When last serving as North Hempstead town supervisor, I built the Town’s first-ever ‘Green Fleet,’ consisting of over twenty hybrid and electric vehicles (EVs) as well as CNG buses acquired through grants from NYSERDA. EVs have dramatically improved in availability, cost efficiency, and range in the last ten years. As Town Supervisor, I will build upon Councilwoman Veronica Lurvey’s plan to build a townwide EV charging station infrastructure and to also fully transition the Town fleet to EVs consistent with state and national standards.. I will also continue to pursue a full regional EV charging network for the public at large and work with our local utility and other providers to enable charging stations to be powered with renewable energy sources.
In addition, when designing and building the Yes We Can Community Center, one of my major accomplishments, I included one of the first EV charging stations in the State of New York.
In my role as Deputy County Executive in Suffolk County, I played a leading role in putting forward Suffolk County’s EV plan to build 1500 charging stations throughout the county and to transition the entire Suffolk County fleet to EVs by 2035. In addition, as part of the “Shared Services” program that I oversee in Suffolk, we worked together to build our first EV charging stations at the Lindenhurst Library as part of our library shared services partnership.
As part of my policy goal to incentivize and complete our transition to EVs, I am committed to ensuring that the natural resources used to make batteries are mined under proper human rights and environmentally sound conditions and that battery recycling is fully pursued and utilized. We will work with our fire departments to develop and deploy safe and effective ways to address battery fires which are less frequent than gas powered vehicles, but a concern nevertheless. And, as indicated above, we will work to make sure that our charging station infrastructure will be powered by renewable energy sources in order to mitigate the effects on our grid and carbon footprint.