Podcast Episode 120 Transcript

Episode 120: How The Election Impacts The Real Estate Market

Hey, everyone. November 8 is right around the corner. It's so important to vote. This impacts all of us in so many ways. We decided to run a special election episode, and we're joined this week by the New Era Democrats. We have three amazing personalities that came on the show. These are folks that are fighters, they're activists. They're really, really involved out there in the party on both sides. And they come and they give us their perspective on the candidates that are on the ballot. And November 8 special episode really interesting, amazing insights and personal stories that will certainly touch your heart, if not shake you to the core. Don't miss it this week. Guys, are you ready to bring your real estate game to the next level? My name is James Prendamano. I'm the CEO and founder of Prereal. And over the past 25 years, I've closed over a billion dollars in transactional real estate. Each week, I'm meeting with outstanding investors, high performing individuals, and visionaries operating in the real estate space. These are the people that are actually out there in the real estate game right now getting it done. This podcast aims at bringing anyone's game to the next level. This is the Prereal podcast. Welcome, everyone, to the Prereal podcast. We've got a special episode for you today, folks. Election Day is right around the corner. And look, I've been pretty candid about some of the things that we're seeing on the ground. And when we analyze deals over the years, as we do our SWOT analysis, legislative risk has slowly crept up that list. And now, as crazy as it seems, in many places, the legislative risk sits at the top of the analysis. So if you could think about what a profound impact that has on analyzing your deals and analyzing a portfolio and where you're going to make your next investment. For legislative risk, to be at the top of the funnel was eye opening for us, and it certainly led to a lot of the advice and a lot of the decisions we've made over the years. So we're joined today by three members of the New Arab Democrats. This is an independent political organization. The members we're going to run through here all also have their independent lives and things that they're doing. Small business owners, celia's an agent here. And they've all got their own kind of story. And we thought it would be a good idea if we could bring everybody together, talk about the issues and get some perspective of what they're seeing on the ground, why they're endorsing, the candidates they are endorsing, and some of the impacts that we're going to see on the business side of things, particularly in real estate. So with that, let's start with John Orlando, president of the new era of Democrats. John, thanks so much for joining us. Oh, James, pleasure to be here. Thank you for having us. I feel like you this is really affecting a lot of different things in small business and our daily lives, not just for public safety, but the cost of doing business in the city and telling our children to come back and move back here and be close to us, without a doubt. I'd like to give the audience a little context, John, so can you give us a minute or two on your background? Sure. So I work for the city. I have 26 years with the city. I'm not going to say who, because then it sends out a lot of bells and whistles to different agencies. But I've been to the city 26 years. But I'm involved with the newer Democrats, the political association, for about since 1992. I wanted to get involved in the Rudy campaign, and I joined this independent group, introduced to them and started working with them and volunteering. And over the years we endorsed a lot of different candidates, democrats, Republicans, and most recently this year, we supported Lee Zeldin for governor. And we're also, just to give you our list, and we just recently endorsed Nicole Maligacis and Tom de Napoli for control, just recently as well. So we're independent, and I have a lot of experience working on campaigns. I also worked on city council campaigns, mayoral campaigns, presidential campaign, the congressional campaigns. So I have a feel for the voter and the neighborhoods of New York City particularly. So it's interesting. Clearly, you have a passion for politics, right? Is that something that was in the family, or are you the outlier that got so deeply involved in politics, or is this a family thing? No, I'm the outlier that got deeply involved in politics. My mother was a homemaker. My father worked for the city as well, my brother and sister, same thing, family and civil servants. And I was really, as a kid, and I'd be Rudy Giuliani as a Italian American who was not connected to the Bed. The stereotypes of the Italian American community had affinity for Rudy and how he fought the mob and he fought crime. And there was something about in high school that I remember reading about him and seeing what he did, and I said, here's somebody like I want to help. And that's how I got involved. And just by being involved and doing the street work of campaign. And that's what hooked me into the politics. And that's so important, and I should commend you for it because so often people talk about it and they complain about it more specifically, but they don't do a damn thing about it. And for you to be out there and to be proactively in a bipartisan way, getting behind the folks that you think are going to have the greatest impact for the city, it's kudos to you and a tip of the hat, because not enough of us are doing it. If I can, I'd like to jump over to Peter. He's the Vice president of Ned and, of course, as his own story. Peter, thanks for taking the time today. Thank you. Thank you. Well, I'm one of the lifelong Democrats in New Arab Democrats, and I got involved with newer Democrats probably around 30 years ago during Giuliani when he was running for mayor the second time. And I had a mission because I was receiving because I own a small business for 35 years now. I have 25 employees, and I was receiving parking tickets when I was legally parked. And for the life of me, I couldn't understand why I was receiving tickets when I was legally parked. And I tried to make it a campaign issue, and that advocacy brought me to new Era Democrats. And at that time, which was quite interesting, I banded with a group of ten other companies, and we sued the Dinkins administration in federal court for parking tickets, and it went over to the Giuliani administration. But then we lost in federal court. We felt that we did. Over a five year period, ten companies received 21,000 parking tickets. 17,000 were dismissed. What was interesting about it, through that whole process, the Dot was bringing up congestion pricing then 30 years ago, putting tolls, raising money, because parking tickets isn't about enforcing actual regulations or safety. It's about raising money. And how can you write tickets faster? How can you collect the money quicker? It's not really about enforcing the laws. So now, 30 years later, or 25 years later, when Governor Cuomo got rid of the tolls on the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, I said, oh, my God, congestion pricing is going to come back. Because one of the problems with congestion pricing then was the technology wasn't there, and they didn't want to put a toll on every bridge. But it's funny how the city comes up with ways to pick our pockets. And as being a small business owner, the climate has gotten extremely difficult. If you stop, stand, or stall, you're going to receive a ticket, or my new tickets that I've gotten now, or these dep tickets where somebody witnesses my van Idling for two minutes, and I receive $1,000 ticket, and I have to show up in court. I've reached out, and people have reached out to me. So I know about 20 different companies now that have received these tickets from private citizens, and it goes on and on. The climate in New York City has changed. Besides crime, the business climate is terrible. You stated it well. Where's the investment? If I'm going to invest in a business, what's my return? And if I'm going to invest and take risk? Because when you start a business, it's about risk and where are you going to get return? And that is diminished. Besides that, besides being involved with Ned because sparking tickets and supporting Rudy, I got back actively involved because I lost my father to COVID because I could. He went to a nursing home during March of 2020. And he caught COVID and we got him home and he passed away. And in October of 2020, the week Cuomo came out with his book, I held a mock funeral for Governor Cuomo's leadership and his integrity. I put a coffin in front of the nursing home and my father called COVID. I filled it with 6500 pages of the front cover of his book because that's what he was saying. The death toll was in October of 2020. And I said, you're lying. There's no way 6500 people died. And it was off to the races from that moment on. Trump retweeted the picture of the coffin the next day, and then, like I said, it's been off to the races ever since. I'm really sorry for your loss. It's tough to qualify and quantify when the impacts are as personal as they've been for you. How you've stayed in the fight, what keeps going. We found ourselves when we started in October 2020, we weren't even at the first yard line, we were in the end zone. And every month for the past two, two and a half years, I've pushed the bar forward. I've one of the few people that have met with Governor Hopper. I've met with Tis James. I've met with Hannah Lee. I've met with Brad Lander. I've met with just about every high profile politician, and I've handed them my father's death certificate. And no one can answer. Hoku couldn't answer it. Brandon Appley couldn't answer it, so Shane couldn't answer it. When is my father's death going to properly count? According to the state? Because he died at home, he didn't die in a nursing home. So Cuomo didn't count him, and he still is not counted to this day. These are unbelievable issues that until you're involved and you're connected in this type of personal format and personal way, everybody you hear about stories. There's lots of stories out there. But having the opportunity to connect with you and we've connected before. Offline you start to get a sense of what someone is experiencing on the other side of this thing in such a personal and profound way. There's no words for what's happened here, and I'm not sure we all even understand what the hell happened over the last couple of years. There was so much misinformation, top down, left to right, and everything in between. There was so much confusion, there was so much stoking of fear that there are impacts now and ramifications that we're starting to see play out in what we've called the decentralization of the big cities, right? We're seeing folks, as they've emerged from COVID take a look around and say, this just isn't for me anymore. This isn't the city I fell in love with. This isn't the city that I was so passionate about when I was younger. And they're just up and moving on and closing, you know, closing the book, if you will, on that chapter. And they're just calling it a day. You stayed in the fight. You stayed in the fight in an incredibly visible way. Again, I applaud you as well for staying at it. This is, again, I can't imagine it's such a personal thing for you, but many of us have kind of just pushed our chips in and said, we're done here. It's become really hard as a small business to continue to meet the demands, if you will, while you have these personal connections and things happening around you. And a lot of us have opted to just locate in other places, and we're getting a taste for the open arms that you're greeted with. It really is remarkable. You go to some other states and other locations, and they're welcoming the investment, they're welcoming the opportunity. Yet here we can't seem to get out of our own way. I think a lot of the legislation, I think a lot of what's happened was best intended. Of course, what happened with your dad is a whole another stratosphere I can't even begin to comment on. But from a business perspective, I think it's well intended. I hope that there is a genuine reason for some of the things that we've seen, but it sure has gotten hard to rationalize it, and it's gotten almost impossible to continue to answer the bell every day. This is real stuff we're dealing with here, and it's under reported, if reported at all. We're facing, I believe, the single most pivotal moments in New York City. We're living out those days in real time right now. I think that the next couple of years are going to write the script for at least the time will be on this planet with what we'll see. I believe that the next few years are going to dictate how New York either rebounds or doesn't, and that's why this election episode became so important. Let me jump over, if I can, for a minute to Cdlia Verliasi. Celia is the executive VP of Ned, also an agent that we've worked together for many, many, many years. She's a wonderful activist for the community, a wonderful member of the family here. Celia, always a pleasure. Thank you for taking the time to join us. Thank you, James, for giving us this opportunity to speak about what's happening, what's going on. You're so passionate about the activism and you're so passionate about I mean, folks, if you want to see a resume of groups and activities and charity, celia is the benchmark for this. I mean, there's not an event. It seems like she's not a participant in one way or another. So again, I applaud you for it, and I wish we had more folks, like all three of you. So look, here we are. Early voting is underway. We're less than a week out, and some would argue the future of the city and the state are on the ballot. This go around. Peter, you had said you are a small business owner. What type of small business do you own? Air conditioning. Okay. And I would like to state that during the pandemic not one of my employees took an appointment. So I'm not sure if people will understand how profound of a statement that is. I made the same decision here. I wanted to make sure that everybody was taken care of and everybody was going to get through this thing. Candidly. I didn't anticipate expect, I don't think anybody could have how long this was going to drag out, how long it was going to play out, and the unbelievable impacts we were going to see from a business perspective. Have you begun to return to some sort of normalcy? Are you back at precovid numbers yet? Yes, you are? And were you a special, what was the tag? Special Services. Were you allowed to operate during that period of time? You were? I had to convince people to let me in their homes and their businesses. Right? Yeah. So I was considered essential services. Essential services, that was it. So it's interesting the impacts that we're seeing play out on the ground now from the real estate side, they start local, but they run all the way up into the city and state and certainly the legislative side. We've seen some really frightening things out of Albany with good cause eviction. We've seen New York State decoupled completely from the Opportunity Zone benefit, which has resulted directly in countless tens of millions, probably hundreds of millions leaving the state and heading elsewhere to participate in the Opportunity Zones. Can't seem to put my finger on why or how or where there's not really an answer as to why we've decoupled, but here we are and we're facing some big decisions here. So if someone could take the candidates that you guys have endorsed and maybe run down and give us a little bit of why Net is behind the particular candidate, I think that would be helpful for the audience. I can do tom de Napoli. Tom DeNapoli was one of the I wrote an op ed. I wrote four opeds that got published. My second op ed was in the Post and it was about Tom de Napoli and about what he could do for nursing homes and what kind of audit he should be doing. He responded by calling. He called me on the phone and it was a very emotional call because I was surprised. He called and he came to my father's house and he sat down with my family, all of us, and he came with a box of candy, came by himself and he stood there for almost 3 hours and he just wanted to hear our story and connect with us. And since then I have communicated with him and met with him a dozen times in the last year and a half. He's made time for me as a nursing home advocate for my father for my family. When he released his 18 month audit, he felt it was important that a nursing home family received the audit before the press does. So he released it to the governor's office. Once it was released to governor's office, me and my brother had a zoom with his staff to review the audit. So he's a gentleman, he's a career politician, but I find the empathy, his intellect, his guidance, it inspired me, given all the other politicians that I have met. And just to show folks that are not from New York are familiar, tom is a Democrat. He's a Democrat, and he's the state controller, not the city controller. He's the state controller. Okay, and who's next on the slate? I'll go into Lee Zeldin. I mean, that's the top of the ticket, and he's going to drive a lot of the turnout. Yeah, Lee. We got an opportunity to meet Lee early on before his campaign was taken off in the summer. So I don't know if you remember, the Democrats messed up the whole redistributing process, and we wound up with two elections, and one of them was the governor's primary, which was wound up being pushed back to August with the state Senate and congressionals because they had to do the redistricting, according to the judge. So we met with him shortly before that, and we all liked him, but we all knew, as you say, James, the state of the state and the state of the city. And one of the big issues for us was the crime. It was definitely the crime. Not feeling safe, not feeling safe for our children. And who's going to want to start a business here if they can't be safe? And people are worried about going out and shopping. So the bail reform law was huge. What they did and how that you saw an immediate increase in crime. But something else that I want to keep mentioning to people that you don't realize the parole, the reforms that they snuck in, the government on parole. And there was the incident with the guy getting punched in the face up in the Bronx and knocking somebody out. The guy was out on parole for a recharge. He punches somebody in the face, knocks him out, he goes to court. Now, the bail didn't qualify him to stay in, but why not the parole? So the parole automatically should have been a pro violation, and he should have been sent back to jail. But no, he had to have a hearing within 24 hours for on his pro violation to see whether he should stay in jail. So he didn't get the hearing. So not only was he released as a parole violation for punching this guy in the face, it was also bail reform. And then the governor had to step in and say, oh, go pick this guy up on his pro. That shouldn't be that should be, like, automatic. And that's just something that it's tangible, too. James like, we see it right there every day. More importantly, Lee is a great man. I mean, he's a really good man. He was criticizing the Republican primary for working with Governor Cuomo and for an independent group like us, we want a balance of power in government to push back on any extreme right or left, right. And that's not what happened or happening right now in New York. It's pushed too far to the left that is affecting all our lives every day, and we feel it. And the national issues trickled down to the state, and the response from the state is just not strong enough to help fight back what's going on nationally. And Lee is a good man, a family man. He's a New Yorker, and he's fighting for the right issues. And I'll say this final point on the crime issue. If you want to be partisan, don't listen to me. Listen to the Mayor Adams, the Democratic mayor of the City, and his police commissioner, who are constantly citing recidivism rates as they need to change the laws, because these are the same people that were letting out of jail, that are committing the same crimes and endangering all of us. And nobody's going to want to open a business, travel on the subways, let their kids go to school freely with crime as a major issue as it is. So absolute power corrupts absolutely. Yes. It's just the way that it is. We've seen these shifts over the years. It swings left, it swings right. And any time the pendulum gets too far in one direction, I cringe because it's just like they can't help themselves. It kind of spins out of control. And this is on both sides. And the reason I was excited to have you guys here, Candidly, is because you are an independent group. You're endorsing both Democrats and Republicans. You've got a very objective way of looking at the candidates and the issues. And you're all local, you're all New Yorkers, and you're out there fighting a good fight, right? So we've seemed to have landed in a place that you're hard pressed to find folks that can really apply reason for some of the things that have passed here and some of the things that it's not deniable anymore. You can't hide the fact that New York just doesn't feel the way it used to feel. Right. So, as an example, when they changed the bail law, they didn't include anybody from the other side, include prosecutors and police officers. There are some issues in the social justice reforms that we could talk about. Like if a person gets arrested for minor offense, they sit at jail. We could talk about that but engage everyone in the conversation. And instead, they went all the way to the left side, almost to the point where I'm starting to believe that they just wanted to have less people in jail. So they created these laws so that they don't have to have people in jail. And these left wing progressive politicians just say, look, we got less people in jail. We don't need so many jails now. And that's not safe, because the same people you're trying to protect are the same people that are becoming exponentially, the victims of these same criminals coming back to the same neighborhoods and committing the same crimes and endangering everybody. So you're helping on one and you're hurting on the other. It makes no sense, no doubt about it. You see it, you feel it. It's undeniable that things have changed here. From a process perspective, as a small business owner on the real estate side, it can't be that you can be put in a position where you have to pay your taxes on real estate and you've got the carrying costs that are associated with any transaction, and you're trying to go through an approval process or an entitlement process, that your tax dollars, by the way, pay for the infrastructure for that to even be in place. And it takes two, three, four I'm going on my fifth year, five years on a project that it's not in the wetlands jurisdiction. We're not asking for rezoning. This is nothing crazy here. This is a detached housing development per zoning on 60 x 100 or 67 x 100 lots. We're coming up on the fifth year, and we're in the business. We know everybody to try and navigate the CPC rules because you had mayoral changes, you had elected officials on the way out changing some rules and not accounting for what was going to happen on the other end of it. And it just got frozen in time. So there's now a number of projects stacking up behind hours. And we were screaming about it at first, like, we're not the only ones. Believe me, this has to do with private roads. There's going to be a number of projects impacted by this thing at a time when people need to get back to work. We're coming out of COVID We want to get people back to work. We want to get people again out spending money, feeling good, waking up every day, getting back into their routines, going and hitting the streets. Five years. This reminds me, I grew up in the 70s. I'm a 70s kid, born in 70s. How the safety of the neighborhoods? Like, you wouldn't go to certain neighborhoods. But one thing I remember when I went to college upstate and oianta, I remember leaving for a Christmas break, right to your point. And they had laid the foundation for something. When I came back a month later, there was a building up. And I remember thinking back then, I was 20 years old. I said, that never happens in New York. These projects take years and months to get something done. And that was one of Giuliani's arguments at the time. We have to get business moving. We have to make it more welcoming to business. And we're back to that now with all this regulation, with the economy, and I get an added congestion pricing. I mean, it's mind boggling. Mind boggling. But Seal, maybe you want to talk about Nicole. We can talk about Nicole. I like to talk about lead, too. So go ahead, Seal. Who do we have next on the ballot? Nicole Meliotakis. She has been fighting for us. She's been in Congress. She's a champion. She supports the police, she supports the community. She fights for our bills. It's necessary. We have to keep her in office. And I'm sure she will be in office because everybody knows how she's on the board from us. Okay, so Nicole Mallettokis. And that's in The Congressional. Yeah, let me just add about Nicole real quick. She's been great. We know how long we know her. I know her from the very beginning when she worked for Coned, she worked for Pataki, right? Long time. And then she was served in the assembly. James. I'm sure you know her well. From Staten Island. But one of the things, as soon as she got elected and that was the other thing, too, the polls are never the same. They were talking about this big blue wave, and Trump obviously lost a race, but then all these Republicans, they won seats back in the House, and the poll is one of them. And as soon as she got to Congress, she became an instant leader. Talking about like, listen, this party is different than what it used to be. I'm a daughter of immigrants. And she immediately became a leader on the Fentanyl crisis. She immediately became a leader on non citizen voting. She was out there, she was working hard. I was very proud of her, very proud of her. And we go back a long time. I think she's doing a great job. I think we gotta send her back with a referendum, which saw a large vote, and we got to send them back with a majority. And I think she's going to get a lot of things done. And James, hopefully for you and Peter, bring up business friendly climate. This is the Empire State. What are we talking about? This is the Empire State. We're not the Empire State. We've lost congressional seats, every recycling district for past few decades. This has to be sent a message about one party rule. And it's crazy. Yeah, it's become a challenge. Nicole I do know for a very long time, and she certainly is a fighter. And part of the reason, at least way, way back when I was involved in the party and I had fought for her to get the first nomination from the party, is because she didn't represent the same old, same old. You know, there was this young woman and she was, again, as you had noted, the daughter of immigrant parents, and she was a spitfire. Boy. She was not going to conform because the party wanted conformity. And that's what attracted me to her from Jump Street. So I know Nicole will go out there and continue to represent the district to the best of her ability. Is there anybody else on the slate, guys? Anybody else we want to talk about? I'd like to talk about Lee a little bit. Sure. I met Lee with Ned and I was just very impressed with him. He was a regular guy, a family man, a father. He knew the issues. He understood me. We spoke about addiction, the overdoses that are happening, the crime. We had over 92,000 people. O d that's a lot. We're losing our children, we're losing family members. We have a crisis here. That all comes hand in hand with crime, with Fentanyl and everything. We need to be monitored. We need a strong leader right now. He's a strong leader. He understands the issues. We need somebody that's going to protect our police force. Do you know whether it was over 4000 police are coming here. They're going to retire. They're going to leave wide because they have no support. We need a leader that is going to support New York State. I work here. I'm a New Yorker. But I'll tell you the truth, I'm afraid for my kids, my family and everything that's happening right now. We need to protect our state, our city, our homes, our family, our friends. Another issue is yes, I do do real estate. I have never seen so many homes being listed to flee New York City. They are leaving not by hundreds and thousands. What is that saying? What is the picture that we are what are we reading here? We're not saving our state. It's time to save our state. Protect our state. That's why I'm pleased Allison estimated allison, she's a career police woman. Her father was a cop. She could have been the chief. She resigned to be alongside him because we do need to take back our city. We need to. That's why for him to me, he's great. I adore him and I just want him in. I'm glad you'll mention Alison. I don't know if James, you've had a chance to meet Alison Esposito, but I spent the day with her campaign and she's very dynamic. She's great. Highly intelligent, people person, ready to do the work. Like she's not going to be a lieutenant governor is going to sit on the sidelines and just show up at some events. She wants to get her hands dirty and she's going to go in there and she can be meeting with people and solving the problems and work up a small bed. Took a few small businesses and she was great. She understood the issues, the problems. The new gas hookups, right? You can't have a new gas hook up and I took it to a business. How are you supposed to build business when you tell them. I won't even talk about congestion pricing. Like, I'll let you leave that one. That's another issue. She's a spitfire. Dynamic woman. I agree. I think she'll be a tremendous asset if, in fact, Lee gets elected. Yeah, we've got a neighbor that just came to us. We just bought a building out in Cottonville, and they are going through the same issue where they had their shop that they did business out of for 30 years. They can't afford to keep their house in the shop anymore. They want to consolidate, sell the house and move into the shop. In order to do that, they needed to make some it's an old home that was commercially zoned, but they needed to make some updates and repairs, one of which was put gas heat in twelve months, 13 months. These are average homeowners, right? These aren't people in the business that are conditioned and trained. Not that that is okay, because through these one degree shifts, it became normal for us to have these crazy timeframes for entitlements and approvals. They quit. They gave up. They said, we're selling both and we're out of here. Because of that issue, there's now a street cutting moratorium. They needed to have the gas updated, and to update the gas, they had to cut the street. But now there's a moratorium on cutting the street. It's like it doesn't stop. And these folks, they're getting bounced around from one person to the other at DOB. Again, these are just average people that are looking and really, they're confounded by these issues. They don't understand how this is happening. How is it that these are people that feel we got up every day, we paid our taxes, we went to work, we did what we were supposed to do and now we're in our twilight and we want to retire here and we can't even do that because this moratorium, that moratorium you can't put this you have to have that. These pieces are not a year for them to get simple modifications approved so that they can retire in the building they've operated out of for 30 years. And the alternative is they're calling it a day, but that's where we are. That's the unfortunate reality. New Yorkers have, I guess, a reputation for having thick skin and for being resilient. But this is ludicrous. This is insanity. Now we've passed over thick skin, and we've just gotten to sheer insanity at this point with some things. Look, we need change. I don't know if the answer comes from the right or the left, the top of the bottom. I do know that things need to change. I think this election is definitely got to come from the right. Lee. It's got to be Lee and Allison, 100%. That just automatically brings balance back some sanity. Again, getting rid of Das that are elected and but they don't want to force crime laws like they don't want to arrest criminals. They're worried about like that's not your job when you're in a DA and you're elected, you're supposed to enforce the law. The police are supposed to do their job, which they do, but then right, but the other thing is congestion pricing, James. Adding congestion pricing is going to cost passengers nine to $23 extra to go into Manhattan, or twelve to $82 as the estimates for trucks. Then the already struggling for higher vehicle industry, taxi industry is going to suffer, too, because they're going to pay surcharges as well. They're going to have to pay the surcharges and they're like, how are we going to survive? But also sometimes when they come up with these big plans about the environment and climate and they want to eliminate all cars, you have to think about you're hurting people. These are working class people. These are rich and wealthy people. These are working class drivers. They make minimum wage. They work ten to 12 hours. And you're hurting them. You're hurting their industry. And like you said, James, they got to shut down and close shop. A lot of these owners, these base owners are going to have to co shop. And the real kick in the kioni is we've been paying MTA. Surcharges on our National Grid Bill and utility bills for how many years now? Where's that money? So this is to get better subways. And I want to bring a change of a good point, too, about the fear that COVID decided. So now you want to forget about the crime and people are afraid for safety. You want people to crowd back together on subways after you told them about 6ft apart in Mass, and you wanted to get on buses and subways on top of each other. No more driving. That's why more people are driving, because you instilled that fear of being next to people now. And now you wanted to crowd on subways, get everybody back on the subways. So it's insanity. Insanity. Oh, and Cecilia's point about the opioid crisis. Oh my God, the middle of the opioids. Let's open heroin injection centers so we can safely do use your drugs and let's legalize marijuana, something. You got to put a stop to this stuff. You have to elect a bounce in government. You have to get Lee and Ouse and you need to call in the house because you have to take it all in before you come up, have a conversation, discussion, include more people in the overall long term effects changing. And you know, James, when President Biden said that he was going to no more fossil fuels by 2035, the oil industry said, okay, we're not going to best. So that's why the gas price is up. It's insanity. Like, nobody's thinking, they're just reacting. And that's the problem. Peter, what do you think about congestion pricing? I would just say that I took the trains most of my childhood, and when I turned 20 and I started my business. I stopped taking the trains, and I did not take the train for 2025 years. And then I decided that, let me take the train to the city. I got on, walked in the station. Not one experience changed in 20 years. It was the same peeling paint from the ceiling. It was the same light that broke. It was the same crack in the concrete. It was the same smell. It was the same noisy, screeching sounds. It was the same ride that you couldn't even stand still. I'm saying they spent a trillion dollars in 20 years, and the only difference of that experience was the train cars had air conditioning and the term styles changed. How is that possible that we need to give them more money? If my experience as a writer and a 20 year gap didn't change. So we have to solve the problems at the end before you throw more money at it. That's my experience with the NTA in congestion pricing. Never mind what it's going to do, the business well, throwing money at the problems never works. Never, ever works. But look, at the end of the day, whose fault is it? It's our fault. We continue to cast the votes, right? We continue to put people in office that are doing things that we can't seem to reason and rationalize, and that's why, again, this election is so important. Peter, I'm curious. With congestion pricing, how does that impact you if you're rolling trucks in the city? Yes, I have trucks in the city every single day. Plus I go out into the city myself for estimates and meetings. It's going to be quite interesting. I'm trying to figure out how to implement it. It's going to have to be a charge on top of my service call. Like I have a gas fee now. It's going to be a congestion price fee, and it's just going to price people out of Manhattan. At the end of the day, it gets passed on absolute to the consumer. Small business cannot, folks, small business cannot take anymore. Believe me when I tell you we're all finding ways to hang in at this point. We can't take any more. So these things, when they come down the pipe, there's one answer, and that's we have to pass it on to the customer. And the customer can't take it anymore. We're at our witnesses. I have one more thing I'd like to say about the nursing homes and me being a, like, home Democrat. It's been a quite interesting journey for me because I ended up on the right side of the media. I didn't end up on the left side of the media because the left media was so Trump drunk, they couldn't believe that Cuomo was lying. And then by the time they realized he was lying, they decided not to COVID it. And I've asked every politician, every Democratic politician is for the last two and a half years if Governor Cuomo would have happened to be a Republican, would the Democratic machine two and a half years later still be waiting for an investigation? Or would they gone full steam ahead to save us from the Republican governor? It's very unfortunate for me and my father, and I try to say this too. If 15,000 people died, 100 of them had to be Democrats. How is this a Republican issue? The nursing homes was never a Republican issue. Cuomo made it a political issue and I just wanted to get that point out. I hope the left media wakes up. We need and Lee Zeldin has committed himself within the first 100 minutes to appointing a prosecutor. Lee Zeldin came to my house, sat in my father's dining room table, and told us, my family, that he is going to appoint a special prosecutor and he has made it a campaign pledge since then. And why do we need a prosecutor or we need a bipartisan investigation? We need something with subpoena power. Not to this day. Cuomo, the Executive Chamber, the Department of Pellet and Soccer, no one has been on the testimony trying to understand why nursing homes were the first and only option for COVID patients like we need testimony. We don't need another review. That hopeful is doing. She's committed to a review and we don't need a review. We need an investigation. And Lee has kept his word up about it. The nursing home families are greatly appreciated, whether they're Democrats, Republicans, Independents, or people that don't get involved in politics. We need the truth. People died and the government lied, and we have to understand why. Well, I hope at the end of the day, Peter, you're able to bring some closure to this for you. Again, I can't imagine what you've gone through. But again, I do applaud all of you for standing up, taking the time. I appreciate you joining me on the show. If someone's interested in getting involved in the New Era Democrats, how do they go about doing that? Go to our website. New erabemocrats.org. We have a little sign up page in there and we'll get an email with your information and get the email, we'll send you a response. Right back in the beginning of the podcast, you stated that people don't get involved, but they complain. And I'm going to say to you that I agree with that statement wholeheartedly. And I stopped talking to people. They don't get involved. I don't want to hear your opinion. If you're not going to get off your couch, you're going to get off your couch, you're going to hang a sign up, you're going to show up at a rally, you're going to donate, you're going to call a neighbor, you're going to get involved. Then we have something in common. Regardless of whether you're all for hoping or all for lead. Zelda, you have to get involved. If you don't get involved, I can't communicate with you. That's why I like the group we're in. There's a lot of energy. Celia, you can't control her. She's unbelievable. She's unbelievable. She energizes. She inspires me. John's a perfect diplomat. We've got a really good matt Dows is a career, beautiful politician who speaks very lovely. So, I mean, it's a great group, and I'm very fortunate to be around these people, especially drawing, trying times. I mean, it's great. Op ed's published national recognition. My family was invited to Congress to speak, but we hear for the wrong reasons. We lost our father and we still seek the truth and answers. And I hope that it comes to I hope I can retire. I hope the Arbani family can retire. I feel closer than I ever have with these elders. Well, we appreciate it, folks. Peter, Celia, John, thank you very much for the time. Thank you for the leadership. Thank you for what you're out there doing. Thank you for continuing the fight and not giving up on the state and the city that we all love so much. Folks, if you're interested, the links will be below. And as always, please stay safe.