Six Thousand Doors: One Candidate's Case for Yonkers

Dan D'Amico has knocked on nearly six thousand doors in Yonkers District 16. Not with a team. Largely by himself. What he's heard is not what the county is spending money on.

D'Amico is a former FDNY firefighter, a working real estate broker, and the Republican candidate challenging the incumbent for Westchester County Legislature District 16. In this conversation, he breaks down what affordability actually looks like when you're sitting across from a family trying to buy a home in Yonkers, why the county's $45 million EV charging station line item doesn't match a single conversation he's had at the doors, and what four years of inaction on Hurricane Ida flooding has cost his neighbors on Warburton Avenue.

He also walks through what a county legislator can actually do — and what they can't — so you know what you're voting for when November arrives.

In this episode: the broken math of homeownership in Westchester. The 18-month timeline to build a single home in New York versus six months in Florida. Why the county cut every department by 8% and raised taxes in the same budget. The fire victim in downtown Yonkers who got a housing voucher in one hour after weeks of getting nothing from his own legislator. And what D'Amico wants you thinking about when you're standing in the booth.

Subscribe to The Westchester Brief at iliveherewestchester.com. New episodes Monday through Friday at 6 AM.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Picture a neighborhood in Southwest Yonkers after a heavy rain. Not a hurricane, not a name storm, just a bad Tuesday in August. Streets are underwater, faced with flooded, families pulling ruined furniture out onto the sidewalk. It happened enough times now that some residents don't bother storing anything of value on the ground floor anymore. They just accept it. And flooding isn't the only thing these neighborhoods are dealing with. But Chester's housing market has become one of the most expensive and least accessible in the entire Northeast. The county is short of an estimated 21,000 housing units right now. Half of all renters in the county are paying more than they can reasonably afford. The median home price is somewhere between $750,000 and $800,000. For a working family trying to plant roots here, trying to go from renting to owning, from surviving to building something. Well, those numbers are a wall. Today's guest is today's guest has lived all of this from the inside. Dendemico is a Yonkers resident of a former FDMY firefighter and a real estate broker who spent years helping your families navigate one of the most punishing housing markets in the country. Now he's running for Westchester County Legislature in District 16. His platform centers on three things expanding home ownership access for working families, holding county government accountable on how it spends public money, and finally addressing the flooding infrastructure problems that his district has been absorbing for years. We're going to talk through all of it, and we're going to push on where the real leverage is and where it isn't. Let's get into it. Dan, first and foremost, so nice to meet you and thank you for joining us on Only Live Here Westchester.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

Absolutely. Jim, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

So let's start at the beginning here. You went from an FDNY firefighter to a real estate broker to legislative candidate for the candidate. Those are three very different lives. You know, what is the thread that runs through all of this for you?

SPEAKER_01 1:57

That's a great question. I would say that it really takes me back to when I was a kid. I spent a lot of time, especially on weekends with my dad. My parents were split growing up, but my dad was um a very unique man and a very bold man in many ways. But he used to tell me, uh, especially as I got older into my teenage years, about his history as an army veteran. He served as an army green beret, jumping out of planes and stuff. And at a young age, he really instilled in me and my brother patriotism and serving your neighbor. And as we got a little bit older, seven or eight, we lived in the Bronx in the Throgsneck section. He used to take us to the local firehouses and we looked up to these guys. They were our heroes. He even had a friend who was a part of the Bronx Volunteer Fire Patrol. It was separate from the FDNY, but he they'd go on all the fire calls and everything. And what it instilled in me was just a service to your fellow man. And I think that's the thread that runs through here, whether it be as a New York City fireman, you know, physically putting my life on the line uh many times, going into burning buildings, doing CPR, it was an incredible ride. For five years, I did that in East Harlem, New York, and I had a blast. But ultimately, between that and uh now as a real estate broker helping people transition through the largest sale or purchase they'll ever make in their life, you know, it it always brings me back to uh looking out for people and helping people, whether it be build their finances or physically helping them out. And now as a candidate, I'll have the opportunity to oversee legislation for the county. So for me, I would say the thread that runs through is just service to, you know, my neighbors, my fellow, fellow men or women, and um the residents of our of our area.

SPEAKER_00 3:32

I think the key word coming up in these elections is going to be centered around affordability. And affordability means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Sure. Uh, but like focusing on home ownership, right? So you work with families buying homes in Yakers and throughout the county, but when you sit across from someone who wants to own a home here and you run the numbers with them, what does that conversation actually look like right now?

SPEAKER_01 3:56

Wow. Yeah, that's that's my day-to-day as a full-time real estate broker. So I I mean that conversation it starts out a little bit grim. Most people feel that the prospect of owning a home is slowly slipping away. They can feel it because their their income is not rising as quickly as the values of the homes. And there are many things, many factors to to that rise, but that I won't probably get into here. But ultimately, it starts out very grim. And I have to talk through people and explain to them that, hey, look, when you rent a property, yes, it is a little bit cheaper than home ownership, but you're really not building any long-term wealth, right? Ten years from now, five years from now, you'll still be making that monthly payment and you would have been no closer to, like, say, paying off a house. Whereas if you buy a house, there's eventually that light at the end of the tunnel. Eventually, this house will be paid off, and as a result, it'll go up in value and it they'll build generational wealth. So sitting at the table, it starts off a little grim. People feel like, wow, this is it feels so out of out of reach. And we have to explain to people all the different options, whether it be mortgage with 3% down, or if they're a veteran like my father, they can buy a home with 0% down. There's such a missing uh missing there, there's a lot of missing in information that people don't know uh surrounding mortgages and just how affordable they can be. But ultimately, when they look on Zillow, Realtor, any of the websites, what they're seeing is houses 700,000, 800,000, and that number is just it's very big. To someone making sixty, seventy thousand dollars a year, the prospect of buying an eight, nine hundred thousand dollar home, which by the way is not a mansion in Yonkers, it's your typical home now in a decent area. It just feels overwhelming. And that's that's where we come in to talk them through it and to show them the light at the end of the tunnel. Or maybe they buy a multifamily where one income subsidizes it. And it it's really rewarding to see people in the end, three, four years later, call me and say, Wow, my house has gained 200,000 in value. I'm so grateful we did that. It felt overwhelming, but you know what? The the prospect of building wealth has been incredible. So it's a tough conversation, but we always try and shed the light at the end of the tunnel and show the big picture at the end.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

You know, across the county, uh, it's documented that there's a shortfall of around 21,000 housing units. And half of all renters in the county are paying more than they can afford. Um, uh obviously a substantial um percentage of their take-home pay. You know, when you're knocking on doors in District 16, how does that data show up and what people are actually telling you?

SPEAKER_01 6:22

Yeah, so I as I go door to door, there are probably two big things that come up. Affordability is number one, whether it be con edison. I I met a um lovely older couple, husband and wife, in a small older home, and they told me that their average monthly con edison for two people in the home is uh $1,400. So it's just it's crushing these people. And in seeing how many housing units are needed, you know, people feel very grim, like I said earlier. They feel like something has to change. Um, and what I'd like to do is I'd like to put the incentive on the the developers or even small home builders, right? Like as a realtor, I see if I sell a piece of land, there are a lot of people discouraged in buying that because they know that the prospect from the day they buy it to the day a house is built on it is like 18 months. So I think if we really want to focus on the housing unit need, we need to really streamline this process. It should not take 18 months to build a home. You know, when I travel, I have friends in Florida and even family in Florida. And when we go down there, it's interesting because you'll go down there in January to visit, right after the holidays, and you see a whole area get cleared, maybe 10 acres. And then you come back down in June or July, and there's 15 houses on that property already in six months. And then up in New York, where we are, it takes 18 months to build, you know, sort of those same houses. So I think we really need to put the incentive and and um help people to develop quickly in in the area rather than 18 months. Like the incentive right now is not in building homes.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

Can you unpack that a little bit? Like what what is driving that difference? Is it regulation? Is it zoning laws? I what is it just inspections? Uh uh what what what's the driver?

SPEAKER_01 8:04

It's a little bit of everything. So when I sell a property, the big thing that they want to know is do we have approved plans? What that means is before you build a house, you have to get an architect or a design um professional, is what they call it. It's to draw up a whole rendering of a property. You then submit that to the city. The city usually takes five months, four months to approve it. And that's saying that there's no changes or anything like that, or hey, you need to move this water pipe. They look through it in detail. And I and I think that is a uh a good part. We do need these regulations, but we just need to figure out a way to streamline it, whether it be more employees or maybe the the use of AI to kind of speak streamline these things. But four or five months just gets the things approved. Then you have to hire your GC, you have to start excavations, then there's inspections. It's there's still a home that I'm thinking of as I drive to my office regularly, and uh as I come down the hill, I pass it, and to this day it's still there. It has seen two winters already. That's how long it's been, and it's still not up for sale because they haven't got their CO yet, they haven't got final inspections. So you got to think if it takes two years to build a home, who's gonna be interested in doing that? Who's gonna spend all that money for two years? You gotta buy the property two, three hundred thousand, you gotta spend all the money another four, five, six hundred thousand to build it, and then you gotta wait two years. How much is there in the end? You're gonna make a hundred thousand for two years? It it doesn't make sense to some of these people. So that's why I'm saying there's so many layers, whether it be planning, engineering, uh just getting the city inspectors out there, and there's a lot. There really is a lot. We could do a whole podcast on uh just building in New York, but my focus would be speedlining that. And another big focus would be, as I mentioned earlier, I don't mind you can build all of the uh luxury towers you want in Yonkers. I got nothing against that. What I don't like to see though is that city or county money going towards that because they're largely super expensive. In fact, the ones that I'm thinking of in in downtown Yonkers, the um studios go for $2,300. Now, for context, anywhere else in Yonkers, a studio will go for like sixteen hundred bucks. So these are 40% more uh in the luxury towers. And the two bedrooms, if you want it facing the water, are about $4,000. So these are not affordable properties. So I don't see any value in county or city funds going to them. In fact, um I think county or city funds should be spent more wisely, and that's where you know some of my transparency uh policies are, you know, in my candidacy.

SPEAKER_00 10:30

So let's talk about that, right? Because, you know, we we all turn on NBC, ABC, whatever, and we're we're we're now getting into the uh as I like to call it, the ridiculous attack ad season, um where uh preposterous claims are always made of of what someone can do, can't do, and what they're determined to do, and and just leaning into a mainstream narrative. But as a county legislator, what do you actually will have the authority to do when you win?

SPEAKER_01 11:00

Absolutely. So there are uh I guess for context, for anyone who doesn't know, there are 17 legislators that make up Westchester County Board of Legislators. I'm running for one of the seats, it's District 16. Now, the two big things that I like to say that a county legislator can do, the biggest one is that they they draw up the budget. You'll see that the county executive signs off on the budget, but much like Congress, they come up with the budget for the county. And now that's vital, especially for some of the things I'm running on, like flooding and um housing grants. Like I want to redire redirect some of the money for EV stations and such to down payment assistant grants. Um and the the uh the second big thing that they do is Westchester County specific legislation. Like there are some legislation surrounding the real estate commissions and things like that that came out of New York. Westchester County has the ability to influence those two as well. So it's a legislative body, meaning they make laws and they also um uh create and enforce the budget for the county. So uh Peakskill gets this much money and Yonkers Schools gets that much money and so on and so forth. There are some things that they uh do not have say over, like New York State sends money to the county and says this is where it's going. And as a county legislator, you just have to allocate it to whatever the state says. But at least half the budget, which by the way, the budget's two and a half billion, half that budget will be up to our 17 legislators to figure out where it goes. And that's some of the money that I want to bring home to Yonkers for the uh flooding issues that we're seeing throughout the county throughout the the city, and specifically on the Warburton area area. Um, we're seeing a lot of people, their backyards are washing away. And it's in fact, they're my neighbors. Many of my neighbors have had their backyards washed away, and it's getting very close to their house. So they're sitting here like, I'm only another hurricane away from maybe my house falling into the Hudson. And you know, we reach out and you really don't get much help. So it's one of those things. But those are the big two budget and uh countywide legislation.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

So I want to I want to talk about flooding. Um, you know, obviously I'm on the other side of Westchester, uh, outside of Yonkers. Uh I re you know, the the visions of Memarinick being underwater, um, you know, still burned in my head, obviously been watching that construction. Um, and a lot of water mitigation has been going on, but yet, you know, Yonkers across the board, still low-lying area um and drainage infrastructure that wasn't built for the intensity of storms that the region now sees regularly. Um and there were buildings with millions in dollars in damage from just one storm. So, how long have the neighborhoods in your district been raising this as an issue and and what has been the response?

SPEAKER_01 13:39

Yeah, so really the fork in the road was Hurricane Ida, which goes back, I believe, about four years, a little over four years now. And it's funny because I was walking my dog this morning and I ran into a guy who lives in a building, exactly affected by what you're saying. His entire he has a co-op building on on um Warburton Avenue, it's right on the water, and they used to have this big, beautiful parking lot, probably 40 or 50 cars there that can park there. And during Hurricane Ida, the amount of water that flowed down completely eroded it. Now half of that parking lot ended up in the water. On the on the tracks down in the Hudson, it was really bad. The entire street was covered in mud. It was awful. But what we noticed, and there is news clips to show you this, if you look up Hurricane Ida, Warburton Avenue, Yonkers, you'll see all the politicians from the governor to county legislators and so on and so forth. I shouldn't say all because there are some great county legislators that are really helping out. Um, but specifically our county legislator, you know, everybody shows up and says, we're gonna fix this, we're gonna get onto it, and so on and so forth. Here we are four years later, and literally nothing has been done about it. And we've had meetings as homeowners with the MTA, with some senators here in New York State, and what we find is it's just a it's a promise. They're kicking the can down the road. Maybe in 2028, maybe in 2027, FEMA was supposed to send us money, but they didn't, and so on and so forth. And I say to myself, nothing's gonna change here until somebody's house ends up in the water and it's huge on the news, that nothing's gonna change here. And you know, the county, their infrastructure is the sewers and drainage. That's their responsibility. So for me, I think we just have to make more noise. As a county legislator, if you cannot physically make the change by a vote or a stroke of a pen, then you should be on the phone advocating for your people. It's very simple.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

So what's the bottleneck? Why why why kick the can? It it seems like a dumb thing to do.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

Yeah, I think um those in power right now, specifically in our district, are just you know more focused on things that they can put their name on and photo shoots and things like that, rather than picking up and doing the hard work. I'll give you a quick story. There was a fire in 50 Rivers Riverdale Avenue, downtown Yonkers, which is the district I'm running for, District 16. Now I went there, I did a video, and I got a call from one of the the people who live there, and he said, Look, we're really struggling. It's been two, three weeks since the fire, we have no place to go, we're homeless. How can you help? Well, within a few minutes, I reached out to a county legislator outside of our district, but a really well-known one, and I'll give him a shout out here. His name is Jimmy Nolan, and he was able to, in a very short time, I think in about an hour, he called the right people in charge and was able to get this guy a housing voucher. And within about a week, he was able to find housing. He's actually still looking for housing. My my uh my real estate brokerage is helping him out to get secured. But I'm not elected. I'm currently running, I'm a candidate. And it took me one phone call to the right people, and then those people made the moves. Now he's been calling our county legislator for weeks and hasn't gotten anything. In fact, when he did speak to our county legislator, she said, I didn't even know that there was a fire there. So I think that's the thing. There's a breakdown between what's actually happening and uh our elected officials or some of our elected officials and uh their duty to step up and help. And for me, sometimes it's just a phone call, like you know, what Jimmy did. He made a phone call and like that, now the guy's like, You guys are great, you know, you're not even elected, and he's not even my legislator, but you guys got the problem solved. And I said, you know what? When when you care, it doesn't matter if you're in my district or not, you're a person, you're in my city, and you need help. Let me make a couple calls. And literally in an hour and a couple phone calls, he was taken care of. Whereas it took him weeks uh to come across me or or to come across Jimmy. And you know, now he's he's working on housing and it was it was quick. So I think it's just being willing to step up and uh the bottleneck is sometimes the elected officials just being willing to do the hard work, the grunt work.

SPEAKER_00 17:28

Dan, very hard-hitting question right now. Uh, what's your dog's name and what breed?

SPEAKER_01 17:34

So I have two dogs. Uh one of them is Roxy. She's a pit bull terrier. She was actually a rescue. We rescued her from the Yonkers animal shelter, and she is such a lovely dog. She sits up in the window. I'm doing this from my my home office. So she sits up on the window on the second floor and just looks out all day and very cheerful, loves people. My second dog is six years old. He's a Vishla, and his name is Koopa. We named him from the the Super Mario uh King Koopa in Super Mario. So Koopa and Roxy, those are my my two dogs. I love them.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

All right. Well, you know, good job on answering that question and not avoiding it. That was a tough one. Yeah, that was a tough one. I I like cats, you know, and it's just not dogs, you know. But yeah, well, you you know, it's a you're a politician, man. You know, like I'm gonna have to, you know, press you on that.

SPEAKER_01 18:17

I'm an honest politician, though. I love dogs, I'm a dog guy. Um, not the biggest fan of cats. I got nothing against them, but I'm just more of a dog guy.

SPEAKER_00 18:24

Uh let's see. Uh I'm with you. I got two. Um county government spending, you know, obviously is part of your platform. And you know, Westchester has passed five consecutive budgets without raising the property tax, which is good thing. Uh, but yet the county is facing $24 million budget gap driven largely by declining sales tax, and you know, apparently, you know, President Trump, you know, that's that's the narrative that we keep hearing. You know, what specifically you're calling out to say when you say accountability, and what does that look like in practice, you know, from your future seat?

SPEAKER_01 19:01

So this came up largely because when I hit the doors and I talked to people, one thing that they continue to say is that, hey, my city taxes and my my property taxes continue to go up. And maybe it wasn't coming on a county level in the last couple of years, but they just voted to raise it 3.5% for budget shortfalls. And you know, I'm a business guy. I own a business. I've owned a business here in Yonkers since 2017. And I realize that just because my um expenditures increase, it doesn't necessarily mean that my product has to go up. Sometimes you have to look inward and say, how am I spending my money? Right? Is my rent too high? Can we renegotiate certain things? The the answer isn't always that the people have to pay more. And sometimes I feel like that's where the breakdown happens. So I would go door to door and I'd knock on doors and people would say, you know, there's an affordability crisis and so on and so forth. And when I look through the county budget, I don't see the budget going towards these things. Instead, one of my big things is I saw $50 million, or 45 to be exact, going towards EV charging stations. Now I said, surely, if we're spending $45 million on this, there has to be a big need, right? Well, when I looked up how many people in Westchester County on average, how many registered electric vehicles there are, roughly the number I got was between 6 and 9%, which means roughly 90%, nine out of every 10 people do not drive an electric car. So if the county government is going to spend $50 or $45 million on charging stations, it feels like there's a disconnect. Because out of all the doors I knocked on, which is closing in on 6,000 now, I've never had a single person tell me, hey, you know what we really need? We need some more EV charging stations. No, they say we need more help for South Broadway. There's a anytime I go downtown, there's a big homeless population. Like we should, we should get that under control. We should rehabilitate these people. They tell me that flooding is a big issue, especially on the west side of Yonkers, you know, in the Wartburton area. And they tell me affordability. We don't have enough housing. So I see those three, and I'm like, how are we addressing them on a county level? Fact is, we're not. So at the end of the year, they spend all this money on what I call party politics, right? One party wants to be the green energy policy and so far. That's great. We can certainly spend money on green energy, but not at the expenses of schools, police, fire. The most recent budget cut all departments by 8% and they voted to increase our taxes. Three and some change, three, three and a half, I believe. So that means we're gonna give you less and we're gonna charge you more to do it. I said, okay, then we must be really short on money. No, 50 million on charging stations, more money here, more money here. So I just say when I think of transparency, I want to say, what is it that the people are saying they need? Let's give them that. They're not saying we need more charging stations. Not a single person in almost 6,000 doors has told me, you know, I drive a Tesla and it's just so hard to charge. No, Tesla's built almost 100,000 or over 100,000 chargers as a private company. You know what I mean? Like let them do it. If we have a surplus of money and we're doing well financially, sure, build them all you want. Put solar on the roof. Do do whatever you want. I'm not against green energy, but not at the expenses of. Police, fire, sanitation. And right now they cut them by eight percent. So those are the reason we pay taxes. Those aren't the bonus. We pay taxes for schools, for police, for fire. So for me, it's just more common sense uh budgeting around the you know around the budget.

SPEAKER_00 22:14

I I saw that line item in the budget, and yeah, and I and I was questioning that as well, right? Most people I know who have Teslas, I I do not. Um, when they get a Tesla, they get uh a charging station in their garage or or whatnot. So there's an immediate way. Yeah. So what is the rationale? Is the argument we need to attract more people to the county? And as as we're putting up all these uh multi-use facilities or multi-apartment facilities um to get people to come here and you know it what's driving that? Because I think the county uh reopened its first county-owned uh mental health facility for the first time after privatizing it almost 15 years ago. So we're not giving to mental health, only you know, subsidizing it through uh private ownership, but now we need all these charging stations. I I I don't understand what's driving that.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

Yeah, that's exactly right. Um I think a lot of it, like I said, comes down to party politic. I think the uh the party in charge right now is very big on that. And I think it resonates with the base when they say we're gonna we're the guys, we're the green energy party. I think it's a uh a federal, you know, uh sort of headline to say, look at all the EV charging stations we're building, we're the green energy. That's like I said, that's that's excellent. Um, but not at the expenses of other things like schools and fire. So for me, I think it comes down to party politics because when I talk to people and um for context, the 6,000 doors, those aren't just my political party. Those are every door. I pick a street and I go door by door every door and I ask what are some of the things and I just I what what we spend money on on the county is not what resonates with the people. So the only thing I could see it is party politic, or maybe they're just being told that from some of the higher ups from the state level down, because I know the state was very big on green energy. In fact, um, with the recent shortfall, they were expecting a shortfall in the budget, and it took forever to get the budget out. They actually pushed back a lot of the mandates another five years because they had mandates that would require any uh city vehicle that goes out of service. If it's a gas vehicle, it must be replaced with an electric vehicle. That included buses and um garbage trucks. And like I said, in certain areas these will work, no problem. Yonkers is a very hilly area. We have one electric garbage truck that was hailed as an amazing thing, even though it costs double than the gas one. And it doesn't even get used because it runs out of energy so quickly going up these hills that it's just inefficient. You'll get an hour or two out of it before you have to go and charge it again. So I think there's I think sometimes their heart is in the right place, but it's just misguided as government where we should be listening to the people and doing what the people want. It's their money at the end of the day. So I think that's where the disconnect comes, whether it be party politics or um, you know, just doing things to say, hey, look what we did. Instead, I think we should ask the people, what is it that you want? You know, one of my things is once elected, I'm gonna have two town halls a year where I come back to the district because the I say come back because it's in white plains where I'd be doing uh all the work and the office and so on, the board of legislators. But I think it's important to come back at least twice a year, have a complete open forum where you invite everyone from the district and say, hey, what are the questions you need? Here I am. Let's let's address everything. And I think that's what's missing today, the connection between uh politics and the common person, you know, the people that you represent.

SPEAKER_00 25:38

With the all the doors you've knocked on, um two questions. Number one, how many more do you have to go? And number two, um, any surprises, surprising themes that have emerged that you did not expect?

SPEAKER_01 25:51

That's a good question. So each legislator covers about 53,000 people, which means there's a total of 53,000 people, maybe not necessarily 53,000 doors, right? There could be multiple people, and but I would say there's roughly about 30,000 doors that I have to get to, and I've hit about 6,000. And it's been largely me. I've had some help early on, and I have uh a gentleman from my church that that accompanies me and we go out regularly. Um but a common theme it really hasn't surprised me much, just because I've been doing this since February. But the common theme is that people are really being forced to sell against their will because of how expensive things got. You know, certain houses, depending on how they figure it out here in the city, you could be paying $17,000, $18,000 a year in taxes. And then when you combat or combine that with uh a Con Edison bill that hits $13,000, $14,000, $1,500, you're talking $20,000, $22,000 a year between taxes and your utility bill. That's before you do anything. That's before you buy food, before you put gas in the car, which has gotten you know extreme. So there are a lot of factors that are are are leading to people having to sell. I'll knock on a door and they say, I may not be here in November, because I I have to move to a southern state, Texas, North Carolina, where it's more affordable. So I would say that's probably the surprising thing seeing people being forced out, especially retirees. Westchester County is not the most friendly to um fixed income retirees. We're probably one of the most heavily taxed people in in the world at this point, but certainly in the country. We're up there. So that's probably the most surprising thing. Seeing people who have lived here, built families here, maybe are empty nesters now being forced to leave.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

How crowded is your race um uh at this point?

SPEAKER_01 27:30

Well, at this point it's me versus the uh incumbent. So it's it's just the two of us. We don't have a primary. Um, so it's it's it's a hall right now till November. But I would say it's not very crowded at all. It's a complete winnable race, especially the more I talk to people at the doors, the more I see that a lot of people are frustrated. And I tell people if you're frustrated with the way things are going, the one thing you cannot do if you are expecting change is to elect the same people. It's just common sense, right? If someone continues to do something and you're unhappy with it, the only way to fix it, especially in our style government, is to vote in someone different. Vote in a change. And I think that's where I come in. I'm that change agent where I'm not doing this for self-gain, I'm not doing this for self-promotion, I'm doing this because I generally want to help people. Um and as your first question showed, that's sort of the thread that I've always had. And it's been instilled in me from my my father, you know, we're from a family of union workers. My uncle drove a bus, my other uncle's a union painter. So we just we just know what it takes to serve other people, and that's that's what I'm looking to do with this, with this uh candidacy.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

Unlike the dog question, I'm gonna ask you a very hard question.

SPEAKER_01 28:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 28:33

Um your opponent is gonna attack you. What are they gonna say about you and what is what is your response?

SPEAKER_01 28:43

That's a good question. You know, I've only met my opponent once, and it was before well, it was probably just as I entered the race, so I don't think she knew that I was in the race. It was very cordial. I just said hello. I don't know her personally. So as far as I'm concerned, I'm running a very clean race. Because I don't know her, because I don't know her uh character, I could only judge based on what she has done as a legislator and even early before that as a city council. Um so I would imagine that they would probably try and, or she would probably try and connect me somehow to federal politics because that's what a lot of local politics try and do. Well, he's Republican or he's conservative, so he must be a Trump guy or a MAGA guy or this or that. So I could imagine that would probably be coming down the pike. Um and to that I would just pretty much say, Well, where's your proof? If you're gonna say something like that, surely you should have some proof, right? Like you should be able to say, you know, here's why I think that. Now, on the contrary, I simp simply say this, and I'm like, you know, my I'm in this race because I saw a need. I saw a breakdown of what the people want versus what the people are getting from our legislator. I saw a breakdown from when flooding happens and people promising things to what really happens, especially my neighbors here to the left and to the right. So for me, I just look at this as this is not a referendum on me. This is a referendum on my opponent's um history and her uh, you know, legislative actions and her um unwillingness to show up, I think, when it when it needs to be. So for me, it's not personal. It's literally just I believe that I'll do a much better job. And uh I think I'm sort of showing that already with the one instance I told you of the fire victim downtown, you know, one call to the right person, an hour later he got what he needed after weeks of waiting.

SPEAKER_00 30:19

Let's fast forward to November. Someone goes in the booth, they're standing there, the ballot's in front of them. What is the one thing that you want that person to think about before they take that little pencil and s and scribble in the oval?

SPEAKER_01 30:35

Sure. That's a that's a great question. I've thought about this a lot as someone sits there deciding who's gonna get their vote, who they're gonna vote for, what is it that I'd want them to know? And the main thing is I'd want them to know that you have two choices in this election. You have a choice of somebody who has been a career politician. First job was working for the mayor, second job was city council, and from there work their way up to uh county legislator, largely without much opposition. And I would say to think about your life right now. If you think that things are going well, if you think the taxes you're paying are the taxes you should be paying, and if you like the forecast that you're seeing in Yonkers, then continue to vote the way that you voted. Continue to vote for the incumbent and forget I even exist. But if you're really looking for a change, if you're looking for somebody who's coming in looking to make a difference, who has a track record of service in his family. Father was in the the army, he served in the FDNY, he serves as a real estate broker now, helping the people of this county. And if you want someone with a smart business sense who has a track record of being able to build things and uh being wise with their funds, then I would say that I'm your guy. And for me, I I don't put party above people. And I've said that from the get-go, I've said that to the party that I'm running with, I've said that to the opposition party. And my big thing is I genuinely want to help people, and I show up already. I show up to every event that I possibly could. And I think ultimately this comes down to who is the most fit for office, right? Is it the incumbent who has done this for a while and things really haven't changed, and a lot of people door to door are unhappy? Or is it the newcomer, the businessman, the guy who has service in his blood? You know, and for me, I think that that's where it comes down to. I think it comes down to Yonkers needs a change. Voting the same people in is not going to get you a change. Voting someone different if fresh faces, fresh face in is going to get you the change you want. So I hope that that resonates with people and I hope they see that it's a genuine need.

SPEAKER_00 32:32

Dan, I want to thank you uh, you know, for getting to know you a little bit, uh, you know, for our audience. Um most people running, all we know is uh when we walk into the booth. So thank you for taking this time, uh sharing a little bit about uh you know why you're running and your passion uh you know for District 16. And and thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 32:51

Absolutely, Jim. Thank you so much. And to all the people listening and everybody in Westchester, uh vote Dan D'Amico, Yonkers, Westchester County Legislator, District 16.

SPEAKER_00 33:01

I want to thank Dan for coming on and being straight about where the problems are and where the levers are. The further I want to thank Dan for coming on and being straight about where the problems are and where the levers are. The flooding piece, especially, the specificity of what these neighborhoods have been absorbing, and the gap between when the problem was documented and when the infrastructure might actually move. Well, that's the kind of accountability conversation that is too easy to skip over, and I'm glad we didn't skip it. For everyone listening, whether you live in District 16 or not, the issues we talked about today, who gets to own a home here, which neighborhoods keep flooding, and how the county spends two and a half billion dollars a year, those affect every corner of Westchester. Pay attention, talk to your neighbors, know who's on the ballot. I'm Jim, and I live here.