our roots so because we are still a local station we have a new i think talent vibrant quiet charisma politician a sure hamilton and i'll just go over a little bit of ice his impressive resume i don't see how you have time to sleep but your count you've been a councilwoman currently councilwoman west windsor you want governor murphy's transition team label workforce development you're a licensed attorney in private practice or just to accomplish i i feel smaller and stuff and you might have been working for somebody in the fifteenth district but i don't know one thing i want to say you're also we have a story here though you want your story your demographic can you give us some background oh absolutely i was born and  india and bombay and i moved to the united states to go to college in cleveland ohio where did you go to case western case western that's right it's a great school so i stayed at case western for undergrad and then were friends for and so ended up getting married the week after i graduated from law school practical which i will tell you is a crazy time to get married when you're judging working through your final year's exams and then preparing to study for the bar exam and think about your future job where we're going to live from ohio where his family was and is a long long time ohio s when i went to law school here because the legal training is different than what would be required to practice in india but by then you know my husband and i had been dating for four years i felt where we both felt fairly committed and interest were starting now careers were starting and i think we were comfortable with that decision and so we have two children my son karen is fourteen my daughter ava is eleven and we we actually lived in pennsylvania for a while and then moved back to new jersey mostly picked west windsor because of the schools like everybody does we have an excellent school system  so we're very happy here where you judge too fast i want to get back again a lot of you know you're american but you also are indian in a lot of we do have i have to admit maybe of river ridgeview what about your parents are they have a problem with you marrying a caucasian non indian if their class system issue arises not at all in fact my mother spent a few of her years growing up in washington they saw my grandfather was part of the u economic delegation one mandia so he was in d c for a few years in new york for a few years so they were quite comfortable with the idea of me coming abroad for college and coming back really and not coming back now the interesting twist that everybody is shocked they let me do this i'm an only child and so the question they got constantly was you're going to let her go right and so they're  young they're young parents just in their mid sixty's so they travel a fair amount and so we meet them in europe so they don't have to come all the way here and once a year they will come to the united states so my kids are growing up like public service and internationalism a broad view of the world and politics and everything right i think that helps i mean growing up so my mother's father was also the chairman of the indian federal reserve bank is impressive thing and but growing up i didn't have that sense of who he was right he would just by the way when he was just my grandpa but we would have these great conversations about history and ologist and he and i would have these great weekends where he would pick me up and take me off to my grandparents house and we would just have to his great conversations about politics and history and you're the only child to you are old enough to understand the issues we're going to talk to you about the issues whether they're pleasant or unpleasant it doesn't matter and that was very much what my husband and i do with our kids so i was like little adults with common sense  kids are competitive swimmers and they swim for paddy so as you might imagine we spend a lot of time at the pool and driving to and from the pool and when i pick up my daughter and her little eleven year old friend   and i actually i will say to a lot of guy that he helps me a lot and my daughter helps me a lot because we when you break it down to the sump list barebones pieces you're really forced to look at all of the issues exactly you have to go back to that apartment and he said even if it was a vailable where would we put the kids and all of our stuff that we have acquired now i've been ok with getting rid of the stuff but i'm going to keep the kids but the more space and everything right and probably west windsor and you do all these things but why politics you know you know some people told me something and you told me we know that they're starting to get into politics in america because they're a force now i mean but they that well you've got to be on the take and you've got to be it's very black and white you're right you're doing it you're just a very nasty person so i actually did not ever envision being involved in politics i was asked to run for council that i have to say it has been the best experience of my life i have enjoyed the public service aspect of it i have no patience for the politics aspect of it which may mean that my time in politics  short lived who knows but i truly am engaged by the public service aspect of it and let me tell you what that means to me i have spent my last twenty years in my law practice as an employment lawyer which means representing women and minorities generally people of a certain age as they're getting pushed out of their jobs and i hear wrongly or wrongful termination cases and sort of people's livelihoods of people exactly and that has been as i started my own practice i really wanted to focus on i made a specific choice to focus on that area because i felt that we needed to have people speaking for those who could not otherwise speak for themselves one of the least help their lives exactly and make a difference but i sensed just a great amount of frustration and i'm doing this one case at a time i'm not making any differen it's so when when i got to sort of set up on the day i set the at the council meetings and actually argue a point and be able to advocate for something and to be able to move the ball forward and pass a law that could tel appointment or something exactly and so we don't get to address those issues at council at the local level but i had some sense of satisfaction of we were approving projects that i actually spent a fair amount of time last year looking into commercial tax rate of polls to sort of find out how are we taxing our and to tease are we we always talk about how we have too much presidential the burden of  far on the residential not enough on the commercial and research that i did reveals that we are actually not taxing our commercial entities appropriately we're assessing them too low which means they're not paying their fair businesses and encourage business investment encourage businesses coming to new jersey and staying in new jersey so we're going to give them tax subsidies and that is what we saw in west windsor but we've seen it as an get paid more exactly and our taxes in west windsor are high your taxes in princeton are high we are to be perfectly honest these two towns are carrying the rest of the county we pay is significant amount of tax we have high property values we hold our property values they've maintained we have great schools so all of these similarities between west windsor and princeton i think make us the jewels of mercer county  tax them more i want to tax them at the appropriate rates so i'll give you the example of market fair is in their own s e c filings are taxed at their claiming their fair market value to be one hundred four million look we need what you want us to be they'll probably try to say you don't rightly right or something right and so that's you know that's something that we don't we don't need to go further into now but but there are things like that that we can do and no question west downtown well they want princeton right and rhode island it is where i go but you need to make sure that you grow in the right way you need to make sure that our roads and parking and infrastructure can support that type of growth right so i do sometimes have trouble finding parking in princeton especially if you have a university a vent like a regatta or something going on we just don't come into princeton but rather you have to do it or if you don't do it right it's con think that the the people in our administration have been hears and years of experience in planning and community development and i have a lot of respect for them and any time that i have gone and asked a question i she is an impressive woman and she is not doing it for the money you know but she does have a vision and she does have the intelligence and a very quiet way of making sure that she is doing the best for this town and i truly believe probably value what you've got to balance all those things and i will say though and marsar county we do have actually more than other counties more women in leadership roles so if you think of maryland part you think legislative district i think you need more people who are focused on policy and not politics and i would like to see more of that obviously i think that i'm someone who is focused more on policy because i am i enjoy the policy discussions i think if you do not get into the weeds on policy discussions then you are not truly being able to make a difference and so what that takes is a ridiculous amount of research a huge amount of listening if you don't not listen and that you're not going to know what people need and want and what they really listen really lesson one of the things i truly enjoyed about this last sort of very brief run for the assembly there was a that's right so she she was appointed to be our state treasurer which is very impressive and so that left a vacancy in the district that needed to be filled by a convention of the fifteenth legislative district committee people and it had to be done in thirty days so we literally had about two weeks of campaigning and what that campaigning process was was going to the various towns in the fifteenth legislative district and you do your stump speech  said the thing they appreciated most about pay was that i was not afraid to say i don't know the answer to that but i will find out for you or word and i will look into that many said that where some of the other candidates you could tell they didn't know the answer but went to a canned response is that i appreciated your honesty and i think there's no shame in saying listen i don't know the answer to that but here is how i would approach it point of making sure that people have my phone number that people have my business card i do get e mails and text messages from people and i think that one for me that's right and i do always make sure that i get back to people and i think people especially in west windsor people appreciate that so i get e mails you know what's going on so and so road and i'll say i don't know but i'll get back to you and i do get back to him for the port of call access to find the answer for you and expertise to exactly so one of the things i do as as a councilwoman and not sort of in my official role as council but i send out a newsletter  by e mail to anyone who wants to sign up for it and i give an update if there was a particularly contentious issue i always explain how i vote i think you are absolutely entitled to know how i voted for something and why i voted in a particular way and that is your that is that i think that's your duty as as being a resident to ask those questions you actually are frank with people and do your job you find that people will actually maybe even support you have they all agree with you want to be exactly and i think that's actually all anybody ever wants as an honest answer whether you like it or not yeah i think you want an honest well reason and then more growth and everything right away and one of the things we say in our township that is you know it's frustrating is we have volunteer fire departments so to fire companies with probably over one hundred fire volunteers residents who are for nothing putting their lives on the line to save me and my cats and you know and that's important to get out cost a whole lot yet due to the budget if you can't exactly so if you think about let's quantify that if screen i'm happy to add you to the newsletter if you know you can reach out to me anytime my cell phone number is two one five seven three eight zero two two two you're not going on dates oh no i'm not going  and i will say though that it was funny i got some feedback about having a two one five area code cell phone number it's still a well where you still live in pennsylvania and everybody i know including kids and have that cell phone number so please don't be offended that i don't have a six zero nine area code number that's just myself i have one question phone two minutes i only got one from west windsor usually we get questions from the street  old condos are privately own trade so that it's owned by a developer or a management company a private commercial landowner so we in west windsor may not necessarily as a township be able to compel certain changes only or however we do have some affordable housing units that are in and all affordable development and we require and the state of new jersey requires that they mean be maintained at a specific standard so if those units are dropping below certain standards west windsor township has taken a pro active step to make sure that they are anything more than that would really be up to the landlord and the tenant and be governed by the lease well i sure haven't a hope you'll come back maybe you're right run for us i don't know what you're going to be running but we don't you don't know either a how i don't  dark military is on its fourth and it we are we've had about nearly thirty press reviews these are going really good we're also about two and a half years in animals and yeah so it's like right end we're doing our fourth edit and we're going to be heading the sales hopefully have it all ready for ever the world to see for this fall bronze over for halloween and then move on to the next but you know there's there's a lot of but then you also have the freedom shorts that i do the short film fest i also have liberty mask another film fest they do you have the pennsylvania hardcore document i know and a dark military i have six a greedy and i think gear is moving i sometimes i you know i just don't get it i know that when you live it you're learning you can do but still that's a lot of balls and a lot of i think your brain can only keep fifteen things and i think so and you know myself as the actor soltan one has suffered lately because just when when the one area strong the other one you spend a hundred percent your time trying to get a hundred percent financing for your film the fight for five percent of the back then it's insane so why do i do this well go legacy you know you either want to do this or you don't right because if you dwell on that you're not going to do it you don't want to sit there and life at the end and say you didn't give it your all exactly you know i got a network i come from the wrestling world i understand what was like the hustle h do all this cool stuff as a wrestler you know conventions are kind of where you need to be i trained all these m m a guys i got all these ties yet every morning i wake up at six you're going to go an average guy go right back collar so on top of that when you get out then this door opens and it just never ends there when you get out of work you're literally running you're going to run your phone and you don't know what's going to hit you exactly got a lot of a lot of masters the serve here and you have to get back to them and you have to tell them things you you have to get back to him but there are things like when such when you're on a film festival you specially wanted started you have a lot of people that jumped on your wagon was like oh he's doing great he's great and everybody's film and after two years you kind of everyone down you're like listen i'm going to kick this up we're and also you were fair you gave you did to give the time you told them this is going to happen and also it's your baby just like you got a job in hollywood and what you're supposed to give them jobs to now you know you can do the work that way anyway no it's that that's the worst cut through that world so it's like hey i know somebody you know if it's a handsome guy or handsome girl in their twenty's oh you know i know someone is going to get me in there no because if you're just as good looking of them they're not making competition for themselves to get you how does what i know never going to happen mercenary world yes expect that  they should say it's like i can do that and i wish you luck if you work your ass off and you deserve to get to the next level yes and what can i do to make it to make my feel better they know that you're honest straight which you have always been an authentic they should actually be happy for your advice because you tell them what you're supposed to do and you know and stuff and better luck next time charlie yeah it's almost more like a full f you you know i have a life here it is but you also have to realize when you're coming into now you can just film but anything any time you're a boss you're either going to be when you're taking care of everyone you're loved when something goes wrong someone doesn't get a raise someone doesn't get a part someone doesn't do all targets are on you yeah especially again and you have i think you've always been fair you've been fairly straightforward and transparent also you've told people  you're getting i've talked to other people what do you do some due diligence on you like i got to have you but no but you're getting more and you're also a victim of your success there because it's more work and you have to reject more films for you getting more films you get more films right now or to next freedom short to be this is my sixth year calling in to you know as an eighteen i've got the most elections like like the most the men were around the world from around the world so the longer you're around you know the more videos they see of you and everything you know i mean good to have very good promotional real festivals that aren't even looking at your film one of the best when you have a film on you tube at some the best professional way to host your film but if you could get it on the meo you when you have a  played once while one of them gave you a shot duties people just took your money and ran but you can't tell where it came from but it had such a sad world what that this like there's someone there are people out there just looking to get the know what they're doing and you've got some that artists scam artist again or as i always say if you're been around a while and you're giving up paper awards at the end then i you're you're just out for the money i was given the minute i was giving up paperwork my first start of it was no money at the f doing this or you know i get that six years i now communicate like a hundred filmmakers from around the world that works to my advantage you got to stop you know doing your therapy you're running on adrenaline you're obsessed with perfection or you were a little manic that is being depressed yeah no i can't i can't do that because even the few times a year you might get down a little bit the fact they even took a knee once i get up it's like dust is my green and turn right into the hole and i go even further so how do you or you yourself how do you knew your batteries were pleasure do you get you know because of it's like right now i could actually say this is a positive thing with the dark military fourth edit going on two something wrong with george lucas how many times the rate at those first three star wars films you know they walk now i can make a blanket goes back and it makes them blank so i think every director has that but you know it's what again it's legacy you  and everything i'm all about that and you know if you side with something sometimes like i am for abortion or i'm not for abortion you could have someone who strongly had money over here i know someone who said the word white privilege and had like doing something and get hit with a lot of issues that can come out and when the dark military is finally done and out you know the end of this year no aunty at all has any clue to what i'm up to next because i don't want to speak it because up until then when something could distribution so i can't be looking at you know who we heard off you with all that stuff again we're trying to catch a girlfriend opposite sex you maintain a healthy relationship well i tell you right now for any any relationship family actors and actresses like their marriages all fall apart because they're usually sooner or later dealt to name comes off of like it's it's either the business or make the business really and you know i always see that yeah yeah so it's like and top off like you know know sometimes they're not implemented that's why you know because i don't have the time to devote to to figure out and i don't maybe i couldn't do it all because of various reasons but yeah but you know that's why now and yeah i wish i could clone myself and put myself in other areas but you know questions and i don't answer you i'm sorry i have to have time to breathe and drink water another man's complications you are in the biz and no i've noticed that people i don't even know they realize they've got a little lately that you think i'll ask you when they think that you explain everything and hold their hands like you're an you daddy would take care of it you know the plumbing or he'd call so when we were kids and everything then you know he was a man you seem like the guy since you are like like selita as large too you go it is the touch all bases get it done yeah well i and then sometimes like coming off the hot hand of dark military people had me up to be in their films and they'd be like oh we're filming like ninety minutes what yeah no problem and i had one that was a vampire a western that was given a r hey you know we're shooting this short film and you're driving to and from in there and shoot happy their food is going to be domino's pizza for five straight days and they have no plan for marketing have run into that what is this like get out there and you should be an actor should be holding all these directors in check for anything that does not come forward go your database report i am the whatever just report them stay away i don't know i don't know if you could do that and i am the be but i'm just saying more in general what are we seeing here that omnivores you're eating everything you eat everything you eat everything and you also look at what the filmmakers that i have met through my film festival that have like one hundred laurels and one of all those awards the other people stay in touch with you need to network with those this level and i don't think this is a major level that proud of everything no but you you want to when it's a local legend serious credibility film level i don't know the business thank you much but when i go to the focus is everybody running get trying to get something off me i'm like  actors guild nine percent might work three percent only work consistently yes and that means really ninety three percent of just you know and it's also like time's up you know the eighty's actors when ninety's come like literally shut the door on him in the ninety's actors went out and jersey who are you going to be there you can show up and do things so what do you do much i appreciate what you've done but i say this is home why did you want to show that was still is i hope it helps you in some way it does help in some way i think a good way to reach to that soccer i just don't think that's in you know no no no no no that's why i hope it will bother you every time you come i'm like oh my god to make this guy you know he wouldn't do it we didn't want to do what we just heard him say yeah you know i hope we get something out of it you know and i feel bad i can't always healthy i have work out all the time of really good but you're how that which you need you have that one gear but since you have it you can't stop when you've ever said i mean i'm not asking you to go to hawaii which you did and just you know for three days not say a word and at a wall but how do you know your happy being the workaholic anyone who's ever been to my house knows my yard who i called back places and it's been pretty unique that that gets me through a lot you know ok ok so if i went to going to have a bigger i don't like a bigger fish in a small pond what you can do you could go to l a nothing could happen for a year and you learned everything you know mine as far as actors i mean you're right i could be an alignment to want to guys that look at me they're younger and prettier or it i could see you being a producer from i mean because you get the job done and you seem to like the game for sale i mean a bench and you have looked into me had there's there's pop there's a lot of possibilities out there interest see if you could find that niche producer or something out there even if it for a couple months it is but if i don't i my normal day job i'm up a you know i'm up to a month be cation but what if i went to l a just looking for work and all additions you know you're you're going up the hamilton station you're paying to park there your pain train round trip you're spending money to go read and if they like you they're probably calling you back for more time and you feel like i think you're spending two hundred dollars my job which i value i value every minute i get to myself so that instead of a normal vacation day when i'm traveling i'm working to maybe get work right with no the ambiguity is rather high and i think it's really important to like  and tells what they are i am googling so i kept on forgetting that's very true you have to do that's another thing you have to do it because you don't know maybe nothing happens but if something does and they don't so you keep it fresh or like what the hell is this  i always try to do something one not as much as you but at least a couple times a week i do something even if i pull something out and stuff it you know it's not it's what i do you know if people want to use theirs i don't take you seriously and i see some websites i want to run away from gosh yeah that is beyond