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Financial District resident Yuh-Line Niou believes that government works best when its owners know how to operate it. “Everyone needs to know how to get the services they not only deserve, but are legally entitled to,” she says. “And that starts with making sure we have access to our elected officials and the services they are supposed to provide.”
“My vision and my goal is always to bring access to government for everyone. That is something I have been working on almost all of my life,” she adds. Providing this kind of access and service has been a hands-on vocation for Ms. Niou, most recently, during her time as a senior aide to Queens Assembly member Ron Kim, where, “my experience as chief of staff to a legislator is vital for shaping a district budget and building the kind of office the district needs. I have been able to service dozens of constituents per day on a budget of only $85,000. I know that can deliver the same level of service for our district, because I already have a track record of doing it.” Her years working for Mr. Kim make Ms. Niou one of only two candidates in the race for the 65th District Assembly seat who can claim direct experience working in Albany. (The other is the incumbent, Alice Cancel, who won a special election in April to serve out the remaining weeks of Mr. Silver’s term.)
Ms. Niou, who has been endorsed by State Senator Daniel Squadron, City Comptroller Scott Stringer, the New York Times, and the AFL-CIO, says that her priorities in the legislature will spring from, “progressive values because those are the values of this community. We are an extremely diverse community, and that’s part of our strength, but we need an Assembly member who will fight for all our neighborhoods and all our families. I am a progressive Democrat, and I’m committed to strong ethics laws and campaign finance reform.” She lists among her other priorities, “making sure our seniors have the services and support they need; reducing income inequality; investing in our schools and small businesses; protecting our environment and addressing climate change; and standing up for all disenfranchised and marginalized people.”
Her initial areas of focus as a new member of the Assembly will be, “housing affordability, ethics, and resiliency.” Her plans for preserving affordability include, “strengthening our rent laws and ending tenant harassment by landlords. We also need to move with great caution before allowing any new development, and if it is going to happen, we need to make sure it fits the character of our community and provides housing that is affordable for the families who already live here. And we need to make sure any new development includes expansion of our infrastructure, including schools, parks and mass transit.”
She plans to raise Albany’s ethical standards by, “working with the Reform Caucus to leverage the desire of newer members of the legislature to change the system from the inside. Ethics reform wasn’t even touched in the last session, but many legislators realize that the current system of campaign finance not only erodes the public’s trust in government, it also takes them away from doing the important work that the office demands. I will work with both allies and those who may be reluctant to change to hear all viewpoints and develop the consensus we need to reform our ethics and campaign finance laws.”
Ms. Niou’s vision for resiliency begins with the observation that, “there is another storm brewing off the East Coast right now, and it is projected to reach New York in a few days. How are we prepared? What has changed in the four years since Hurricane Sandy? We are literally the tip of Manhattan.” She plans to address this issue by leveraging the existing network of relationships she has already developed in Albany, “which will allow me to begin making progress from day one.”
For education, she says, “our schools produce some of the best students in the city, but they are overcrowded and need resources. I will work to secure funding for a new school at Essex Crossing, deliver the millions that the state owes us from the Campaign for Fiscal Equity ruling, reduce the over-reliance on one-size-fits-all standardized tests, and work to increase the role of parents in our local schools.
“I’m the candidate with experience in the Assembly,” she says. “Our district needs an Assembly member who not only understands how Albany works, but also how it should work,” she adds. |
