>> From WXXI News.

This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

One day to early voting hour connection.

This hour is made tomorrow when early voting starts and this is the last day of conversations with candidates who are going to be on your ballot in a lot of different places.

And for the first time this year, we've been expanding our gaze and trying to bring in the candidates for office for town supervisor positions.

Listeners have been asking us to spend more time on local politics.

We know national politics certainly gets plenty of oxygen, and so we've been trying to do that.

We've been talking to the candidates in places like Perinton and Penfield and in Irondequoit and more.

And today we are welcoming the candidates in the town of Pittsford.

There's an election for town supervisor there.

In our first half hour, we sit down with the Democrat Cathy Koshykar, and our second half hour we will welcome the incumbent Republican Bill Smith Cathy.

Koshykar is with us in studio.

Welcome to the program.

Thank you for being with us.

>> Thank you for having me.

>> You are a Democrat who served on the town board since your election in 2019.

Is that correct?

>> Correct.

I was sworn in in 2020.

>> Okay.

Yep.

and we're going to talk in a moment about why you're running and give you a chance to talk a bit about your background.

I just as a, as a housekeeping matter, we always tell our audience that our goal is to bring candidates together when we can.

We know that your preference in this case was to have separate conversations.

I just want to make sure we understand why that is.

In this particular case.

>> well, I know that there were a lot of scheduling issues, especially on my part.

I'm an attorney in Rochester City Court, which I don't make my own schedule.

The judges do and that that was pretty tough.

But I have found that the campaign to to be veering into a little bit of a negative space, and I thought it would be more productive if we were separate.

>> Okay.

And to be clear, for listeners, I know you know the supervisor.

Well, obviously, you've worked in town government.

So the two of you know each other, you've had to work with him in alongside him.

And sometimes in opposing agendas, but not always.

And so if you're elected supervisor, you're certainly going to be working with people who oppose your agenda.

I suspect I suspect you're going to be willing to sit down in the same room with them 100%.

>> Yes.

As a supervisor or as a town board member, you represent the entire town.

>> All right.

So Cathy Koshykar is the Democrat.

Do you have a website you want to share with people?

>> Yeah, it's W-w-w Cathy.com.

>> And you are running for supervisor at a time when you've spent you know, the better part of a more than a half a decade in town government.

So why the supervisor position?

Tell people a little bit about your background, your career background that kind of led to this, and tell people why you're running for the seat.

>> Okay.

so I'm a lawyer.

I've been one for about 25 years.

I went to Suny Geneseo and then Notre Dame Law School.

I was a corporate lawyer for 20 years.

Worked very hard in that role.

eventually became a general counsel of a local company.

I did have a health scare, and I ended up quitting my corporate job for my health.

I'm much better.

And I've decided to focus my professional life on public service.

it just seemed like the right thing to do if I was going to be spending all that time away from my kids to do something, I feel good about.

So for the past since 2021 I've been a public defender in Rochester City Court working for the Monroe County Public Defender's Office.

I got involved in the the Pittsford Democratic Committee, probably in 2016, and I, for the first time in my life, campaigned for other candidates Kevin Beckford and Stephanie Townsend.

And as I was doing that, I was struck by how many of our residents were were nervous about letting people know what their real political beliefs were.

that they didn't want to, to be open about it and that they didn't feel represented by our local government.

And we've made huge strides since then.

we've elected people to the town board who make a concerted effort to represent everybody.

But I think we have more, more space for improvement.

we did not have someone to challenge our incumbent this year, and I felt it was important to have a choice on the ballot.

And although it was not in my plan to run for supervisor I decided to do that.

I have the qualifications.

I would do a great job.

I do think I can win, and it's,.

I think it's important to the town to to have somebody in the supervisor position who would represent the entire town.

>> Yeah.

I mean, I say this and I said this yesterday when we had a conservative candidate, a Republican who's running for mayor in Rochester, or when we have Democrats who have uphill battles in rural areas, voters need a choice everywhere.

I think it's important that voters have choice on the ballot.

So I understand that disposition of yours saying we didn't have a challenger, I'm going to step up.

I'm going to do it.

and certainly you're in this race to win it.

So if you win it, what's priority one for you as supervisor in Pittsford?

>> Yeah.

So there's a couple things that are rising to the top when you, when you talk to our residents, the first one is road safety.

Honestly people are speeding as they drive around town.

We don't have tons of sidewalks and kids are walking to school.

We have a ton of pedestrian traffic.

and the town has been aware of this issue, and we've worked really hard to to improve safety on our roads.

But I do think there's more work to be done.

There's probably 50 things you can do to slow down a car, and we've been doing some of them, and we need to keep working on it.

so I think the first thing I would do is form an ad hoc traffic safety group to go to each individual neighborhood and figure out where their pain points are, and recommend very specific.

revisions or changes to traffic or sidewalks or whatever it is.

to the town board so that we can be very methodical and data driven about that issue.

The second issue I'm hearing about is just cost of living.

It's very expensive to live anywhere these days, especially in Pittsford, and our residents work very hard to be able to afford to live in Pittsford.

But cost of living is increasing and so I committed myself to be very cognizant of, you know, each decision that's made by the town, how much that impacts people's wallets.

>> What's an example of something that local government can do regarding cost of living?

>> Well, the obvious one is taxes.

we we've kept our taxes flat for a number of years now.

during the, the pandemic in 2020, our current supervisor proposed a tax increase for 2021.

And our our board stopped that.

And I do think it's important to to continue to focus on making sure our taxes don't go up.

It's great to increase services and events and things like that.

And I hope that we can continue to do that.

We provide really great services in Pittsford.

but we we need to focus on people's finances as well.

>> Okay.

Is there a third or another item you want to let people know about your agenda?

>> those are the top ones right now.

From what I'm hearing from residents.

>> Okay.

And and I know that that you're aware that in this campaign there's a lot of heat coming from there's a local Republican committee that has been blasting out emails and I presume an A.I.

video that was briefly up that I saw, I don't know for a fact.

So I'm not going to play the audio here on the program because I don't know the source of it, but it reflects a lot of the emails that I'm seeing.

For example, from some leaders, not Bill Smith himself, not your opponent in this race.

But but people who are certainly pulling for the Republican position here, and one of them is Matthew O'Connor, who now leads the the local Republican Party there.

And in his mailers, he's talking about a couple of issues.

Let me ask you about them.

there's a lot of concern that the Republicans have that if three out of the five town board votes are Democratic, then we're going to see Pittsford turn into some sort of a marijuana den that there's going to be legalized marijuana everywhere, and people are worried about their kids and quality of life, et cetera.

How do you see that?

>> I think that that's one way to scare residents.

I did vote.

Let me back up.

So the New York state did require each municipality to take a vote on whether they would allow marijuana sales in their towns.

at the time that we took that vote, I did vote to allow marijuana sales in Pittsford.

I was very clear at the time that it was so that we could regulate those sales.

The time, place and manner of those sales and be proactive as we did that.

I was hearing from residents that they would be in support of that type of business in Pittsford, but I didn't want it to be in our neighborhoods, and I didn't want it to impact our home values.

So I was advocating for regulation at a local level for those things.

>> I was getting emails and phone calls from residents, and it sounded to me at the time like we were probably at a point where we were 50, 50, where half our residents would have supported it and half would have opposed it.

we had a fulsome debate.

We had public meetings.

The town board voted, and we voted to not allow that.

And I, I am not interested in revisiting that issue at this time.

If for some reason it has to be revisited, I would at this point, I would call for a town referendum on the issue to see where residents really are.

My opponent thinks 85% of our residents would oppose it.

I don't think that number is accurate.

Let's let the residents decide.

>> Okay.

now, the second part of the mailers, the concerns raised by the Republican committee, is on the idea that rental units are going to be pervasive.

If your party wins the supervisor seat or wins the town board, then not only will Pittsford see a lot more rentals, you'll see a lot more lower income housing.

what do you say to that?

>> I have a feeling that I know where that line of discussion is coming from.

So we recently rewrote our zoning code.

It took several years and a lot of effort.

We had tons of public input.

There was a conversation about allowing residents to build in-law apartments on their homes.

So a very a very clearly defined problem has been identified in our town, which is that our population is aging.

We have a lot of older residents, and they don't want to leave the town.

They want to age in place.

They've lived there their their whole lives or for decades, and they feel connected to our community.

during our zoning court zoning code update process, I invited a conversation about whether allowing folks to have in-law apartments in their homes with regulation would allow some of these folks to stay in our town.

they wouldn't have to mow their lawns or, you know, navigate huge homes.

if they were in an in-law apartment and it would keep families together.

It actually also helped families who have adult children who aren't quite ready to be independent.

They could stay close to home and I invited that discussion during a public meeting that we had.

We we debated it at great length.

the the sentiment was that it was not a popular move.

The town board unanimously voted for a zoning code that did not include that provision.

so I would encourage our residents and our leaders to have public discussions when we've identified a problem in our town to bring ideas in, debate them in public, and move on.

We took our vote and we moved on.

I don't think that it's productive to try to politically punish people for being willing to talk about potential solutions to identified problems.

>> Let me take that a little bit further, though.

Do you want to see more rental units in in the town of Pittsford?

>> There is a demand for them among the residents.

So there is actually an apartment building that will be built soon across from the YMCA at the corner of Clover and Jefferson Road.

Our supervisor supported that.

it's being developed by the Danielle family.

It's called Pittsford Oaks.

it's a huge building.

I don't like the size of it.

but there is a demand in our community for rental units.

>> sorry.

Pittsford Oaks is open and available now or not.

in development.

>> Its development.

It's not built yet.

>> Okay, but the supervisor supported it.

Yes.

And so are you saying that it's hypocritical to say for the Republican Party to say we're worried about rental units and then to support Pittsford Oaks?

>> I think that it's inconsistent.

Okay.

But there is a demand for for a variety of housing options.

So the town board is recognized that we during our zoning code rewrite, we rezoned portions of our Monroe County or I'm sorry, our Monroe Avenue corridor to allow repurposing of old buildings, older buildings to have mixed use to allow apartment rental units to be built along with stores things like that.

the Pittsford Oaks project was previously approved by a prior town board.

it was supposed to be Clover Woods.

senior living building.

it was very large.

It was approved by the town board prior to me being on the board.

the Danielle family came to the board and asked us to change the approval to allow it to be market rate apartments.

Instead.

and the town board approved that.

>> I think the phrase that we often hear in the mailers this campaign is below market rate.

The idea that.

So I don't know what the Republican committee would say.

I don't know what the supervisor will say about Pittsford Oaks, but they might say, okay, those are apartment apartments, but those are market rate.

And the town doesn't want below market rate.

>> Yeah, that that is what they would say.

And that's the third attack that that you would see in those those mailers that you mentioned.

the implication is that as soon as I'm elected town supervisor, I would allow section eight or below market or affordable, whatever terminology you want to use homes to be built in our neighborhoods and reduce all of our property values, which is is a silly attack.

Honestly.

so let me let me take a step back and explain how I think they got there.

I'm just guessing.

But when Pittsford Oaks was proposed, I did go to I had a meeting with the Danielle's I asked them to make sure that there was a certain percentage of apartments that would be affordable to young professionals in our community, or older folks in our community.

So, for example my kids go to, well, one of my kids goes to Jefferson Road School and one of their teachers was a young woman who was single, professional woman who couldn't afford to live in Pittsford.

We had a quick conversation about it.

She's great.

it would be, I think, to Pittsford benefit if individuals like my daughter's teacher could have lived in Pittsford.

I'm not talking about section eight housing.

That's an entirely different body of law.

It's a whole different thing.

I'm talking about regular people who would like to live closer to where they work, who are professionals.

and I asked the Danielle's if they could do that.

They said no.

>> Okay, but why wouldn't you, as supervisor, be in favor of below market rate rentals and section eight and housing available to more people?

>> I think that adding all different types of people into Pittsford is positive.

It would be positive for our community.

However, there are a lot of people in our town who would be opposed to it.

And so as a representative of everybody in town, I think that that type of measure would need to be discussed in public at a public meeting.

And debated fully before anything like that went forward.

>> So let me just play devil's advocate a bit here, so I understand the point you're making, that there's a good chance that the majority of the town of Pittsford would not want that.

I get, I get that.

>> Yeah.

>> I also think that there's an argument or conversation to be had about whether leadership needs to persuade more people to be more open.

and what you're talking about is referendum.

Referendum.

Let the people decide.

Do you see it as the the purpose of leadership to say to your residents, hey, you elected me, and I don't think we're open enough, and I think we in Pittsford can be more open.

And here's the argument I would make to you.

Is that part of the job?

>> It is part of the job.

But and that argument should be made when we hit an issue where where the leadership has a very strong opinion, the case should be made.

and then you should be trying to persuade people and then ultimately you do have to represent the folks who who live there.

>> Okay.

And when you said that about the housing, about the mailers that you have a feeling, you know, what it's about.

what do you mean by that?

>> All I was saying is that I think, I, I think I know which conversations prompted the attack.

>> Okay, but are are you concerned that there is something unspoken that's being winked at here?

>> I, I don't know, I can't read the intentions of other people.

I can't assign intentions to them.

I am concerned that when we say we're going to keep Pittsford Pittsford that we are, there is some kind of wink there.

>> Your town's 92% white.

Do you think there's a racial wink there?

>> I don't know the answer.

>> Are you concerned?

>> I think it's entirely possible.

>> Okay.

are you concerned that socioeconomic.

I mean, because I the way I want to close this is just how you see the future of the town.

You've got a good chance to win the supervisor's seat.

as does Bill Smith, who we're going to talk to next.

And you're already on the town board.

You've been serving on the town board.

You could be the next supervisor.

What does a vibrant Pittsford look like in the next two, four, eight, ten years?

>> I think it looks like.

It looks like a community full of people where each person is able to contribute to their community and to their local government.

regardless of where they come from, that we we are all there, whether we're there for our lifetime or we've purchased a house five years ago, whatever it is, we all work hard to be there.

We've all made an investment in our community and chosen to be there.

a vibrant Pittsford is those people, all of them coming together, working together to build local business, to create strong communities to promote neighborhoods and to educate our children and to keep people safe.

>> And I'll close with this.

You know, you talked a little bit about the way that you feel about the importance of understanding where the voters are and trying to represent the will of the people in a town.

Maybe not just your own opinion, but understanding where people are, and so on.

The marijuana vote that Republicans in town want to hit you with.

What what you're telling us is you really felt it was a 5050 issue at the time that you voted to allow marijuana sales permitted with strict, strict regulation.

But you also understand that, you know, over time, as other towns have done this, you've had a chance to see it.

People have had a chance to see it.

Maybe people aren't there right now and that that's not a priority.

That's not something that you would pursue.

Do you think political leaders don't have space enough to change their minds and evolve on issues?

>> I do think it gets difficult.

when everything becomes an attack.

A.D.

So my goal is to try to do the best I can to represent the people who voted for me and who didn't vote for me.

Just everybody in Pittsford and try to not think about how those things can be twisted later.

Changing your mind is is, I think, human.

We all do it.

I hope that we can all learn and grow and get to places where we're open to changing minds and adjusting our mindsets just as part of human growth.

but it is difficult when you know that later on, it'll it'll be used against you.

Sure.

Yeah.

>> And if that referendum happens on marijuana, you as not as the supervisor, but as a resident, how would you vote?

>> I would vote to allow it.

>> You would vote to allow it?

Yeah.

Okay.

last question.

You said one of your big priorities is road safety for listeners who say, okay, as the next supervisor, that could be a priority.

But you've been on the board.

Has there should there have been more work done on road safety?

Have you attempted to do more work on road safety as a board member?

>> Yes.

we have done a lot of work.

We've built a ton of sidewalks.

We've applied for grants to pay for them.

we have lowered our speed limit.

We've bought those little flashing speed reminders as you drive down the road.

All those things there does need to be a long term effort to change.

Maybe the shape of some of our roads to discourage wide open driving.

speeding.

I do think that we need to be able to lobby our, our state representatives and our Department of Transportation to to help us with our state roads that that we can't just change on our own.

right now, the way things work is we send a letter, and then they send one back saying, no.

So I've made an effort to get to know our state representatives.

I'm friends with Summer, Brooke's parents.

They're great people.

But just.

We need to work with our other leadership around the state.

We need to lobby aggressively and and work towards those changes that we can't just make on our own as a town.

>> Cathy Koshykar is the Democrat running for Pittsford Town Supervisor.

Thank you for making time for the program.

Thank you.

Bill Smith joins us next.

I'm Evan Dawson, host of Connections.

We bring you in-depth conversations with newsmakers with people from all backgrounds and points of view in our community.

And it's a chance for you in the audience to join the conversation in various ways.

Two hours every weekday.

We're proud to bring you these conversations, and we look forward to joining you next time on Connections.

>> Support for your public radio station comes from our members and from Mary Cariola Center.

Supporting residents to become active members of the community, from developing life skills to gaining independence.

Mary Cariola Center Transforming lives of People with disabilities.

More online at.

Mary Cariola.

Org.

>> Supporting your favorite programs on WXXI TV and radio is just a click away when you go public at wxxi.org.

It's a convenient and secure way of supporting an important community resource.

Wxxi.org.

Go public and pledge your support today.

>> This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson grateful for the time of candidates who will join us.

You just heard Cathy Koshykar, the Democrat running for supervisor in Pittsford.

The Republican incumbent, Bill Smith, is with us now.

It's nice to see you back here.

Thank you for being with us.

>> Nice to be back with you, Evan.

>> And I want to say, just to listeners, just as we did with Cathy off the top here, our preference is always to bring the candidates together when we can.

The supervisor has been very flexible with his schedule and was willing to come on together.

It was the Democrat in this race who chose not to do that, and we honored that decision.

But I want to thank you for your availability, and thank you for making time for.

>> The program.

I'm glad to be with you.

>> So let me start for why you're running for reelection in the first place.

But let's start with a little bit of background.

You can tell people more about yourself, about some of your career history, and then why you decided to seek reelection.

>> Oh, absolutely.

So in terms of my professional career history, I was a lawyer for 30 years, and after I retired, I had the opportunity and was asked to run for town supervisor.

So I've been in the supervisor's chair now for 12 years.

I was first elected in 2013, and what first got me involved in municipal government was, oh gosh, almost 30 years ago now, when I ran for the town board to support what was called the Greenprint plan to preserve ended up preserving two thirds of the remaining farmland in town from development.

And we called it for the green.

We called it the Greenprint for the future, and we're living in that future now.

so since I've been supervisor, you know, I feel that I've had a role in making Pittsford what it is, which is a stable, successful and vibrant community where we pursue continual improvement for services and amenities for the benefit of the people of the town.

And that's why I decided to seek reelection.

>> What's issue one for you that you want to keep working on?

>> Oh, I want to keep it's hard to do one in particular.

However, issue one, I would say I would say continuing with our program for under our active transportation plan to promote additional sidewalks and to promote traffic safety.

So one of the things I initiated was what's called an active transportation plan.

I dislike the name because it really doesn't tell people what it's all about.

What it's all about is making Pittsford a more walkable and bikeable place where you can walk around and ride your bike much more safely than you otherwise would be able to do that, in turn, leads to our much more aggressive sidewalk program that I initiated first with the East Avenue sidewalk.

That was our first major project.

just this week, we finished the new sidewalk on Barker Road that will enable school kids to be able to have a safer way of walking to school this winter, and next week we will complete our sidewalks on Thornell and Mendon Roads.

And once that's finished, you will be able to walk through Pittsford from the southeast corner by trails and sidewalks up to the village, then from the village all the way up to the Brighton town line without having to walk on the street.

>> So road safety top of the list right now.

But there's a lot of other things going on.

Of course.

>> Absolutely.

>> Your opponent in the race said cost of living is very important for her.

She mentioned you know, I said locally, what can you really do on Cost of Living?

And she said, number one is taxes.

And she said the board prevented the supervisor from getting the tax increase that he wanted in 2021.

And it's important to keep taxes stable.

>> Oh well I will I'll be charitable and attribute that to misunderstanding.

so here's the record that on every budget that the supervisor prepares a budget and gives it to the town board for for approval so on every budget that I have proposed to the town board since 2018 and everyone before that, except for years in which there was a public referendum that approved an increase in taxes.

the board has approved the tax rate that I stated in the budget that was presented by the board for final approval.

I think I know what she's referring to.

That is you do preliminary budgeting and then you do a final budget that you present to the board.

There was one year where we did not have in time, a third quarter tax, sales tax report from the county.

It's on those reports that you base your projections on the basis of the projections we were able to do on limited information.

We had a shortfall.

And if we had had to go forward with that, it could have required households to pay an additional 30 to $40 a year in town tax.

Between that time and the time we I had to present the town board with a final budget for approval.

we got the third quarter tax report.

We were able to redo our projections, and I was able to keep the tax rate flat at its then rate of 315. but that was.

And then the next year I was able to reduce it to its current rate of of 313.

It was 315, reduce it to 313.

So from 2018 to from 2018 to 2022, every budget that I submitted to the town board reduced the town tax rate from 344 per thousand dollars of assessed value to 313 per thousand dollars of assessed value.

And in the five years since then, including the budget, I just proposed for next year, we have kept the town tax rate flat at 313, and that is without any amendment as to tax rate or tax levy by the Town Board.

No amendment to what I proposed.

>> And so taxes will continue to be stable or flat.

>> that, that that is certainly for next year.

They will be and that's my intention.

And that's one of the things I felt was extremely important for people in the town.

>> I know you know Matthew O'Connor well, town leader of the Pittsford GOP.

Do you have you seen the mailings he sent out?

Do you endorse some of the concerns he's raising in some of the mailings?

>> if if he is talking about if he is talking.

>> Marijuana and rental housing, do you share those concerns?

>> I don't I don't share a concern about rental housing.

But there was a time when I owned a rental property in Pittsford and rented it out.

so I don't have a problem with that.

What I do have a problem with is the town board taking the town is.

I have a problem with town government taking the town in a direction that most residents are opposed to.

>> What's the direction?

>> So, for example, here's the direction most residents do not want to see.

Houses in existing single family neighborhoods carved up into rental apartments.

That's there's a big difference between that and the idea of being able to rent out a house in its entirety.

There's nothing wrong with rentals.

It's the idea of that carve up, because that that can destabilize communities.

The best example of this we see right next door to us in East Rochester.

So it is so important to the village of East Rochester to be able to restore duplexes and triplexes to single family homes for purposes of neighborhood stability and improving the neighborhoods that right now, today, if you buy a duplex or triplex in East Rochester, the village government will pay you $15,000 toward your renovation costs.

If your intention is to turn it back into a single family home.

So it's important to keep the integrity of existing neighborhoods.

Now, as to rentals, generally we just adopted and well, in this past spring, we adopted a revised zoning code.

And one of the things that I wanted to make sure we have in it, and which we did have in it, was provisions for additional apartments in Pittsford.

I have voted for two additional apartment complexes in Pittsford.

One of the things we did was to completely reimagine our Monroe Avenue commercial corridor, to adapt it for multi use so we can have shops on the ground floor, hopefully closer to the street and apartments above it.

So no no, no, nobody that I know is opposed to rentals.

>> Well let me put it the way that I think talks about the concern about below market rate.

and is that a concern that you have of seeing more rental units that are below market rate?

>> yeah, I do, and among the reasons I do is because, again, when we did our comprehensive plan, our community survey, we asked residents specifically.

That was one of the questions.

Do you support below market rate?

Government mandated or government subsidized housing?

83% of our residents would not support that.

I think I have a view of my duty as an elected representative, and I think I'm supposed to do just that, to represent, to go in a direction opposite what the clear majority and overwhelming consensus of the town wants at that point.

I'm not really a representative anymore at that point.

I'm more in the nature of a colonial administrator imposing unwanted policies on an unwilling population.

And I don't think that's right.

>> No, I understand that point.

And actually, your opponent in this race and the previous half hour made some similar points.

She said that regardless of where she is on an issue, she wants to know where the town is.

She thinks referendum are important.

We'll talk about marijuana in a second.

We talked about that.

But on the subject of housing, she said that she wants to know where the town is.

She understands that this is not a town that probably wants more below market rate.

And my question to her was, does that make Pittsford more exclusive and keep more people out who you know are struggling to afford housing to begin with?

And is it the responsibility of a leader to say to people, I know that this is uncomfortable for you, but this is a better way to live as a society, and it's a better thing for us to do to be more open minded.

>> To it.

I don't know if it's a better way to live.

And among the reasons is because these policies can often have unintended consequences.

So again, right now, the progressive Democratic mayor of Albany, Kathy Sheehan, is trying to get her city council to rescind the Albany law that mandates a below market rate set aside on all new apartment complexes.

Why?

Because since they put that in, no new apartment complexes have been built.

So it has made their housing crisis even worse than it was when they started.

And I'm glad that my opponent says she wants to listen to what people in the town have said.

But on a number of occasions they have spoken loudly and clearly.

You know, public, public opinion is not always easily discernible.

And of course, when it is, it's never unanimous.

But for example after we had this, the community survey that very clearly asked this question very clearly and very explicitly, she actually introduced legislation for one of our new apartment complexes that would have required a 15% set aside for low income units.

Pittsford Oaks.

no, that was the next one.

But this was Kilburn Place.

Okay.

And people can go to our town board meeting minutes of December 17th of of I'm sorry, not.

No, that wasn't the one.

It was.

Oh, gosh.

Where was it?

It was June 7th of 2020, where she introduced that legislation.

That was after the town had spoken very clearly about this.

then again, you know, we she stated as recently as this past December and again in the minutes of the town board on videos for the town board from December 17th of 2024, where one of my other colleagues in the town board criticized me for going to a hearing for the Pittsford Oaks and saying that on behalf of the people of the town, I was opposed to any outcome that would have required a below market set aside.

She said she agreed with that.

So I'm not so sure.

I mean, I will leave it to you and to the listeners to evaluate the sincerity of my opponent wanting to listen to the public before making up her mind about things, because it's been pretty clear.

>> Where, though, for people who can't afford market rate, they have to live somewhere.

>> Sure they do.

>> Do they just need to not live in Pittsford?

>> No, they need to do what?

you know, it's let me just back up for a second.

It's fascinates me that we are told constantly and correctly that we need, even as a local municipal government, to to act locally, but to think regionally and even globally.

If we didn't do that, there wouldn't be any point to the town's climate action plan, which we're going to be working on in the year ahead, because, oh, how much do Pittsford greenhouse gases really contribute to global warming?

But no, you have to think that way.

And yet, when it comes to housing policy, we're only suddenly allowed to think within the municipal boundaries of each town.

That is not a realistic way of looking at things.

So we have less expensive housing right next door in East Rochester in Henrietta one of the characteristics of any successful community and Pittsford a successful community, is that there will be more demand to move to it, and that demand inevitably increases the value of the housing.

So people who are interested in living in Pittsford and can't afford it right away will be in the position of so many people who live in our town that they find a first place and they work and earn and save, and usually by the time their kids are ready to go to school, they're able to afford a house in Pittsford.

And I have heard this over and over from our residents.

>> Talking to Bill Smith, who is the Republican supervisor of Pittsford.

He's running for reelection.

We heard from the Democrat in the race, Cathy Koshykar, in our first half hour, I should have asked Bill right at the top here.

Do you have a website you want to share with people to learn more about your campaign?

>> Yes.

Vote Pittsford.

>> Vote pittsford.org is the website for the supervisor.

All right.

Let's talk a little about the issue of marijuana, which again, the Republicans in town, not your campaign, but some of some of your colleagues have raised the issue of concern about what could happen if not only Cathy Koshykar wins, but if the town board goes Democratic and they raise a concern about marijuana, go ahead.

>> The town board is Democratic.

Right now.

>> I understand, but but if this election doesn't swing it back in a three, a three, two number, is that fair?

Okay.

>> So yeah, the the the the issue is that there has been a basically a on some important votes which included the marijuana vote.

There's been a bipartisan grouping of Republicans and a Democratic member who felt that they we have an obligation to stand up for the clearly expressed views of the public.

One member of that group is now not running for reelection.

Right.

So we are there is an open.

>> Open seat.

Yeah, yeah.

And so on the issue of marijuana, what your opponent said today was that, in her view, at the outset here and I say when I say the outset, I mean, at a time a few years ago when all municipalities across the state are deciding, are we going to allow it or not?

What are we going to do about this?

And this is a case where home rule, local rule was was favored.

So every town, every city has to decide is gates going to do it?

Does Henrietta going to do it?

We've had Scott Schultz on the program talking about what Henrietta has done.

We've we've had the mayor of Rochester and City council talking about their views on it.

So in Pittsford Cathy Koshykar, who's on the town board at the time, says her read on.

It was it was really about a 5050 issue.

And she said what she's heard from you is that you think it's an 8515 issue against marijuana.

She here's what she said.

She said she voted to at the time to allow marijuana sales permitted with strict regulation because she didn't want sort of an underground market just festering and wherever it wanted to go.

but she recognized that it is a very close issue, that as supervisor, she would want a town referendum before ever revisiting.

But it is not a priority of hers to bring marijuana sales to Pittsford now.

>> Okay, there are a couple of things there.

Towns can only hold referenda under state law on bond financing.

Villages are different.

Villages can have referenda.

So when the village of Pittsford put marijuana up to a referendum, 2 to 1 against allowing referendum, what's the closest thing we could do to try and evaluate public support, to have a series of public hearings?

We had two.

We had two successive public hearings in Pittsford.

At one of those hearings, 80% of the people of the town who came out said they were opposed to it.

At the second one, 85% said they were opposed to it, that apparently impressed my opponent sufficiently that at the end of the second hearing, she stated publicly in the town board meeting that she would vote against it.

she would vote against allowing it.

And then when it finally came to a vote, she voted for it.

That's hence my belief that we are you know, I think it's a legitimate statement that we are one vote away from allowing something again, that the great majority of the people in the town don't want.

And this is one on which, I was I really didn't have a strong opinion about it.

I was kind of curious to see what people in the town would think, whether they wanted it or whether they didn't.

You know, from different towns, the reaction of the public was very different on this question when back when this was voted on and I was I think I was a little surprised that opinion was so strong in one direction.

So if you're going to call what we saw both through both the village referendum and the town hearings, 50 over 50 only a person who wasn't paying attention would come up with that.

>> So for for now, in your view, this is a done deal.

There will be no marijuana sales.

It sounds like you've moved, as you say, more strongly in the direction against it based on what you've seen.

>> based on my respect for the wishes of the people of the town.

And once again, you know, there have been many things in which I wish we could have done a referendum to discern the public's wishes.

And again, it's one of these anomalies of New York State law.

A village can do that.

A town cannot do that.

You can only have a referendum in a town on budget, on bond financing, whether the voters approve it or not.

>> Talking to Bill Smith, who is running for reelection in Pittsford.

And I want to ask you about something that I thought was pretty curious.

My colleague Gino Fanelli reported on the fact that you're the only one that I know of who's suing lock 32 in town over an incident that happened a couple of years ago.

I think you sustained maybe an injury or.

I don't know exactly.

Know the details, but here's my question about the reason I think this is relevant is this.

This is a pretty well known business in your town.

And it looks to me like there was some kind of an issue where you got hurt and you feel that they were responsible for the safety.

Situation at the business at the time.

My question is, I mean, like if I'm on the phone and I'm at a brewery and I'm talking to somebody, I'm not really paying attention, I twist my ankle.

Who's accountable for that injury?

Am I going to sue the business or is it my fault?

What happened in this case.

>> Right after I had arrived a couple of years ago to meet some friends?

I greeted the friends, went inside to get something to drink, and tripped over a rock.

A large rock that was placed in the only only exit from a grouping of chairs.

And so I sought to recover medical expenses for a badly damaged shoulder.

And that's it.

>> That's the whole story.

>> That's the whole story.

And it's over and done with.

>> It was right after you got there.

>> Right after I got there.

>> Hadn't had a drink.

>> Nope.

>> Okay.

And what has happened with that lawsuit.?

>> amicably resolved.

>> So it's done with et cetera.

before?

>> Yes, for a long time.

>> What's the relationship with the business that you have?

>> Perfectly fine.

>> Okay.

Have you been back there as a customer?

I have okay, so it's all good there.

>> As far as I can tell.

>> I only asked just because I. I think if I got hurt, I'd really have to feel like something had happened to me that was unjust for me to sue a business.

>> it was it was an act of negligence or condition of negligence, straight out of a first year law school exam.

>> That straightforward?

>> Absolutely.

>> Okay.

>> Oh, and I had three witnesses there to corroborate all of this.

>> Okay.

But in your view, that's a done deal.

>> Of course it's a done deal because it's done.

>> Okay.

Asked and answered a few more minutes with Bill Smith.

Now, I did ask your opponent.

I'll ask you if you want to add any more issues that are priorities.

So you talked about road safety.

We've talked about taxes, but what else is on the agenda that you look for another term and say, I can't wait to get to work on X or Y or Z.

>> Oh, I think I would say the next big thing for me would be the Climate Action Plan.

So what we did in Pittsford, we completed in the past year a climate action plan for the municipal services to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

And in addition to having that effect, if we reduce the greenhouse gas emissions there it has each of the things that we would need to do stands in its own merits, as well as being more efficient for the town and being better for us going forward.

So, we will be doing that in the in the year ahead and moving very aggressively on that.

The other thing that we'll be doing is to consider reconsider garbage collection.

So several years ago, more than several years ago, maybe seven years ago, I initiated something called the refuse districts, whereby people neighborhoods could form refuse districts where they would band together.

They would the town would engage a waste hauler.

And, they would then pay the town.

So what this has done is for most neighborhoods, this has cut at least in half what they were paying for trash collection.

And in addition they only have one truck coming down the street every week.

This worked brilliantly under our original contractor called Crec.

And then Crec was taken over by another company called Casella.

And it's been nothing but problems ever since.

So I was just on the phone with them yesterday trying to address issues in town where they are taking people's recycling bins away and not replacing them before the next recycle day or for two weeks.

And people are wondering what's going on, what's going on.

And this has been a series of problems.

I've had to have more meetings with them in the six months or so since this acquisition took place than I had with Crec, ever in the seven years.

So we are looking at this is very preliminary.

We are we're in the education phase now of looking at what it might cost to be able to do municipal trash collection as a way of replacing what we have now.

The current contract with Crec now Casella runs through the end of 2027, and we have time to be able to be prepared by then.

So we've talked to our counterparts in East Rochester where they do municipal trash collection.

Again, we are a long way yet from being able to say, this is something we should do, or that this would be more cost effective for our employees, for our employees, for our residents to have.

But so far, the refuse district system, despite the current flaws with the current contractor is still something that works for most neighborhoods.

>> You know, I've spent more time thinking about trash collection locally than I ever have on this program in the last week, because we had one of your colleagues on the program, Kieran Hannah from Perinton.

You're lucky that you don't have a landfill that you've got right next door to deal with.

But, you know, there are certainly the landfill is a big issue there.

So I was looking at quarterly trash collection, pickup bills and things like that.

And I mean, like everything the cost is going up for everybody.

But can the town of Pittsford, I think one of the big questions would be, can the town of Pittsford do this efficiently and cost effectively?

How much do you feel like you know about that already?

>> Oh, I on a preliminary basis, we think that we would be able to do it cost effectively.

But again, as I said, it is very early days yet and we are in the educating ourselves phase of this right now.

So it's we're a long way from being able to say, yes, this definitely is what we should do.

And we wouldn't say that unless we had a definite bead on what it would cost the average homeowner.

>> I don't know too many Republicans who would say, I think the government should take this over, unless you were really sure that you could do it better.

>> absolutely.

And that's the only purpose of looking into into this.

The reason I set up the Refuse District program was because I thought there had to be a way of doing it better.

We saw consolidation in the trash hauling companies, and as with all quasi monopolistic situations, the service goes down, the price goes up.

That's what we're dealing with.

But, you know, it's interesting.

You know, you really learn in municipal government the things that people are concerned about.

So it was a new supervisor.

I scheduled state law says you have to have one hearing for the town budget.

I thought, well, what's more important than the budget I scheduled for hearings and the four hearings.

We had a cumulative total of six people, some of whom four were interested in things other than the budget.

Fast forward to the first year we did our refuse districts.

people do their petitions, and then it goes to town board, and the town board has to vote.

And the room was filled to the rafters with people asking questions about what kind of trash can will I have, what kind of recycling bin, how big will it be?

Will it have wheels?

Can I keep my current bin?

What day will they come?

Can they come up to the garage?

People are concerned about the things closest to home and this is something you learn.

>> I. I can say I am not surprised that it was packed for garbage.

I wish it was packed for budget hearings.

I wish people were just as interested in all of that.

But so it goes here one more time, Mr.

Supervisor.

Your website, so people can learn more.

>> vote Pittsford.

>> Vote Pittsford.

Org over the years, Bill Smith has been on this program in a number of capacities, often as supervisor.

but of course, we've known Bill for, for years.

And I just want to say, as I do to everyone who takes the time to come on this program, it's a great service to our audience and our listeners that you're willing to do it.

We hope that you'll do it no matter what happens.

in the next couple of weeks.

And I thank you for it.

>> Thank you.

Evan.

Glad to be here.

>> Bill Smith is the supervisor of the town of Pittsford, the Republican running for reelection, the Democrat in that race, town board member Cathy Koshykar, joined us in the first half hour.

And we've got a collection of conversations with supervisor candidates, legislature candidates, council candidates, mayoral candidates, all where you find your podcast Connections.

And we've got more Connections coming up in a moment.

>> This program is a production of WXXI Public Radio.

The views expressed do not necessarily represent those of this station.

Its staff management or underwriters.

The broadcast is meant for the private use of our audience.

Any rebroadcast or use in another medium without express written consent of WXXI is strictly prohibited.

Connections with Evan Dawson is available as a podcast.

Just click on the Connections link at wxxinews.org.