Incumbent, 2 challengers seek Assembly seat
Republican Brian Miller faces Democrat Chad McEvoy and Green Party candidate Barbara Kidney in the 101st District.
The Republican incumbent and challengers from the Democratic and Green parties are vying for the state’s 101st Assembly District seat in the upcoming election.
Assemblyman Brian Miller, R-New Hartford, will face the same Democrat he defeated two years ago, Otsego County resident Chad McEvoy. The Green Party candidate is Barbara Kidney of Shawangunk.
The 101st Assembly District is a narrow strip, almost 200 miles long, that snakes south and southeast from Oneida County. It includes parts of Oneida, Herkimer, Otsego, Delaware, Ulster, Sullivan and Orange counties. In Ulster County, the towns of Denning, Hardenburgh, Shawangunk and Wawarsing are in the district.
Election Day is Nov. 3. Early voting starts on Oct. 24.
Brian Miller
Miller first was elected to the Assembly in 2016 and previously was an Oneida County legislator and a town supervisor. Besides the Republican line, Miller will be on the Conservative and Independence lines on the ballot.
In the Assembly, Miller has served as chairman of the Public Works Committee, assistant majority leader and a member of the Ways and Means Committee.
A graduate of Mohawk Valley Community College, Miller has more than 36 years of experience as a mechanical engineer.
On key issues, Miller says:
• The state’s economic policies have failed and that he favors investing state tax dollars to help local businesses and create local jobs.
• He supports Second Amendment rights and will continue to fight for the repeal of the New York SAFE Act — gun-control legislation that was enacted after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
• The decision-making process for school curricula should be at the local level.
• Repairing roads, bridges and related infrastructure is a priority.
• Access to broadband internet service must be widened.
Chad McEvoy
McEvoy lives in the Otsego County town of Westford. Besides the Democratic
line, McEvoy also will be on the Working Families Party line on the ballot.
McEvoy is a project manager at SUNY Oneonta. He also has worked for the American Red Cross, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Heifer International.
McEvoy and his wife, Megan, live on 63 acres with their dog, Nina.
On key issues, McEvoy says:
• He favors investments in green energy, sustainable housing infrastructure, training and transportation to help “keep our rural communities vibrant and competitive, while preserving our most valuable natural resources.”
• He supports a singlepayer health care system that includes “long-term health care, prescription coverage, dental care and mental health care” and wants to “ensure that women’s comprehensive health services are available and affordable throughout the state.”
• Incarceration is not the solution to the opioid crisis and that “we need more programs like that to help save lives.”
• He will work to strengthen organized labor in New York.
• He supports the creation of green-energy jobs. “We do not have to choose between economic growth and protecting the environment,” he said. “We can have both.”
Barbara Kidney
Kidney has lived in Shawangunk for almost 20 years. Prior to that, she lived in New Windsor, in Orange County.
She served on the Shawangunk’s Environmental Management Council for about 10 years, until 2015. In 2012, she cofounded Occupy SoUl (Southern Ulster), based in Ellenville.
She also participated in Occupy New Paltz and is a member of the American Psychological Association and its Division of Peace Psychology.
On key issues, Kidney says:
• New York should increase the standard deduction for state income taxes to “reflect the cost of living in one’s municipality.”
• The climate and en
vironment must be kept “healthy.”
• New York “should promote the safest and most renewable energy possible, making it affordable to people of average means.”
• she favors so-called “ranked choice voting,” in which voters rank candidates in a race by preference instead of choosing for only one.