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Ian Phillips, a former teacher, union leader and Auburn school board president, is running to represent the 126th State Assembly District under the Democratic Party ballot line this November.
Phillips, who lives in Auburn, will seek to unseat incumbent Republican John Lemondes in a rematch of a 2024 race that favored the LaFayette Republican by 10% points. Phillips is a political organizer with the New York State United Teachers union and once chaired the Cayuga County Democratic Committee.
At least one pollster has identified that the race for the 126th Assembly District will be a closely contested one again.
In mid September, a pollster affiliated with the Democratic Party showed Lemondes holds a three-point lead over Phillips among likely voters — 41% to 38% in favor of the LaFayette Republican.
Lemondes, a retired U.S. Army Colonel, a farmer and a businessman, is running for a fourth-term in Albany. He has served on the Assembly’s committees on Banks; Economic Development, Job Creation, Commerce and Industry; Corporations, Authorities and Commissions; and Environmental Conservation and Agriculture.
“I had just conversations over and over again where we see the same challenges,” Phillips said regarding door knocking and choosing to run for the seat again this year. “Whether you consider yourself a Democrat, or you consider yourself a Republican, or an independent, our elected officials are dividing us into camps, and we’re not getting anything done.”
The district includes the western and southern parts of Onondaga County, as well as parts of Cayuga County.
Central Current asked the candidates six questions about pressing regional and district issues. Below are Phillips’ responses.
Central Current: What is the number one thing you think needs to become more affordable for the people in your district? How will you help make it more affordable?
Ian Phillips: I think top of the issue list right now is utility costs. Yeah, I would say we should ban [utility companies] from making political contributions. If they’ve got enough money to make political contributions, they should be giving relief to people in their utility bills. Secondly, we need to close a specific infrastructure loophole that allows utility companies to pre-build infrastructure and then pass those costs onto consumers.
What we have right now is utility companies pre-building infrastructure for things like data centers and Micron, and that is being borne on the backs of residential ratepayers.
CC: Do data centers belong in your district? Why or why not?
IP: Absolutely not. We have some of the largest freshwater reserves in the entire world and our past, present, and future is built on protecting our water and watersheds. There is no place in the country, and maybe in the world thus far, that is clamoring for data center construction.
Evidence shows that within five years of a data center being built within 100 miles, utility rates go up 250%. We don’t have enough energy generation in New York state as it is. If we’re going to increase the energy consumption by as much as a third to build out just the data centers that are currently in the pipeline, all of us will go broke.
CC: CenterState CEO has estimated that the region needs around 2,500 new units of housing to accommodate for the growth that Micron is going to bring to Central New York. What will you do to get the region on track to build the requisite number of housing units?
IP: We need to build more housing at every level. It’s not just affordable housing. It’s workforce housing. It’s higher end housing. It’s housing for seniors. We do need to cut some of the red tape that we have in New York state, so that people can build more efficiently.
We also need to really focus on building homes that can be starter homes for people that are maybe young in their professional career. Buying your own home is a real central part of the American dream, and for more and more people who work full time, they can’t afford to buy housing in big parts of my district and in Central New York at large.
CC: What is the ideal way of building out our electric grid in a time of increased demand?
IP: I am supportive of another nuclear site in Oswego County. Oswego County has had generations of people that have grown up around nuclear power and have worked in the industry, so I support increasing generation through nuclear.
I also support increasing renewable energy. I want to increase renewable energy by putting it in the hands of residential homeowners and small businesses, so that they can own their own power generation that they control. I have Republican relatives who love to tell me about how low their utility bills are because they have solar panels on their house. We should empower people to own their own energy generation and treat that the same way that they would treat a budget, so that they can lower their bills.
CC: With the likelihood that a new nuclear power plant will come to CNY, what role do you see yourself playing in the potential expansion of nuclear power? Will you facilitate and make sure that a new plant brings benefits to your district? If so, how? Or do you see yourself being on the other side of the issue?
IP: I’m supportive of the communities that want that type of power generation, and Oswego County is really at the top of that list. I want to be able to facilitate that so that both Oswego and my district can benefit from new good union jobs, and hopefully we can all benefit from lower utility rates and have access to the power generation that we need.
CC: What role will you play in assisting Onondaga County in having to do more with less federal funding to provide services like SNAP?
IP: The federal government is failing Central New York, so the state does need to step up. I would like us to redirect some of the corporate handouts that we are giving to businesses and give them to working people.
We love to hand out tax breaks and incentives and this and that, and no one bats an eye. But when it’s time to help working people everyone throws their hands up and says that we’re broke and wants to cut it.
People used to be able to raise families by working at Sears. Right now, if someone works at Walmart or Amazon, 40 hours a week, working hard, they are still qualifying for government benefits. What we are effectively doing is subsidizing mega corporations in this country, and then blaming working people for not having good-enough jobs. These are not good enough jobs because the companies are robbing us of our future.
Election day is Nov. 3. Early voting runs from Oct. 24 to Nov. 1.
Read more of Central Current’s coverage
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