Jodi Giglio for New York State Assembly 2nd District
Republican Assemb. Jodi Giglio is running for reelection in Assembly District 2. Credit: James Escher
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Seeking her third term, Jodi A. Giglio, 56, continues attentive and effective advocacy for a district centered around Riverhead that is facing all the challenges of a burgeoning area, including how to keep its distinctive feel of Long Island past while transitioning to the future.
Giglio has met those challenges, getting $20,000 to keep the historic but tiny Baiting Hollow library and others like it in good repair while directing more aid to the bustling library in Riverhead. She is monitoring the needs of the Riverhead school district where student capacity has maxed out but residents turned down bonding for expansion. Giglio, a Republican from Baiting Hollow who served on the Riverhead town council for a decade, said the current study of how schools are being funded should look at paying for busing students to nearby districts that are losing population.
Giglio is passionate about her work to help people with disabilities. She has strived to bring more attention to independent group home living and the need to raise salaries to draw more health care workers to these facilities. A major success last year was a new law giving those with intellectual and developmental disabilities a limited real property tax exemption. “It passed unanimously and it wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t work with the minority leader and the majority to get it on the floor,” she said.
Giglio supports prevailing wage and site safety protection for workers so they are not exploited by shady contractors. Recent flooding and erosion in Rocky Point was a wake-up call, she said, for the state to map recharge basins and sumps so maintenance schedules can be set for these sites to better hold runoff rain water in extreme weather events. Such maps are critical to flood prevention efforts and she should focus on getting such a plan approved next session.
Giglio joined a group of 30 state lawmakers who traveled to Denmark to look at wind turbine development with Cornell University’s Climate Jobs Institute to better understand how to transition to a clean energy economy, which she says is key to Long Island’s sustainability.
Democrat Tricia L. Chiaramonte, 53, of Manorville, is not actively campaigning.
Newsday’s editorial board endorses Giglio.
ENDORSEMENTS ARE DETERMINED solely by the Newsday editorial board, a team of opinion journalists focused on issues of public policy and governance. Newsday’s news division has no role in this process.
