Voters Deserve a Debate in the 38th Senate District Race

0:00 Speaker 1 Well, Sunday morning, let’s go to Rockland County. With us today is Tom Osa, who runs the Rockland County News. And you have some big news for us this morning on Sunday morning, Tom.

0:15 Speaker 2 Yes, John, thanks for having me on again. Rockland News is calling for a debate between Bill Weber and Joe Rand for Senate District 38. Now, around this time, John, it’s part of the public process to see the challenger and the incumbents for each public office to be able to get together and cordially discuss the issues. And hopefully

0:38 the public can hash out who is the better candidate in order to achieve said public office. Now, we reached out to both of the candidates, and one of them has said, yeah, let’s go. And the other one has been, well, have you ever seen that Bugs Bunny thing, you know, Duck Dodgers in the 24th and a half century? I

0:58 feel there was a bit of dodging from the other end.

1:00 Speaker 1 Tell us, you know, a lot of us are not living in Rockland, so we don’t know who’s who. Who is the two candidates that are running? And that’s for the state Senate of New York State. Yes.

1:12 Speaker 2 All right. So we have Bill Weber. He’s the incumbent. He’s held the Democrat Republican.

1:17 Speaker 1 I don’t even know.

1:19 Speaker 2 Yeah, he’s a Republican. Yes. And he’s held the office since 2022. That office is responsible for, I mean, literally hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars over the past 12 years. A lot of it, for instance, over $ 202 million to local school districts. So the office steers, let’s say, a good chunk of the change that comes out of New York State, the people’s money.

1:45 The challenger, Joe Rantz, He has been taking care of the village of Nyack. He’s been on the board of the village of Nyack since 2021. And is he a Democrat or Republican?

1:55 Speaker 1 Is he a Democrat or who?

1:56 Speaker 2 He is a Democrat, yes.

1:58 Speaker 1 So who’s the good guy? Who’s the bad guy?

2:01 Speaker 2 Well, I’ve got to tell you, you know, as the news, we’re not supposed to say who’s the good or the bad guy.

2:06 Speaker 1 No, but who’s the one refusing to– you said one of them is refusing to– Yes, that’s correct.

2:13 Speaker 2 Who’s that? Yeah, so the Rand campaign, they’re like, yes, let’s go. Let’s go for it. And currently, Bill Weber, the campaign, has not said that they’re going to accept the debate. And from what we understand, on October 1st of this year, there was a public notification, hey, let’s get the debate going. And since then, we have heard buttkicks.

2:36 Is there a reason?

2:38 Speaker 1 Is there anything? Look, you’ve been around for a long time. What’s your gut feeling? What’s the reason?

2:46 Speaker 2 Well, I think it’s hurt feelings. I think it’s hurt feelings.

2:52 Speaker 1 Let me know the address. I’ll send him a box of Kleenex. Exactly. Exactly.

2:57 Speaker 2 Yeah, you know, it’s like, oh, you said this, you said that. You know, we try to report right in the middle. As a matter of fact, according to an independent study, we’re 0.7%, a little bit to the right.

3:08 But we look to look at both sides, John. That’s the whole idea, is like, so that the people can make informed choices, and then when they get to do the election on November 3rd, they have the information they need to make the right decision. That’s the point of this.

3:22 Speaker 1 Okay.

3:22 Speaker 2 So we’re hoping that both candidates get there.

3:25 Speaker 1 Well, Tom Osa... The two candidates is, uh, tell me the two candidates again. Yeah. So Bill Weber, Bill Weber. Yes. Joe Rand. Yes. The challenger. And who is the one that, who’s the one that hasn’t accepted a debate yet?

3:44 Speaker 2 At the moment, Bill Weber’s campaign has not accepted the debate challenge yet, but we put an article out on Rockland news to talk about it. And we’re sharing it around town these days.

3:53 Speaker 1 Okay. Thank you so much for coming on and God bless you. And, uh, We’ll catch up again real soon.

3:58 Speaker 2 Thank you, John.