BY: Keith S. Shikowitz, Editor/Investigative Reporter
The office of county executive is the most important elected position in the realm of local government. Every one of the governments in the five towns in the county have to interact with this person. Ed Day is running for another term as county executive and the Democrats did not put up an opponent this time. When word of this got out, Mike Parietti decided to step in on the independent line and challenge Day for the position.
Parietti was born and raised here in Rockland down on Spook Rock Road, and comes from a very large family. He is one of nine children. went to Suffern High School. He earned the rank of Eagle Scout and was also a four-time Rockland County wrestling champion. “We all grew up together. After I graduated from high school, I went on to the Military Academy at West Point. I got my nomination from Benjamin Gilman. who was Congressman from this district which included Rockland County and Westpoint. When I was there, I was captain of the wrestling team the NCAA wrestling team.”
He was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Infantry. He was sent down to Fort Benning, Georgia where he did a myriad of different things. He was a helping executive officer, platoon leader, infantry platoon leader, an acting commander and an Airborne Ranger. He served 5 and a half years on active duty. After he got out and he had a career in the biotech pharmaceutical industry and earned a Master of Biotechnology from Penn State University.
Getting involved in politics is not for everyone. It takes a lot of personal strength to go and put yourself into the public eye and deal with all of the scrutiny into your life, public and private. Parietti’s involvement began about 22 years ago, right around this time of year. “My dad came home from the firehouse, and he said, there’s a big meeting going on at town hall about something important. I don’t really know what it is. I said let me go check it out, and I hadn’t really been involved prior to that. I went out there and there was a big hubbub about the fact that people wanted to have a petition drive to for a referendum on town board system.”
At that time the town board was elected at large. This means that the entire town votes for each person who is running for town board positions.
Parietti said, “The problem people had was the block vote coming out of Monsey had gotten so big that it was now putting in, they were winning all the elections. They can easily call the elections, and they were putting in the entire board and the supervisors, they had complete control. It was becoming apparent in the fact that they really wouldn’t listen to you go to a public hearing and testify and they would sit there and stare at you, and then they turn right around and the opposite. Under state law you can have a referendum, you know, you get the number of signatures, and so we did that, we turned the petitions in and of course. Because the town clerk has the power to decide whether the petitions are good or not, he just threw them out saying they were no good.”
He continued to try to change the Town Board system into a ward system but to no avail. “I said, we’re going to one day collect the petitions for the reward system again, turn them in, and when they throw them out, as we know they will, you and I are going to take it to court and fight it out for as long as it takes. So that’s what we did. In 2012 we put in the petition. Hurricane Sandy sort of got involved and extended the deadline reserved, which is one of the reasons why we, we got we ultimately forced the referendum. We won the referendum among registered voters, which is what they said you had to be in the resolution they published about the thing.”
He explained, “They allowed 2000 unregistered, unverified people without any identification to come in and vote towards the end of the day. They were primarily from the Orthodox or Hasidic community. It turns out after all was said and done; it was all hashed out as a long complicated legal battle that ensued. We won among registered voters, but when you threw those 2000 unregisters in it, it reversed it on both. We won on both questions to increase the board from 4 to 6 and to establish a reward system and then it was reversed on both of them and it was all so many irregularities we did we challenged it in court again and the courts just ignore us, so we lost but it was still a great experience and so in addition to that.”
He said they realized that in Ramapo both parties were pandering to the block and they were just ignoring everybody else. They had no choice but to act and what we did was established preserve Ramapo. The next step was to start running candidates on that line. He ran several times primarily because not that he really wanted to run for office or really wanted to be in office, but because the party needed people to run.
“In 2013, I ran on an independent line Preserve Rockland simply to help Ed Day get elected. I knew he had any chance to right a whole ticket. The votes that we got at on that line put him over the top, you know, he had 28,000 on the Republican line. Fried had like 34,000 votes with all other lines he had. When you threw in the 9000 votes who got on the Preserve Rockland line, primarily from Clarkstown who ran a partial slate and ravel that put Ed over the top.”
What is now known as Colver Stadium came about as a result of former Ramapo Town Supervisor Christopher St. Lawrence and the referendum what was forced by Parietti and his party. The problem that St. Lawrence ran into was that the people of Ramapo voted it down. “We forced Saint Lawrence to go through all these financial gymnastics he had the stadium built anyway and got him into a lot of trouble. Because it was voted down, we’re in trouble because in order to get it built, he had to do all this crazy stuff which brought his bond rating was bringing the bond rating down that was going to bring the interest rate up, so he had to lie about the state of the town’s finances to keep the interest rate down and that’s what got him in trouble indirectly.”
Shortly after Day was elected Parietti was put on the planning board and served on the planning board for a full 10 years. He also learned an awful lot about what’s going on in Rockland and the problems we have with overdevelopment and illegal housing and zoning code enforcement.
Having helped Day get elected in 2013, why would he now run against him? He stated that this is 12 years later, and Ed said that he was going to run for only 2 terms. “He promised to serve only 2 terms. Towards the end of his second term, he started to talk about how he needed to run for a third term. I should say that Ed did some things to help us, but he could have done a lot more. He always seemed to like give us some breadcrumbs but never really did everything he could to help us. Well, we felt like there was much more he could have done to fight some of the problems with some of the overdevelopment, with the corruption, things like that. He felt like he could have done more, you know, but, but he still did just enough for us to continue to support him.”
He and his party helped to get him re-elected in 2017 anyway. Parietti said that towards the end of the 2nd term, he started to say he wanted to run for a 3rd term because he wanted to be in a position to veto the redistricting plan of the Rockland County Legislature if it was drawn unfairly because this has been a big issue for us for 10 years. It was done every 10 years. He knew it was a big issue for us, and he felt like he realized he could play them on that issue. “He said, I will be in a position to veto it, right? We said okay, you know, we’ll support you again. The thing is, in the end he, he really did not keep good on his work when he got in after the 3rd time and the redistricting plan came up. It was a grotesque gerrymander that gave the maximum amount of political power possible to the Hasidic leaders. I can show you. I mean, the devil is in the details.”
“Most people don’t realize it, but I poured over with a fine-toothed comb with all this stuff, and it clearly was gerrymandered to their maximum benefit in the detriment of just about everybody else. That made me really angry because I called that and I said, Ed, veto the thing you said you were going to veto, and it’s obviously, you know, a gerrymander, and the thing about it is it was bad for the Republican Party too. You could tell by looking at it they were going to lose seats. I said veto it. He said, ‘Oh, I’m going to study it.’ Of course, he held it on his desk for the full 21 days allowed by law, and then he signed it into law.”
He thinks he held it that long to make it harder to challenge because he had said he was going to challenge it and he did challenge it. The problem he had was that he couldn’t get any attorneys to get involved because he says that everyone’s afraid of the political ramifications.
“I did challenge it and all the courts ignored me. It was bounced from one judge to another until they got to Sherry Eisenpress, who just threw the whole thing out. I appealed it. They ignored me. I went to try to go to the highest court in New York. They wouldn’t even hear the case. I actually went to the Supreme Court, and they wouldn’t hear me. But anyway, so my point is that to me was proof of the fact that Ed broke his word again. He already said he was only going to serve for 2 terms, then he’s running for a 3rd term. Now he’s running for a forth. I’m afraid I know he got the bloc vote in his 3rd election. I looked at the election results. He got 99% of the vote from the village in New Square very high totals throughout.”
In Parietti’s opinion he must have gone and cut a deal to get the vote before the election before the 3rd election, he’s probably telling us he’s going to veto the plan, but he was probably telling them that he wouldn’t veto it, right. He feels he’s no longer up to the job and he’s just clinging on to the perks of power. “We desperately need new energy and new determined resolve in the county executive office. That’s why.”
Infrastructure is a concern for everyone across the country. How does Parietti see the infrastructure in the county and what can he do to improve it?
“We have this major problem with overdevelopment. Because we’re a home rule state the municipalities can make their own zoning regulations. They can give exceptions to the zoning laws through their own boards and commissions. Well, there has to be a process for an exception. It has to be applied for, debated, argued, presented, and then voted on by the planning board and usually by the legislative branch of the municipality. The point is if they’re, just building and building without any regard to the impact it’s having on the infrastructure, which is what I believe RAPA is doing, and I think it’s based on the political leverage that these developers and the leaders of the block vote have they want to build out as much housing capacity as they can so they can accommodate their very high population growth rate.”
“This also increases their political power so they’re not going to let concerns about the water supply or the infrastructure or the sewer system or its capacity, get in the way. They’re just going to keep building. It’s a tricky problem because as a home rule state, we don’t have direct jurisdiction over that, but what I feel if a town is showing I was told this when I went through my planning board training, if the town shows a gross lack of any zoning or planning. You know, planning or zoning code enforcement, they are susceptible to legal action.”
He said he would pursue every legal avenue he could to try and curtail this because they’re just building at a rate that’s going to hurt the entire county because it’s going to deplete our water supply. It’s going to overwhelm the sewer system and you see the traffic. The road networks are overwhelmed. “It becomes a disaster in the evening when people come home from work. Route 202 is a state road, not a county road, but even so, I feel like Ed really doesn’t have the stomach to try to be creative and think outside the box and do what needs to be done to try to confront with this situation.”
What would Parietti do differently to improve the infrastructure and besides dealing with the overdevelopment to solve the problems he sees in the county infrastructure?
“The sewer system needs to be upgraded. It doesn’t have the capacity to meet the increase in housing units and demand that’s being built around. That’s one issue. Then again, the roads infrastructure, the roads are just not built to handle the kind of traffic we have. One way to address is to try to get massive amounts of state aid to improve it. I understand they’ve put some money into it, but it’s not going to be enough. I would focus on trying to curtail the overdevelopment somehow and I would look at Spring Valley where the code enforcement was transferred to the county because they were not really doing the proper job I would love to do that with her out.
His focus was on his political work in Ramapo where he lives. There are four other towns in the county that he’d be responsible for as County Executive, has he looked at the infrastructure in those four to see what needs to be done and what he could do to help improve it?
“Yeah, well, I mean, I think we do need to take a look at the transportation networks because wherever I go people tell me it’s hard to get around if you don’t have a car. I think we may have to reimagine exactly how that all operates. I don’t have all the answers. I know when we’re on the planning board, there’s a state initiative to take a look at the Route 59 corridor and try to improve that. I would try to push forward on that, and, you know, wherever we need infrastructure improvements, of course, I’m going to look at that, but the main problem really is Ramapo in terms of over, overtaxing the infrastructure and the water supply.”
He says that’s why he talks about Ramapo a lot. He’s in this because he’s from Ramapo and he’s seen what happens when these political power brokers get leverage over…
Political power brokers are anywhere and everywhere, not just Ramapo, but he says it’s a different situation in Ramapo.
One thing about the infrastructure not being up to handling the current population is that Rockland was not originally designed to be a year-round community the way it’s become. It was supposed to be like the Hamptons summer, people come up for the summer and go back to their permanent residences for the winter.
That’s part, that’s the main reason we have problems with the roads is because you got a lot of traffic and the roads weren’t built and designed to handle it. The question comes down to Mike. What can you do with the legislature and the highway department, everybody else to alleviate this traffic. I’ve talked to people about widening roads all they said we can’t because there’s no space to do it.
“Well, I think you may not be able to improve in certain cases you can’t. There are certain roads you cannot regrade the entire road or make it straight. You’re not going to do that, right? I think it all depends on the situation of course. There are always places where you can improve the infrastructure by repaving or, you know, doing all sorts of things for intersections and stuff like that. It still comes down to the fact that if you have too much traffic on certain roads that you can’t really fundamentally change and that’s the issue, and I think we’re at the breaking point where we need to put a brake on the overdevelopment in certain places because we don’t have the capacity to support.”
New York is probably the highest taxed state, and we keep going back and forth to California to gain that title. In the county, Ed Day, when he first came into office, turned the total economy of the county around from a $160 million deficit to profitable and brought our bond rating and everything up.
People are looking towards the local governments to help lower taxes. Parietti will be responsible for coming up with a budget to help do this. “It’s a very difficult situation when Ed came in it were $95 million in the hole. Now we have a 300-million-dollar surplus. But the way they came about was a lot of different things. He fired a lot of people initially. He closed the hospital. In the intervening years, from what I’ve talked to a lot of people about is everybody’s got a different version of what exactly happened, but it seems that one of the major driving forces in bringing the county out of this hole was the was the sales tax, which of course goes up as inflation goes up, so does the amount you pay in sales tax, and people don’t get a bill at the end of the year for how much sales tax they pay, right? It’s a hidden cost. I think maybe if we have a $300 million surplus, maybe we need to look at, moderating sales tax, of course I know the state controls that and in terms of assessed property values, that’s that goes back to the towns as well and that’s one of the biggest things about property taxes, so the these towns need to try to keep their budgets in check.”
He says that they don’t need to raise the property tax and when it comes to this stuff, he believes in total transparency, accountability, and fiscal responsibility. He’s not going to go off on any crazy, adventures and endanger the county’s finances and we need to operate on an even keel and work live within our means. The sales tax is potentially something he thinks you could lower, and he would try to keep the sale, the property tax where it is without any increases. “I don’t have any intention of embarking any giant spending on capital projects or anything like that. It’s something we have to, you have to be vigilant and keep the responsible and transparent and accountable to the effect.
The economy is one of the major issues that influenced the outcome of the 2024 election. We’ve been under the Biden economy for the past 4 years, and that is going to expire on October 1, and the Trump BBB comes into effect in the new, new fiscal year for the federal government. There are going to be tax cuts and elimination of taxes on overtime, Social Security and tips, to name a few of them. How will Parietti utilize this to help the general economy of the county?
He would work with the Empire Development Agency and also with Rockland Works, which are agencies that can help improve the economy. Rockland Works helps workers with businesses that need jobs and would look to start a small business incubator.
“Within the county, well, in other words, you have a space set up where small entrepreneurs or people have an idea for a business, local people in Rockland can get assistance with all the different things you need to do to come up with a business plan and execute it and try to create a successful business. The more small businesses we can create in Rockland helps spice up the economy. We need to create a friendly environment for small businesses in any way that we can and try to encourage creativity amongst our own people to start small businesses, if they have an idea, let’s help them turn it into a successful venture.
Ratables, (businesses that bring in tax revenue) are very important to local governments. Clarkstown has 60% of the ratables in the county. Parietti needs to do things to help the other four towns to increase their ratables for their towns and the county tax base.
“That’s just what I said before. You want to work with businesses at every level to try and jumpstart them so we can get in more revenue. We also need to look at places where we can put affordable housing, which is another issue.”
This is in conflict with the problems with the infrastructure that he explained earlier due to over development which is causing all the traffic. He responded, “You need affordable housing for workers, right? You want to bring workers in to help build these businesses. You need affordable housing. It’s a tricky balance, but you need to try to figure out what the balance is, to retain workers here. I think part of the problem we have is that a lot of the housing that’s being built, all this overdevelopment is segregated housing. It is often built by developers that when it’s all said and done and you look who’s in there, it’s all members of one religious sect and nobody else and so we need to look at that.”
He added, “We need to create affordable housing for everybody that’s open to everybody and that will house our workers so we can support the economy.
In the news today, public safety is a major issue. You see around the country a lot of rioting and innocent people being attacked and prevented from going about their normal daily live. People are scared and feeling very unsafe, especially in cities like Chicago, where you’ve got at least 5 or 6 murders every weekend, dozens of people shot. DC was just cleaned up from all the crime it has had. San Francisco, LA, Portland, all the crime and rioting that is going on in those cities.
People have said that Rockland is a pretty safe place. “I definitely think that Rockland is a pretty good safety record. The police and law enforcement in Rockland have done a very good job over the decades, in keeping Rocklanders safe. I will just say anecdotally I’ve seen there seems to be a small increase in crime in certain areas like Haverstraw and Spring Valley, and I think you need to work closely with law enforcement, support them any way you can and try to encourage them to try to enact community policing where they have a relationship with people on the ground. I think we’re doing pretty good on that, but of course you need to watch crime trends and statistics and react to anything.”
He doesn’t feel that we need to hire more sheriffs but if there was an emerging crime issue, maybe, but it would depend on the situation. “Whereas we have crime is and we’re not on a, New York City or Chicago level of crime.
The influx of illegal immigrants into the country from 2021 to 2025 was another issue that weighed heavily on the minds of voters in 2024. Many of them felt this was not a good thing for the country. Three years ago, Ed Day, Teresa Kenny and George Hoehmann and a couple of other people prevented Eric Adams from sending thousands of the illegal immigrants that he couldn’t handle anymore because of his sanctuary policies here into the county. How is Parietti going to deal with the illegal immigrants who are here in the county?
“I think one of the issues here is illegal housing. We have this unsafe illegal housing and a lot of it seems to be they’re turning into single room occupancy, and it seems a lot of them may be illegal migrants. I know Clarkstown found a few, and so that’s a rising issue.
He spoke about code enforcement in the county and Ramapo. He focused on Ramapo and how there are incentives for the elected judges to look the other way or give a slap on the wrist on these issues. He still was not answering the illegal immigration issue.
“I mean, the thing is, I agree that we shouldn’t let a large influx of unvetted immigrants to come in.
I agree with you that this should not have been allowed. Going forward, I think, if we have violent offenders that endanger public safety, we should work to get them apprehended and get them removed.”
When it comes to the issue of the non-violent who are here illegally getting benefits the taxpayers have put money into like welfare, Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid that they’re not legally entitled to. When you got people that are in need of it who are declared that are declared by the ADA as disabled, plus other health issues people have, they can’t, so tell them no, you’re denied, you don’t meet our criteria.
“Well, you know, first of all, the eligibility requirements for those programs are above the county’s level. New York State pushes a significant amount of the Medicaid cost down onto the county.” He would like to do a full audit of all of the social benefits because there are a lot of issues with social benefits in Rockland County. He also said that there are a lot of rumors about groups that are abusing it and how they’re abusing it and this is one thing he would do to handle it.
“The one thing to remember too, this gets very complicated because if people have been here for a long time and they become established members of the community and they’re adding value and they’re working, you can’t just rip them out and throw them away. So, you need to look at every situation is unique and you need to look at if it’s a violent offender that is threatening public safety, then we need to get them removed immediately.
The Palisades Mall is having a lot of financial problems. This is costing the Town of Clarkstown and the county a lot of tax dollars. Something needs to be done to make it a major tax bearing entity again.
“Well, that’s, that’s a tough issue because they, they are having significant financial issues that have developed over many years, which would have been resolved if it was an easy system to resolve. We’ve got to get creative. We’ve got to meet with people and try to generate ideas for new business that that can come in or new uses for that space to make it viable.”
He knows this is not going to be easy, and they’re going to have to bring in as many different allies and different agencies from across the state and other municipalities to try and address the problem and try to find businesses and new tenants or a new use for the facility so we can make it viable.
“It’s not going to happen overnight. It’s going to take tenacity and determination and focus to make it happen. If mixed use it the way, then yes, mixed use. I mean it might be a way to create some affordable housing in a mixed-use situation, you know, and I think that might be a way forward, so we’d have to look at that.”
It’s very difficult to get around the county without a car. Public transportation in the county which is primarily the Tor buses, but you don’t see them running on a regular schedule all over the place like in NYC. You see a bus here occasionally, there occasionally. Oner issue that Parietti spoke about was the traffic situation here in the county. A resident who has had to deal with the slow traffic on various roads said that if we can get people to get on the buses that could alleviate some of the traffic. Does he think putting more buses in might help.
“When I talk to people, because I’ve talked to a lot of people now over the last several months, and of course I’ve lived here my whole life pretty much. There is a sense that it’s not easy to get around if you don’t have a car, right? How do you improve that? I don’t know, I’ve heard of a pilot program somewhere where instead of putting money into more bussing, they’re giving people vouchers to use like Uber or taxis or something like that to get people from point A to point B.
The problem with this plan is that Ubers and taxis still put cars on the road, you’ve got 10 people and they these vouchers for an Uber. That’s 10 cars on the road. If these 10 people on one bus, that’s one vehicle, on the road. Less traffic.
Parietti responded, “Well, in certain circumstances that might work. It’s going to be a combination of different efforts, and I do think we need to reimagine or take a new look at the entire transportation system in Rockland. I mean, one thing I think we do need a train. If we can get on a train and buy a ticket and take it all the way into Manhattan, the one seat ticket. I mean, and they’ve got space on the Tappan Zee Bridge to do that.
They just didn’t put it in when they built the bridge. Of course, that’s the kind of thing you need state or federal aid to make it happen, but you’re going to need determination resolve to really push the issue and try to make it happen.”
“I don’t have all the answers on that, but I do think we need to take a look at what’s going on with the buses in Rockland County and maybe there’s a way to improve it or add to it or come up with other solutions.
People say that Ed Day is a juggernaut in the county. He’s been 12 years in the office, and a lot of people like him, and they feel he’s doing a good job. Then there are also people that Parietti says who claim he’s slipping because of age or whatever else it might be. Why should people elect Parietti over Day?
“Well, when Ed Day ran for office the first time, he’s pledged to only serve 2 terms. He said, if I can’t fix everything in 2 terms, then I should be gone. I shouldn’t get a third term. What did he do? He ran for a third term now he’s running for a 4th term, and I think people should ask themselves what has Ed Day really accomplished in a concrete way?”
“Yeah, he has his claim to fame that he dug us out of the $95 million deficit and now we have a $300 surplus, notwithstanding the fact that we still have close to $600 million in bond debt and other debt, so we have a lot of debt. What major initiatives has he brought to the county? What has changed? We’re still facing these very difficult issues that are not getting better. Ed’s had his chance, right? We need new energy, new determination, new resolve. In the county to take on these issues. I think he and his inner circle, they just want to cling on to the perks of power. This is human nature to do that. The voters need to step in and say, okay, look, you had your chance. It’s time for you to move on, and we need somebody new.”
Parietti had no intention to run for county executive until he found out that the Democrats were not going to field a candidate against Ed and that we’re going to let him run oppose unopposed 4th term. He believes what happened was when he signed that redistricting plan which basically gave away our representation we don’t have our fair share of representation outside of the block the other communities don’t. He also believes they told him, Ed, if you sign it, we will make sure you don’t have an opponent because we know that in Rockland County where it’s an evolving uni-party where both parties are working together at the county level, most county level offices, there’s no opponent. The person runs unopposed, or they run a strong candidate.
Every election has one major question, can the challenger bring a message to the people good enough to unseat the incumbent? Parietti feels he can. “Ed Day’s got the full weight of the block vote coming out of Monsey and New Square. Last time and you can look it up, everybody knows that he signed this redistricting plan and gave away all of our political representation pretty much to the block leaders. We know he’s going to get the block vote again. I know that for a fact. He has said it himself. That is a big issue for a lot of people because they know what that means.”
He says that means the block leaders will be able to go into the county to any department they want and get what they want at everybody else’s expense. He claims that we’re not going to know when and where it’s happening until it’s way too late to do anything about it and that people are very concerned about the issue.
“I have a reputation; I think you’ll admit that I have never gotten the block vote. They would never give me their vote, right? I’m going to be trying to do my political incentive. In order for me to win, I need to build a broad coalition of people from across the political spectrum, and I can tell you right now there are many Republicans that are really mad Ed Day. Look what he did with the county redistricting. He signed it knowing it was going to hurt his own party, and he lost his ability to hold his veto, but I believe they told him don’t worry about that, Ed. You’re not going to have any opponents. People are very concerned.”
He added, “Do you think people aren’t concerned about the fact that the block will be, will have tremendous leverage over Ed Day because he got it before, we know he’s going to get it again, and that I will not be under the thumb of their leaders and I have a reputation for integrity and for being proactive and trying to really take the bull by the horns and solve these problems. I’ve looked at so many issues and said, here’s what the problem is and what’s the most concrete and impactful thing we can do to solve it? I have gone out and tried to do it, with mixed results.”
According to him, the point is there are a lot of people that want somebody new, they want somebody fresh. They want somebody with the energy the resolve and the independence to try and do the right thing, which they, feel Ed Day doesn’t have that.
He says he’s identified the problems and has ideas to fix them. “I have a broad range of life and work experience. I was in the Eagle Scout. I was in athletics. I went to West Point. I have been in the military. I was in the infantry. I’ve been in corporate America, working for different companies. I’ve been a small businessman and tried some of my own ventures. I’ve had some experience in academia, and I have 20 plus years experience. intimately working on the problems that we face here in Rockland County and the Ramapo overdevelopment, illegal housing, and corruption. I’ve been on the planning board for 10 years.”
“I have a tremendous wealth of, of insight and experience to draw upon, and I know how to work with people. One thing I say about myself is that at my core, I’m a very open minded, approachable, collaborative person and also proactive. I can work with people and, and I can make things happen. I really believe that a lot of people will feel that way about it.”
“There was another situation where we realized in order to counteract the block vote, you need a party line that you can use to get all the people that are concerned about that issue to vote on that line you put people from both parties you put the good guys on that line, no matter what party they are in. Think about what I did there. I helped form the SAM Party. I went through all the work to get the signatures. We held, programs for people to get awareness. We got the number of votes we needed in the governor’s race for the party to be formed, and the first year we had the party, which was 2019, I stacked the line with 29 people, and we had a huge effort to vote row 8. My point is, I have a record of saying, what’s the problem and let’s figure out the most impactful thing we can do about it and let’s go out and do it.