EDITORIAL: PREVIOUS DEMOCRATIC PIONEERS PROMISED NEW YORKERS A “NEW DEAL” BUT KATHY HOCHUL, THE EMPIRE STATE’S FIRST FEMALE GOVERNOR, SEEMS INTENT TO SERVE VOTERS A “RAW DEAL”

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EDITORIAL

Gov. Kathy Hochul is demanding the federal government give work permits to the 80,000-plus migrants who landed in New York since Jan. 2022, but she is denying me the permit I need to work in my own home state as an outdoor guide.

"We have one message: Let them work," Gov. Hochul and New York City Mayor Eric Adams said at a joint May 22 news conference.

"They're eager to work," Gov. Hochul emphasized, referring to the so-called asylum-seekers—most of whose claims will be rejected, if they even ask for it (many don't).

"They came here in search of work and a new future, and they can become part of our economy and part of our communities,” she added.

While Gov. Hochul welcomed the migrants, Mayor Adams also acknowledged the heavy toll they were taking.

“The city is being destroyed by the migrant crisis,” Adams said the same week, the Daily News reported.

$8 million a day is how much New York City currently spends to house, feed, cloth and provide medical care to the migrants. $4.3 billion is how much it projects spending to support them through next July, according to Bloomberg News.

Meanwhile, I can't get the license I need to work as an outdoor guide in my own home state, New York. I deserve the same right to work and the same new future migrants do—but Gov. Hochul's state government is not letting me have it. 

I have one message for the governor too: let me work! 

I'm a native, life-long New Yorker. I went to West Tremont Day School in the Bronx and Lincoln High School in Yonkers. I served my fellow New Yorkers as a criminal defense and civil rights paralegal then as a journalist for more than 30 years. 

My work ranged from serious investigative journalism to gonzo. Among many other scoops, I found the traitorous concrete worker who entombed a Red Sox Jersey in the new Yankee Stadium, revealed the secret history of America's first viral video, caught billionaire mayor Mike Bloomberg having an illegal drink in a public park, solved a murder by prison guards, revealed New York City was building a $1 billion jail on Rikers Island (leading to its cancellation), and even beat Hollywood star Russell “Gladiator” Crowe in an spontaneous 7.7 mile bicycle race from Manhattan across the East River to Brooklyn.

Like many Americans, the pandemic caused me to rethink how I wanted to live. Also, the collapse of local journalism made me rethink what I could do for work.

Besides, every once in a while, its fun to bet the table on a pair of twos.

A fisherman and lover of the outdoors since I was a kid, I decided to work as a fishing and wilderness hiking and camping guide. A new generation of people discovered New York's vast Adirondack wilderness during the pandemic, and I want to help them keep discovering it, safely.

To make my dream a reality, I left the City and moved to a small Adirondack town on the Canadian frontier last October. They call it the North Country. There I took all the required courses and successfully passed the tests required to be licensed as a guide by the state agency tasked with issuing the required license—the Department of Environmental Conservation.  

I submitted my completed application Nov. 4, 2022, but so far the DEC has not issued me my license. That's eight months ago. 

"Your application is still under review - we appreciate your patience," a DEC bureaucrat informed me last month.

With winter around the corner and money running low, I'm not sure how long I can last in the North Country waiting for a license, just to work, that may or may not ever come. Other than guiding, regular work is scarce or nonexistent in the North Country—unless you want to work as a prison guard. I don’t, and can’t.

Maybe what I'll do is hop on a bus back to New York City, jump off speaking Spanish and demand asylum—along with the same hotel room and concierge services my old home city is providing to foreigners who never did anything for it or the people who call it home.

Gov. Hochul and her state government including DEC needs to put New Yorkers first, not last. As the Empire State’s first elected female governor, she occupies pride of place in a Progressive political Parthenon. But, where previous Democratic pioneers promised New Yorkers a “New Deal,” Gov. Hochul seems intent on serving her constituents a “Raw Deal.”

Demanding work permits for migrants while denying a professional license to one of her own state's residents is the height of hypocrisy and woke-driven public policy madness. 

Gov. Hochul and the DEC did not respond to a request for comment. If they ever get around to it, I’ll update this report.

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