meditation healing food living in balance healthy relationships and harnessing the true power of where you are powerful you are advocate for the residents of her district and the state assemblywoman chip easy is the leading proponent for local issues such as efforts to retain businesses and finding remedies for the disproportionate funding issues the family woman has also continued to work to strengthen the rights of crime victims provide mandatory treatment for nonviolent drug offenders enhance transparency in medical billing protect water drinking water from drug contamination and deny bail to dangerous offenders the new jersey conference of mayors recently selected the assemblywoman as a twenty eighteen assemblywoman of the year for her sustained excellence in dealing with difficult legislation across the board the courage of mental health advocacy was bestowed on the assembly women and twenty seventeen and she was also the recipient of the woman's political cause of new jersey twenty sixteen caryle murphy award assemblywoman schip easy hold degrees in politics and psychology from the catholic university of america in washington d c and a jurist doctorate degree from fordham university school of law even before her decision to join the assembly hall issue p z was known for her very active prep participation and leadership in various community organizations the family woman currently lives in the township river a failed new jersey with her husband paul and her two children kayla and easton so please join me in welcoming her to the show welcome to the show holly thank you for happy may well it's so great to have you to tell us more about your background well i am a assembly woman from the thirty ninth district i represent twenty three communities twenty in bergen three worked at the manhattan d a s office as summer associate to supreme court criminal judges and then i went into corporate mergers and acquisitions as an attorney for many years came out of that and went as a solo practitioner in new jersey and helped run the private equity group and kind of fell into this ok so you have a bit of background in finance as well yes somewhere ok so how did you become to be a family woman it's actually a very interesting story i had never run for anything when i was younger i was involved in politics i had more on capitol hill when i was seventeen years old worked for a member of the british parliament had interned in a lot of different capacities u n organization of american states did a presidential leadership program as a teenager but never ran for office never ran for student government so i'm an example of somebody who you know if you ever have passion and want to do something it doesn't matter if you've done it before you can always accomplish it the woman who had helped my see prior to me had been there since i was eighteen years old so i had known her for most of my life she was an incredible woman is an incredible woman and she had decided because of some life issues that she was going to retire but nobody was awa it and she refused to retire until she found kind of a strong woman who was willing to fight to keep the see how long was she there she was there for over twenty years so this was issued here is how long is your position one for every two years continuous correct so of her reelection every two years and the first time i ran and i announce my candidacy less than three weeks after having had a c section give birth to my son east and seven years of age so literally with him in my arms i had staples like a spinal headache i went door to door and ran for office so i gave birth on july sixteenth twenty eleven and went through a special election because charlotte was already on the ballot and so we needed to replace me on to the ballot and i won in the november election self funded it with like seven thousand dollars it's and so how long have you been in your post six years ok so you've had three terms for four and how many more can you have it's unlimited while for myself it's one of those things where i am going to self limit myself and if an opportunity exists to go up somewhere then i will do so otherwise i probably at some time in the near future will go and just for the audience so how many assembly women or men are there in the state of new jersey just to get some perspective on how it works so from a perspective there eighty members of the assembly there are forty members of the senate right now i am in the split up into forty district and every district has approximately a quarter of million people give or take and each district has two members of the assembly and one senator that represents that district ok now when you run have you run against other people oh yes i want each time i did in fact the last election cycle was kind of the precursor i think to what we saw in the congressional cycle this year where i think i was a test case for it and it was honestly one of the him who's awful elections that i had ever been through and if you survive something like that where they just throw the kitchen sink  and i have a lot of money to throw the kitchen sink at you it actually makes you a much stronger person while you're going through it emotionally it's really difficult to do but once you come out the other side it actually puts a lot of things into perspective and naples you particularly in the current climate to fend off and to not internalize or take personally the attacks that come your way i think that's true in life as well i think i you have to be able to do the right thing for the right reasons as well because you know everybody things that legislation is like and it's not it's a whole shade of gray and so there are certain things that will be titled the women puppy and children's act where there could be really good portions of the bill and some really that portions of the bill that may have unintended consequences are moving in poor word if we enact it and it's moments like that where i either have to vote no or abstain on it knowing that i may get a personal attack because somebody is just going to see oh she voted against a women puppy in  children's act and not really understand the nuances as to why i did it oh yeah you can make everyone happy i'm sure has a lot of criticism that comes with your job or your role oh absolutely but that like it more insidious some of the policies that you're working on i think the first how do you balance family life and i guess your career and i don't that's not and i don't know but i just thought of that question when you were telling me about all the things you've done yet be can't it's very difficult to have a seven year old son i have a fifteen year old daughter of a full time law assault allegations that came out of the campaign and so it's it's difficult you try to prioritize so for me weekends or gospel their family time sundays o family days go to my children sporting events go to you know any of those sort of things and then use a lot of face time for when mommy's out and about yeah and you don't get a lot to sleep  you learn how to every once in a while take a time out for yourself and your family and you have to be read shit about those sort parameters so if my daughter has a soccer game and i know i promise to be there i don't care welcomes up i'm going to that soccer game last night my little guy was sick i hadn't been feeling well i had a christmas party at the governor's mansion to go to i ended up calling in canceling going to that so that i could be home with my son and so there are certain things that you learn as a parent as you know a mom that you have to have come first other than some of your other obligations and i think that's really good advice for any career women  right specially someone in your role with so many different things to balance their good for you so we may have covered this already but what are your future plans you know what i've learned never to say never to anything you know if somebody had asked me ten fifteen years ago would i ever be setting my amp today i probably would have been inclined to say no way why why don't i just i was not comfortable being in front as shocking as this sounds to a lot of people i used to be very shy used to be i wasn't even as a lawyer either said a lawyer i wasn't comfortable with public speaking i would break out in hives and i'd like to always kind of be behind the scenes rather  and just with but again you made yourself do that right and you said well yes and i happen to if there was a big issue going on in the state somehow some way i ended up on the committee i ended up being the one speaking out and i think because of my experience both as an attorney and business it gave me a unique perspective on a lot of the issues that come forward and i became kind of the reluctant spokes person for some for those who don't know what it is can you just give a brief summary of what it is and then what you're working on i'm good at so the state of new jersey has a unique location that no other states in the united states have and based upon a series of cases that were decided approximately forty plus years ago called the mount laurel decisions there was a determination by the new jersey courts that the new jersey constitution had this inherent constitutional obligation for municipalities to provide affordable housing and the genesis and the rationale behind those decisions was actually based upon a much different period of time in our state where there was some exclusionary sony and various ordinances were put forth the very arguably had kept minority populations from being able to move into certain communities so  kind of that same premise here we are now in twenty teen where you know sapelo days after recent set of decisions are being told that you've got to allow for thousands of units of new housing to be developed in each of your communities and in some of those communities without having schools the infrastructure the transportation it's creating massive issues of over development without having the appropriate infrastructure to be able to handle it as well as residents in those communities not understanding why there are entire communities flavor is being transformed due to non legislative free zone how does that affect that so if i'm a taxpayer in this district how would it affect me ok so by way of example we have a lot of communities in new jersey that are being told ok you may now have eight nine thousand units of you've now got to allow for two or three thousand new units of housing to be built within the next several years and a lot of this housing is being built pursuant to what are known as pilot agreements payment in lieu of tax agreements and those pilot agreements give kind of a discount to the developer for a built in market rate as well as a portion of affordable housing units in a new property taxes you would pay for your existing home it's a different formula with no money going into your school systems so if you have an influx of children coming into your community if you have  additional things that haven't really been thought through the property taxes are only being paid on the underlying property they're not being paid on the improvements and on the improvements you're having a much reduced amount that's only going to the municipality and a small portion going to the county with generally no money going into your schools so any sort of offset that needs to take place comes from the remainder of the taxpayers creating an affordability for the remaining people in that community and creating a further schism now what about the overcrowding issue well that's a big issue right now we currently are almost maxed out building throughout the state in fact there was a report that done by the pm and watershed project within the past couple of years the spoked natural resources in the state of new jersey and that  so what that one way be good just to play devil's advocate if we had that increase the growth in our communities to have this influx of people in affordable housing some way well where it's going to be problematic is th natural rate of growth within the state according to a rock or a study that was recently done has only been approximately zero point three percent over the past several years and that rate of growth is supposed to be  really kind of continuing on the same pattern we have the huge out migration of people from the state because of our property taxes in texas in general in so high the only increase in growth that we have seen in the state at all is new births and generally immigrant populations mom and the state so and that's only zero point three percent we are now building in some of these communities as if we are going to see a thirty percent by building all of this excess housing and you know isn't now going to deflate the crore and housing market that exists which has been slow to recover in relationship to the rest of the united states so i mean i have a background in real estate investing so what this time bring down the value of the properties surrounding properties and overall real estate value in new jersey it's a variable i have oversupply you're going to have oversupply you already have bank starting to pull back on the financing of some of these projects while developers are financing these rights so it's up to them to get the financing developers are financing them generally using a combination of tax credits as well as  know different funding sources whether or not a ph m s a whether or not it be through different bank and syndicate type of financing utilizing the monetizing the tax credits that they're receiving this well so it's a multilayered type of thing and you know what we're seeing is simultaneously it's mostly one type of product going in all around the state which are high density rental units and not everybody wants to live in a high density rental  and so what we're doing is we have not been providing appropriate housing in our urban communities because in our urban communities they have no obligation to provide affordable housing anymore because they're deemed tall ready have sufficient amounts of affordable housing affordable housing that exists in those communities so oftentimes run down needs a lot of improvement a lot of upgrades people are looking to try to transition from you know what was there already in the urban community and find something affordable within their community where their lives and their friends and everybody around and what we've seen is ultra luxury housing being built in urban communities nothing being done to provide for any sort of new affordable or transitional housing for people and you're just creating a bigger income inequality urban communities where people can't afford any of the new housing and then you're taking a poll of the obligations that the urban communities may have had when you're putting them in suburban areas throughout the state where you don't have public transportation where you have higher cost of living where you have a whole host of things which is going to make it very problematic for somebody who is currently living in an urban community to be able to move into that  so it's just a not very well thought out plan that we are trying to revamp and say you know what it's not working for suburban communities it's not working for in communities let's stop with the rhetoric let's sit down roll up our sleeves and come up with a bipartisan solution to actually address this in a much better manner rather than just having the building lobby throw money at nonprofits to you know try to argue for high density housing all over the entire state yeah and i think it doesn't provide an incentive for anybody if they're coming in and getting free housing it's just another hand i don't think it's a handout per se the housing costs in state are exceptionally high and so we've identified over time and i've been doing the supply as to the catacombs risa people who really need help in subsidizing those the end user so and that's the problem the swell as we've been building one type of product assuming that the end user is the same across heard and it's radically different you have seniors who have lived here at their entire life who have paid off their mortgages who were anticipating continuing to live in their homes but their property taxes have gone so high that their property taxes are now more than what their mortgage payments were so they're losing their homes so you have our seniors you have special needs populations we have the highest rate of autism in the entire country we have one of the largest special needs populations you know for a pretty dense state in the entire country a lot of you know i would go and deliver meals on wheels and one of the mos to me was walking in to deliver meals to an eighty five year old parents who are still taking care of a fifty five or sixty year old totally disabled child and their biggest concern is where is my child going to veterans which have a whole different need then you have millennia old who with lost a lot of our young population who leave the state to go to college you can never afford to come back but they don't want to live in a suburban community where there's no public transportation no jobs and you know the local restaurant bar closes on a clock on a friday night they want to vibrant community they want to be living in jersey city or hoboken or west new york or these areas where there have been no affordable housing options that have been provided then you have to live in suburban communities and due to an illness a divorce a loss of job are struggling to hold on and their homes are being foreclosed upon and they want to be able to keep their children within schools be able to finish out so that their kids don't have enough people who are searching high and low for someplace to live can't find any place and then finally you have generational poverty and generational poverty is a much different situation than the seniors of the just spoke about or the millennial so we just spoke about or even people who are trying to stay within their communities so it's we've been doing this cookie cutter approach for very disparate populations saying that this is the way that it helps everybody  ok so i think the problem is that they have a cookie cutter approach and you have to kind of personalize it or you need more than one solution right like you said a bipartisan solutions that effort just one size fits all kind of thing absolutely ok wow so who are some of the parties who are actually in favor of affordable housing well it's interesting because i think that in my conversations with everybody in all the different players in this nobody's against affordable housing per se it's the implementation of how we're doing it and the mandating over development and come to shoehorn in that in under affordable housing montra then so you have on one and so that's an unfortunate component to this and it's actually what has stopped in the past any sort of real robust discussion about how we can do this better because many of my colleagues didn't want to become the targets of some of the attacks that i have if they even discussed it and so to his credit assemblymen benjy wimberly who is the new head of the assembly housing committee has been wonderful and he understands and he lives in paterson he coaches he's an integral part of the community and he has you know to his credit said you know what this goes far beyond  just kind of name calling and pointing fingers at each other you know it really isn't working for either urban or suburban communities so let's sit down together and figure out a better way to do this well it sounds like it's quite a big issue it's a huge issue the league immunise apologies has really kind of taken on to themselves and the league a municipality is as an organization it's also kind of an advocacy group that is there for every municipality in the state all five hundred sixty five municipalities and they have agreed to come in to take this on as surrounding cried for this year and to really try to put forth reform because they're hearing it from all