ny1.com
