Veteran municipal law attorney Paula Kay has said she is running for the New York state Assembly to be a voice for the working people in Sullivan and Orange counties.
“It really is a full circle moment for me,” Kay told The Epoch Times. “After advising municipal governments and elected officials for so many years, I felt that it was my time to step up and make decisions to support the people of the district.”
Kay, a Democrat, faces Republican candidate Lou Ingrassia in the open race for the 100th Assembly District. Longtime Democratic incumbent Aileen Gunther is not seeking reelection.
The district covers Sullivan County, the city of Middletown, and the town of Wallkill.
Born and raised in Connecticut, Kay said she developed an early passion for government and majored in political science at Wesleyan University before attending Brooklyn Law School.
After graduation, she went to work for the legislative body of New York City and was assigned to committees on housing and buildings as well as general welfare.
“I wanted to immerse myself in the city government at the time to really learn how government works, how to write laws, and the impact of laws on people,” Kay said.
The day after the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, Kay went inside the building with the then-chair of the Committee on Housing and Buildings to survey the damage—a journey that led to a new city law about emergency lighting in high-rise stairwells.
The next year, Kay followed her husband, Jonathan Drapkin, who was hired as county manager of Sullivan County, to move up to Rock Hill, where she has lived till now.
“I was nine months pregnant, and we decided not to raise our children in the city—we wanted to have land, air, space, and all of the great resources of rural New York,” she said.
While in Sullivan, Kay worked for Assemblyman Jake Gunther in negotiations with the state Department of Transportation about installing welcome signs at highway exits and then as legislative director for Assemblywoman Aileen Gunther in her first year in office.
For about 20 years until 2021, Kay served as deputy attorney for the town of Thompson and advised zoning and planning board members on housing and commercial projects, including the high-profile, multi-year resort district development in Monticello.
Kay was on the team that helped the town of Thompson secure one of few state casino licenses in 2014 and then played a part in getting the project through the planning board and building department processes before the grand opening of Resorts World Catskills in early 2018.
Later, the town’s resort district added Kartrite indoor waterpark and a revived golf club.
“The town of Thompson is really the commercial hub of Sullivan County,” Kay said, noting that team effort was key in getting the above projects through the finishing line.
Another project that stayed with Kay, who now mostly engages in private law practice, was the development of an affordable housing complex for veterans, seniors, and workers in Monticello.
Top Priorities
Kay said affordable housing and health care are her top two priorities and that they are intertwined.The lack of housing has directly hurt the ability of local health care providers to retain and hire workers, which, in turn, hurts the health care quality in the region.
“Garnet Health in Sullivan is closing different specialties because they are having a very hard time attracting workers, and this is going to impact people in Orange County because the hospital there is going to be more crowded and has longer waiting times,” she said.
According to Kay, potential solutions include incentivizing employers to build onsite housing, getting grants for municipalities to update comprehensive plans and zoning codes, facilitating infrastructure buildout with public investments, and offering tax breaks to developers.
As the former town of Thompson prosecutor, Kay interfaced with local police officers and saw how the state bail reform rendered the wheel of justice less efficient, she said.
The 2019 bail law eliminated cash bail for most misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies in New York state over cases where people stay behind bars because they cannot afford bail. Some provisions of the law have since been rolled back.
“The way we need to do it is to let judges have the discretion,” Kay said.
Voice in a Supermajority
Calling herself a moderate Democrat, Kay said she would get a seat at the table in the lower house and be an effective representative for district residents.The Assembly has been controlled by a Democratic supermajority for many years, and the state Senate since 2020, on top of the party’s hold on the governorship for almost 20 years.
“Our district is made up primarily of working people—people who work hard and people who sometimes work two and three jobs, including lots of health care workers and first responders, and they’ve come here because this is their little piece of heaven,” Kay told The Epoch Times.
“They want to be able to drive on safe roads without potholes, they want good quality education for their kids, and they want to have the ability to go to their doctors without driving 25 minutes or more,” she said.
“If I am elected, I’ll be the voice of this district.”
Kay will also appear on the “People Over Politics” line on the ballot.
