Jen Metzger is the person you call if you want something done. In her town of Rosendale she sits on the town council in her second term and has served more than a decade in local government. But the job doesn't end after office hours. Viewed as someone who will listen, any constituent can call and discuss issues and ways to change things with her.

“I'm the person that gets called,” Metzger told the Democrat in a sit-down interview with the candidate for New York's 42nd State Senate district last week.

In her time on the Rosendale Town Council, first as Supervisor in 2010 and now as councilwoman since 2013, Metzger has worked to solve many issues, bring people together and create effective change in the small, but thriving community in Rosendale.

One of her biggest accomplishments was winning a utilities rate case against Central Hudson. As the co-founder and director of Citizens for Local Power, Metzger worked with a team to successfully change the utility rate imposed on them by the state, and garner a nearly 20 percent reduction. The victory was the first of its kind in the state, and affected more than 300,000 households and small businesses in the service area.

Citizens for Local Power (CLP) is a non-profit organization that works across party lines with local governments in the mid-Hudson region to transition to a locally-based, clean energy economy, which can include community solar, LED streetlights, Community Choice Aggregation and other strategies to reduce the use of fossil fuels and implement clean energies.

Through her many years of experience on the Rosendale town council and as Director of CLP, Metzger now hopes to lead District 42, which includes Sullivan, Ulster, Delaware and Orange counties. Republican John Bonacic left the seat open after a long term.

Metzger never thought she would run for elected office when she and her family moved to Rosendale 17 years ago. While she studied government and politics in school—she has her Bachelor's Degree in Government and a PhD in Political Science—she didn't think she would apply it to a political career.

After earning her doctorate she had two eight-month-old twins and a four-year-old son, so she decided to take some time off and be a mom. She started to become more and more involved in the community while she was raising her kids, joining the Parent-Teacher Association and working on projects with the school.

Public education has always been important to Metzger. When her twin sons were in second grade their public school was closed for budgetary reasons, and the town was left without a school. Metzger said the community was divided over the closing of the school, because many people in the district could not afford paying high taxes. “Communities should not be divided on the question of education of their children,” Metzger said. “We should be united in support of that. It really comes back to how we fund our schools in New York State, we've increasingly been relying on local property taxes; the state's share has been shrinking. And that's a broken system that doesn't help our schools.”

Another broken system Metzger hopes to roll up her sleeves and get to work on is healthcare. New York has some of the highest healthcare costs in the country, Metzger said, and that needs to change. She spoke about how Rosendale's town council saw a 20 percent increase in health insurance costs over one year. “The current system is unsustainable,” she said.

Many people in the district, and across the state, have to choose whether or not to go to the doctor or pick up their prescriptions because they may not be able to afford it. “We shouldn't be in a place like that in modern society,” Metzger said. “I always say you can't have your right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness without your health. This is something we really need to fix.”

Working from the local level has always been how Metzger operates, from lowering utility rates to stopping Pilgrim Pipelines, which would have carried millions of gallons of fracked crude oil through communities from Albany down to Rockland County every day. At the time when the pipeline was proposed, Metzger researched the pipeline and went to a dozen local governments to keep them abreast of the issues and to draft resolutions opposing the pipeline. She was so successful that the pipeline was stopped before it even started construction.

In a time of political division ravaging our communities and the nation as a whole, it seems constituents want politicians who can reach across the aisle to come to solutions. “We need to work together and shift back to rolling up our sleeves, working together and addressing those challenges,” Metzger said. “I have a lot of experience working with people with very different political perspectives.”

Metzger hopes to work in the state legislature to bring a clean energy economy to the district. She states that $25 billion worth of energy spending leaves New York each year, most of which is spent on gas and oil. The fossil fuel industry does not create that many jobs, she says, whereas the clean energy industry is a huge job creator. There are already 110,000 jobs in the energy efficiency sector in the state, and Metzger hopes to grow that number, not only moving away from fossil fuels, but also creating clean and renewable energy.

In her energy work she's brought together a broad coalition of local governments, some with Republican majorities and some with Democratic majorities. “In my own town I take the time to work with each person,” Metzger said. “I'm viewed in my town as somebody that will listen and will work with everyone. I think that's really important.”

Sidebar

On the issues:

Small farms and agriculture: “It's important to the history and the culture, as well as the economy. Our small farms everywhere are really struggling. We in Ulster County lost our dairy farms long ago. They're at enormous disadvantages as Big Ag dominated our economy that we have now. I believe we have a role to play in New York in leveling the playing field and supporting our farmers, we have a responsibility to maintain our agriculture heritage.”

Pro-choice: “There is real concern now that there is an anti-choice majority on the Supreme Court that Roe v. Wade is at risk of being overturned. And it's not just Roe v. Wade, it's other protections of rights: collective bargaining, a range of issues that are potentially threatened now. It's all the more important to pass the Reproductive Health Act in New York, and make sure that we continue to protect a woman's right to choose.”

Infrastructure and transportation: “Infrastructure is a big issue. The broadband here is really bad. I think [good broadband internet] is essential to a modern economy. Transportation is a big lack in Sullivan County; people cant get to jobs. It has much wider implications than getting to jobs; it's a huge problem in getting people to treatment in opioid recovery. We really need to have a public transportation system here.”

Election reform: We have abysmal voter participation in this state. It's very expensive to run elections. That's revenue we can be using to lower taxes, or invest in education, or in other more productive ways. And it greatly increases voter participation. We need to consolidate the primary process, and we need to change the deadlines for registering.”

Party lines:

Democrat, Working Families, Women's Equality