Governor Hochul: “I am committing over $200 million for workforce development all along this I-90 corridor, and making sure that we call it our on-ramp because this is how we're going to create jobs. And I would say that Syracuse should be the flagship of all of them. It's going to happen right here in Syracuse. So, let's make those investments.”
Hochul: “So, never forget that here we are the risk takers or the dreamers or the doers, and we're also the ones who are smart enough to land the largest economic development project in our Nation's history.”
Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul announced that Aurora/Cayuga/Union Springs will jointly receive $10 million in funding as the Central New York winner of the seventh round of the Downtown Revitalization Initiative, as well as Canastota and Brewerton/Hastings as this year’s Central New York region NY Forward winners, receiving $4.5 million each. For Round 7 of the Downtown Revitalization Initiative, each of the State's 10 economic development regions are being awarded $10 million, to make for a total state commitment of $100 million in funding and investments to help communities boost their economies by transforming downtowns into vibrant neighborhoods.
VIDEO of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
AUDIO of the Governor's remarks is available here.
PHOTOS of the event will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.
A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:
Good morning and it's great you back in Central New York. As I've told this story. Thank you. Thank you. My home away from home, you know, and geographically Syracuse is the heart of New York State. We know that. And you know, as Randy alluded to, I am an SU alum, watching all of our teams closely. Our coaches are – Jim Boeheim, the end of an era. Jim Boeheim started when I was at Syracuse, so it was a few years ago. You do the math, it's not in recent history, but I just feel such a close affinity to this area and its people, and so thank you for making me feel so welcome here once again. I also felt an affinity because you come from an industrial area. Along the I-90 corridor, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, we have this strong connection because we remember the good times, the bad times, the really, really bad times, and now the recovery, the rebirth. And so, these regions have endured incredible hardship, but they never lost their aspirations, their belief that things can be better. And there's really this energy that continues to run through this area that I so admire this – this tenacity, this refusal to give up. And it's really what has been so extraordinary so that I put together my fiscal year 2025 budget. There's a lot I want to talk about of what we're doing right here in Central New York and continue to lift the people up, the institutions, up the infrastructure up in ways that we can make transformative.
I also want to recognize, first of all an incredible individual who's been championing our programs, economic development programs, our DRI programs throughout the entire State – someone I consider a dear friend, and let's give round applause to our Secretary of State, Robert Rodriguez.
I want to also thank Randy Wolken. We've known each other a long time. When I was Lieutenant Governor, I never missed any event that involved a shovel or a ribbon. Right? And you were at many, many of them. It just gives me this incredible sense of pride, whether we're out in our smaller communities, we're at manufacturing facilities like this great one here, or downtown Syracuse. Just seeing the fact that, you know, people like you never gave up either and belief in the manufacturing powerhouse that this area was, and we'll continue to be. So, let's give round applause to Randy Wolken, our Co-Chair of the Regional Council.
Former Co-Chair is Robert Simpson, who's joined us again. Rob, thank you for all you do as CenterState, CEO, and again, it's such a, an important role you played as well as many others in helping us recruit Micron to this area. So that'll always be a real feather in your cap as well. So, let's give round applause to Rob Simpson.
A special shout out to one of my partners in government, our Assemblymember Brian Miller. I want to thank him for joining us here today. Thank you. And to all the elected officials who are playing hooky from their jobs. We have a lot of legislators who are in Albany. Brian, I won't tell the Speaker to take attendance today that you're here, but this is important, and I want to thank you for that.
You know, last month I presented a $233 billion spending plan. Now it's – it's a lot of money, but it's also fiscally responsible without compromising on our ambition and that's what the challenge is every single year. We prioritize growth, $6 billion more than the previous year. But the good news is we're not raising taxes because this area has been hit too hard in my opinion, and it has been a driver of people away from our State. So, we have to be able to spend in a thoughtful way, a way that'll be impactful, but also not to put additional burdens on hard working New Yorkers and their businesses. We also prioritize the right fights, would look for common-sense solutions, and think about communities like Syracuse and Oswego and Rome and many others. And before I dive into details, I just want to just– whenever I come here, I think about the future, but just the past and the Erie Canal and the inspiration, the Erie Canal gave all of us. It was an engineering marvel that has still studied today. And we know it wasn't far from here that someone sitting in Debtors’ Prison, I think in Auburn was, Jesse Hawley. Anybody know the Jesse Hawley? Was it, was it, was it Auburn? Someone do the fact checking. You know, you can ask Chat GPT real quick if you want. You don't know if the answer's going to be right or wrong, but you can check. But someone who is a farmer here couldn't get their products to market while sitting in Debtors’ Prison on their own, came up with the vision to say, why don't we connect New York City and dig a ditch all the way to Buffalo? Transforming communities all along the way, including little, tiny Syracuse at the top at the time, and all the communities along it.
I mean, they're spectacular communities. They're so charming, and they lost their luster for a lot of years. And now I'm also very committed as we approach the 200th Anniversary of the Erie Canal, to continue our investments in that canal, but also the communities and people who live along the Great Lakes or the lakes that are— there's Great Lakes and there's lakes that are great. The lakes that are great here in this part of our State as well. So, we're going to be talking about some of the communities that have won awards, and we're going to talk about that in a few minutes. But this area has really been transforming. Manufacturing is at the core of our DNA. We know how to make things here from typewriters at Smith Corona and Franklin Automobile. The Carrier – Carrier Dome. I was there. It was named Carrier Dome when I was a student there. Mr. O'Mara, Scriv talking about pharmaceuticals.
But you know what, we saw this. The jobs went overseas. Unemployment shot up. It just seemed to never come down. And our greatest export were our children – that was so tragic. Our cities, our population of our cities declined. Businesses felt like giving up, but not all of them did. PPC stuck with us and that's why we're here today. I wanted to celebrate companies like PPC for their investment. Over 80 years, they've been here designing components that power telecommunication systems today, and they've been right here in Syracuse the whole time. So, yes, we could have been into some lovely auditorium somewhere to give this speech, but I also want to come here. Where the people are making things, using their minds and their hands and their hearts, and making us so proud of what we do here in New York State, but particularly here in Central New York.
So, to all the people who work with this great company, I want to give you a round of applause. Thank you for hosting us here today. And proud to announce that they'll be investing over $7.3 million to expand their operations, to build new manufacturing and lab space here. And one of my favorite things to say is they'll be creating 100 new jobs, right for this facility. So, let's give them another round of applause.
So yes, we have a great story to tell a great past something all of our children should know and understand of why we are who we are. That great story, but also let's look to the future and what the world will look like for our children and our grandchildren as we take the next steps forward. What opportunities will be there for them to be able to have jobs, stay right here in Central New York, which is what's something many of their parents were not able to do or grandparents were not able to do.
So, never forget that here we are the risk takers or the dreamers or the doers, and we're also the ones who are smart enough to land the largest economic development project in our Nation's history. Yes, we did it right here, and it's called Micron. And that's a name that you're never going to forget because it's going to transform Central New York in ways that you cannot even imagine right now.
And I'm very, very excited about this – over $100 billion over the next 20 years, 50,000 good paying jobs, billions in generating tax revenue and this'll just be our modern-day Erie Canal in terms of the wide-reaching impact. And I can't think of a better place than to have it happen, than right here.
We're already starting to see it come to life with investments, local child care. Randy, you and I sat down and talked about this, and I was very impressed with you years ago before a lot of business people were enlightened about the need to get people to work and why we're missing so many women being able to come to manufacturing jobs and the high-tech jobs and the healthcare jobs that involved research and development. They didn't have a place for their children to be taken care of. And he saw this and we talked about it and I'm really proud that Micron as part of the deal, is now actually currently building child care on site. And so, I want to thank them for that investment,
And the community engagement community, Melanie and Tim, I want to thank the entire community engagement community for what they're doing. And this only continues to grow and also be built by the men and women of labor, and I want to thank Greg Lancette. I don't know if he's here, but Greg, I want to thank him for his role in making sure that this is going to be built with good paying union jobs. And these semiconductor manufacturers are going to hire more and more people.
It's going to help our businesses large and small, and communities across the region are going to reap the benefits. So, also how we get the skills? Okay, now, I promised the CEO of Micron that if they came here and didn't go to other states that I would deliver the workforce they need. I said, “They're smart. We've got great public institutions, great colleges. We have great grade schools, high schools. You have it all here. We have the talent. We have the desire, the hunger, and I promise to make sure they have the skills they need.”
So, I am committing over $200 million for workforce development all along this I-90 corridor, and making sure that we call it our on-ramp because this is how we're going to create jobs. And I would say that Syracuse should be the flagship of all of them. It's going to happen right here in Syracuse. So, let's make those investments.
And that's on top of the $71 million investment we made in the STEAM School. We talked about this. This is going to be a place where we’re educating these kids, creating technologies that you cannot even imagine today. So, we're really in a great position.
But I also want people to know that we're focused on manufacturing, education, workforce. It's going to be transformative. But the bottom of line of all this, we can talk about great jobs, we can talk about opportunities, but the basic fundamental right that every New Yorker has is to be safe.
And for a long time, after the pandemic in particular, people had this sense of insecurity. Crime rates were going up all over this, not just in the big cities. It was happening everywhere. And so, I said my top priority as the Governor of the State of New York is to make sure that New Yorkers are safe.
And over the last two years since I've been Governor, we've driven down violent crime in ways that you could not have seen in such a short time because the numbers were just going up and up and up, and now they're going down and we're back to pre-pandemic levels in Syracuse. The city saw a dramatic decrease in violent crimes, shootings, fatalities, shootings down 37 percent just in two years, murders down 25 percent. That's remarkable progress.
But you can't grow complacent because every incident of violence disrupts a community. It's harmful, it causes trauma for the victims and others in the neighborhood. That sense of insecurity takes hold, and we have to fight against that. That's why I'm continuing to invest $347 million dollars in fighting crime and taking gun violence down.
But also, we have other categories of crimes that are just so persistent. You know, we have the violent crime we can handle that. We know what to do there. But also, we're seeing retail theft, domestic violence and hate crimes are all up, so we're making investments there as well.
The mental health crisis – we have too many homeless on our streets and we're starting to see mental health challenges manifest themselves in our youngest, kids in schools. That pandemic just knocked these kids down so hard. And if you're not a parent or an aunt or uncle and you don't see it, take it from me. I've seen it in my own family members. It has been so hard, that isolation, that disconnection from the norms. That stability or the services that kids were getting in a school that was gone for an important part of their lives, those fundamental years. So, we're having to make investments now, not just in adults in their recovery and their assistance, but also in little kids.
And I want to make sure that every single school provides mental health services because my belief is this, that every dime we spend in helping a child overcome challenges now and helping them get the resiliency and the coping skills is money we won't have to spend for a lifetime of care. So, let's make those investments now and we're increasing over 45 percent – went from $3.3 billion to $4.8 billion.
Building supportive housing units, the Moyer Carriage Lofts, spearheaded by the Catholic Diocese. That's what we're talking about, getting people not just a home that they're entitled to, that they should have the dignity of a home. But also, supportive housing to get the services right where they live. It opens up later this year, 128 units, supportive housing. It's going to be 38 for people with severe mental illness.
As I mentioned, we're going to have the school-based mental health clinics, $22 million dollars right here for addiction treatment programs in Central New York. I've been here at the opening, there’s a number of the centers. They're doing god's work here on earth. The providers, the therapists, the psychologists, everyone who's involved in this are doing such important work for us. We find people on a path to recovery. So, we're focusing on that.
And also, a lot of people don't want to talk about mental health and challenges. And there's one group of people that never wants to talk about it because of the stigma. And those are our men and women in law enforcement. And what is so stunning to me is the fact that members of law enforcement have a 60 percent higher chance of higher rate of suicide than the general population. Think about that.
They see humanity at its worst and it takes a toll. And it's about time that we stood up and say, “We understand, we need you to be strong and healthy when you're out there.” And so, we're going to be investing money. We have additional money, $13 million to help law enforcement services all across the state and get them the help they need.
But it's not just changing mental health, fighting crime, but also making sure we're educating our kids. And we have to invest in our kids today. It's the right thing to do, but also, we're investing in them because they are the workforce of tomorrow and the opportunities that they want to have will be right here for them.
So, I partner with the legislature. We're delivering the largest funding increase ever in education. Think about that. We've had $5 billion over the last two years -- $5 billion over two years alone. I had to make up for lost time. I infused such a dramatic amount of money. It was necessary. Fully funding Foundation Aid for the first time ever and Foundation Aid went up 33 percent. And what that means in Central New York is $55 million more for school aid in this area, a total of $1.8 billion, as well as $23 million in school aid and Foundation Aid.
So, what I want to say is you're going to hear a lot of people saying, “Governor Hochul doesn't care about health care. She doesn't care about education, she doesn't care about the kids.” You're wrong. You're wrong. Or else, why would I have already put $5 billion more than the couple of years before? I invested like no other governor has in our history, making sure that our schools have what they need. We spend more per student by far than anywhere else in our Nation. And what we're also dealing with is declining population. Schools that are not receiving the same amount they got last year have seen an average of 25 to 30 percent decline in population. They're basing the formulas on population of what it was in 2008. Does anybody think that makes sense? Because some schools have more kids, they should get more, and schools that have less don't need as much.
I'm just trying to introduce good, old-fashioned, Upstate common sense into our budgeting, and I'm going to keep doing that. I think we need to talk about and be honest about this, and the fact that a lot of our schools are sitting on surpluses. Okay, that's great for them. But if you have that kind of money, I'll tell you who I'm with. I'm with the kids, I'm with the teachers, and I'm with the taxpayers. So, if you have surplus money, either spend more in the schools, give more to teachers for their resources or give it back to the taxpayers. That's all I'm talking about, my friends. It's all I'm talking about.
We're also going to get back to basics when it comes down to getting rid of debunked theories on how to teach kids how to read. There was a strategy that started in some college years ago, and everybody thought that was the way you teach kids how to read. It was wrong. Our teachers said it was wrong and nobody listened to them until now. We are going to go back to phonics, we're going to go back to the basics and to make sure that teachers have what they need to transition back to the old way that worked. We're investing $20 million statewide into our kids and our teachers so they can have the tools they need to go back to this.
When the kids finally get that great education K through 12, let's launch them into great universities here in the State of New York. I still believe that our SUNY schools can and will be the best in the nation. That's our motto. Excelsior, the best, ever upward. And we're not there just yet. That's why I had a work for the last two and a half years to overcome the lack of investment in our SUNY schools. We have $207 million for SUNY CUNY, and $1.2 billion for long overdue capital projects. We're talking about SUNY Cortland's Communication Studies Facilities $28 million. $42 million at SUNY Oswego to renovate Hewitt Hall, a building where Al Roker once roamed the halls, and also SUNY Morrisville. I know our president is here. Where's our president of SUNY Morrisville? Thank you for – it $22.7 million to upgrade the lab space there as well.
So, we can do this. We can make these investments in the infrastructure of our schools, but let's not forget the infrastructure of our neighborhoods. They need to have clean water, they need to have functioning sewers. We need to have everything working well or else it doesn't matter. And that's why investing in infrastructure is another cornerstone of our Budget. $78.7 million to repair the roads. We're going to bring in more traffic on these roads. Let me tell you, traffic is a good thing. You don't want to have roads that are never being used and are preserved forever. That means nobody's coming. There's no trucks bringing supplies, there's no construction going on. So, I'm happy to have all that happen, but let's continue to repair the roads. And so, we'll improve the roads and bridges.
$52 million for Central New York Regional Transportation Authority. A 5.4 percent increase – you can give that a round of applause if you like. And all of this on top of our ongoing work on the I-81 Viaduct project. A $2.2 billion project, and I'm so excited that this is probably the most important infrastructure project Syracuse has seen in a century.
And number one, we have the right the wrongs of the past, finally once and for all to reconnect neighborhoods that were torn apart by the creation of a highway that, in my opinion, was there because no one cared about the people live there. Same thing happened in the Black and Brown communities of Syracuse, that happened in Albany. Nobody cared about the people lived there and the Black citizens there didn't have political empowerment. They didn't have mayors who listened to them. They didn't have representation on City Councils. It just happened, but I say, “No more.” Enough injustice has been done. It's time to right the wrongs of the past and this project, and I'm really very proud that the courts have stood with us to say, “Yes, you have studied this and studied this and studied this. You've done everything you can.” Let's get moving, because they have been denied too long.
And I want to restore walkability. I've been down there so many times. I was a student in Syracuse. I never understood why students never crossed that line into the neighborhood and went to little restaurants and connected with the communities because there was a highway there. A visual reminder that there's us and there's them. No more – it's us together. It's us together. And that's the unification that's been too long overdue because of litigation and fights. And now the funding's there, the political will was there, the support from the courts is there, and we're going to get this done. So, I'm really, really excited about this. I really am. And this is going to be something that has to happen soon because we have to make up for lost time.
I mentioned the Erie Canal earlier as we approached that anniversary. I think about new infrastructure, old infrastructure, Central New York is home to the longest running still intact portion of Erie Canal, and I want to make sure that these communities remain vibrant. I don’t know if I've told any of you this story, but I took a boat trip from one of the other Great Lakes, Lake Erie, along the Erie Canal through the locks at Lockport. Anybody ever do that? Okay. It's not for the faint of heart. You drop 60 feet and you're holding on for dear life and you hope you don't fall in, but I've always been a risk-taker. I probably wouldn't be standing here today. We took it all the way to the Seneca Canal and went down to Cayuga Lake and we went down to some wonderful communities. It was a very windy day. And is the Mayor of Aurora here by any chance? I really – how are the docks feeling these days?
It was kind of a windy day. I tried to land it safely. I really did. I didn't mean to hit the docks so hard. Hopefully they're okay. but allowed me to dock and walk into your beautiful, beautiful community.
And so, I am one who loves the canal. Every community along it matters, and if you don't live along it, you live close enough to go ride a bike along and take your kids for a hike. Tell them about the history of the people who built it. Hundreds of people died of malaria. Believe it or not.
I mean, it took its toll on a whole community, but people didn't give up. We talked about how hard it was to build during a pandemic. Imagine digging a ditch through winters and the cold of Upstate and keep going through the summers and getting it done in almost no time at all and change in the trajectory of our state and truly our nation.
So we're going to make sure that these canals are there for future generations to enjoy and to celebrate. So we're committing $50 million to repair the locks and the dams and improve resilience along there. And you'll see the benefits. And I'll go out there and make sure they're doing it right. I'll just have to go test it again.
We also have great canal communities like Chittenango and Canastota. The region is home to the most extraordinary state parks around here. We have amazing state parks that must be protected. And so we have $200 million that we're putting toward our state parks, the Selkirk Shores State Park, Green Lakes State Park, Clark Reservation State Park. We're going to keep it going, but also we're embracing the future.
We're going to have EV charging stations, electric vehicle charging stations at Green Lakes and Clark Reservation so people can embrace the future and go to their parks and not worry about how they're going to charge. So we're doing that. And also making sure that our parks are safe.
We had a horrible situation of a little girl kidnapped at a state park a few months ago, and I want to make sure that every state park has security cameras that can identify vehicles that come and go so we can help law enforcement if that ever happens again.
And as we think about Syracuse, it's hard to not forget one of our great treasures and something that gives us hope during these winter months is that the State Fair is just around the corner, sort of. I look forward to going back. I'm always delighted to hear what the butter sculpture is.
Who, by the way, decides what the butter sculpture is going to be? Are they here? I was just curious if I ever have a chance to weigh in on that. I think it's brilliant. I think it's one of the most exciting things and I love the State Fair. I've been going since I was a kid, took my family as well. So we're going to make sure that we continue investing in it, $14 million to make sure that it's maintained and the infrastructure that we've changed in the last couple years is going to be there for a long time. So, let's talk about enjoying the State Fair.
And one of the few last few things we have to talk about is with all these great things going on, businesses coming, people want to stay, people have discovered us, the supply chain for Micron, all the other businesses, and PPC expanding – 100 new people.
Where are they going to live? For the longest time, Upstate has had at many advantages, great schools, low-cost power, affordable housing, plentiful housing. No one says that anymore. Now, if you're already sitting on a house, you know the values are going up. God bless you. That's great. If you're a young person just graduated from school and you want to get out of your parents' basement once and for all, where's that little starter home for you and your young family?
Or where's that first apartment going to be? You know? What about communities with people who have already lived here a long time, or people who have downsized? You know, they don't want to have the house in the suburbs. They want to be back downtown with others and engage the energy that a downtown brings. If we don't build enough housing, we're missing on the opportunity to reach our full potential.
And I believe that to my core. I never thought when I was growing up that that'd be a barrier to our success. To me, that's the only thing standing in the way. So last year I was the first Governor since Rockefeller, and this is not my words, but the New York Times. I'm the first Governor since Rockefeller to actually talk about housing, talk about it, because yes, it becomes very controversial. And people thought we'd walk away after last year and didn't get any home runs.
But you know what? We got on first base, and you have to stay in the game. You don't walk away. You keep playing all the way through. And that's what we're doing again this year. So I went back. I said, localities don't want to be told that if they refuse to allow a project to come in, even though it was approved for its infrastructure and the traffic safety board, and the planning board and the zoning board, but the town board still says no, that there could have been a right of appeal for developers.
Now you don't want that because it's too burdensome. And you don't want to have to grow by 1 percent, which is all we asked for. The localities said, well give us all sorts of carrots and we'll do it. Okay. So I found $650 million worth of carrots. It's a lot of carrots. And I said, now I'll put money for downtown revitalization and many of our other – our Main Street programs, our New York Forward – I'll bundle it all together.
And when you declare that you are a pro-housing community, by literally going online and downloading a form and having your legislature approve it, and that you'll meet standards, you'll be embracing growth. That if you do that, then you're eligible. So how does that sound? So I'm willing to test that theory.
So if there's any elected here, who knows how to download a form. If you don't, I can mail it to you. There's nothing stopping you from joining this. And I'll tell you this. In a year or two or three when you say, how come we're not getting selected for these projects? Because you declined to be part of solving the problem.
That's a choice you can make on behalf of your constituents. Or you can be with those who are saying, we want to be part of solving this and we want people to come to our community. Our community's important. We don't want it to atrophy because people won't be coming here if we don't build more housing. So that's why I talk about housing a lot.
It's a right that people have, they have the dignity of a home, but it's also something that is important to our economic growth as I have to tell Micron where their 50,000 workers are going to live. Okay? These are great opportunities. I'd rather it be us than some other state worrying about this, but we can handle this.
And so we talk about this. Syracuse, you know, has a rental problem. Half of Syracuse residents are considered cost burden. They spend at least 30 percent of their income on housing. Now I'm going to go real back to basics. I learned at Syracuse University economics class, supply and demand. Now, if we build more apartments in Syracuse than in outlying areas, the prices will go down, right?
More supply. You meet the demand, then all of a sudden the prices go down. But when there's limited supply, they can charge whatever they want. That's what I'm fighting as well. That's what I'm fighting. So I want to make sure that we can stop the strain. And also our rural rental programs. I mean, it's hard to live in some of our really tiny rural areas.
They're charming places people want to live. But we're going to make sure that we can provide 1,000 units for low-income housing in those areas as well, and affordable housing. And rural New Yorkers Central New Yorkers feel like they've been ignored too long, so we're going to do this.
We have a $25 billion, five-year housing plan. We can build 100,000 units, that's great. I'm putting $500 million into using State owned land wherever we can, 15,000 units. But do you hear all those numbers? $25 billion of State dollars gets me 100,000 units, we need 800,000. I could use 100,000 in Central New York. So we need to remove the barriers that stop developers from being able to build.
And we have to just say with intentionality, we can get this done. So I'm encouraging communities to step up for the pro-housing designation and I'll be happy to process your forms as quickly. And also we get to talk about poverty, and this really breaks my heart. Of the top 10 ZIP codes in the entire State of New York – including New York City – when you look at the levels of childhood poverty, top 10, nine are in upstate communities and two are in Syracuse. About four in Rochester, about three or four in Buffalo. How is that possible? Well, it's the reality I have to deal with, and that's why I'm saying we're putting $50 million to help these communities formulate projects, and I'm going to have $12 million, almost 13 of that go right here to Syracuse.
And so we're going to invest. I want to hear from the community, how should we deal with this? How do you think we should tackle this? We have to go after these two ZIP codes for sure. And say those individuals who live there should have a better chance that their destiny should not be constrained by the ZIP code that someone was born in. That should not be the case. So let's, let's work together. Let's come up with plan. We'll support it.
We'll start with the $12 million and we'll see where that takes us, and then we'll see what we have to do the next year, and the next year and the next year. We're not giving up until we save these zip codes, and I'm committed to that.
We have to help people with, whether it's their mental health, whether it's the need to have a quality education, we have to talk about anti-poverty programs. But I want to build a New York where success is achievable for everyone and the policies we're talking about in this budget will get us there.
I need the support of the Legislature, I need the support of the public, I need the support of the business community, I need the support of labor – to rally behind a plan that is just so chock-full of common sense that people who aren't used to common sense don't understand it. But we're going to educate them.
We're going to teach them what it's all about because this is the path we're going to be on. Make sure that we deliver for people. Make sure that local governments have the resources they need that they can transform their communities, give them projects and programs that'll make them look extraordinary. And that's where two of my favorite projects come in, the Downtown Revitalization Initiative and the New York Forward project come in.
And I'm really proud to announce that our first $10 million winners is a unique consortium, a group of communities that came together and said that we can be extraordinary by pooling our resources together. So I want to mention that the $10 million is going to not one community, not two communities, but to Aurora, Cayuga and Union Springs will be receiving this year's $10 million DRI loan.
And they're going to create a Lakeside village tourism corridor on the east side of Cayuga Lake. Fishers, boaters, nature lovers will come there. Mayor, if you need to use any of that to fix the dock, might have chipped a little bit when— I feel, still feel bad about that. It was a really windy day. But they'll invest in some order to expand recreational opportunities all along the waterfront.
I mean, this is a God's gift to us. This waterfront is so incredibly beautiful. New agritourism attractions – let people who are not familiar with this beauty come from other parts of the world, parts of our State to come and explore. And also the historic buildings are spectacular and sometimes they need a little facelift. They need someone to invest in them And so I'm really proud of that.
So congratulations to Mayor Donald Wilson of Cayuga, Mayor Robert Thurston of Union Springs, and Mayor James Orman of Aurora. So congratulations to all of you.
But then as someone who used to represent small towns in Upstate New York, I also knew that some communities aren't big enough to have $10 million worth of projects. And they would say to me, well, we're kind of left out here. I said, not anymore. That's why when I became Governor, we initiated the New York Forward program, which allows smaller communities to have their vision realized.
And again, these are all developed by the local communities, the leaders in government and the businesses and the residents. Active citizens have such an important voice in this to come up with their vision. So I said, how about 4.5 million to smaller communities? So they can make the same investments and have the same wow effect where you can do these projects all simultaneously, so they're done around the same time, instead of segmenting them over years and years, which was always the case when I was in local government.
So, we're announcing two New York Forward Awards for $4.5 million. One to the Village of Canastota and the other shared by the towns of Cicero and Hastings. Let's give them a round of applause.
Canastota wants to create new retail opportunities for local dairy farmers, which as the— a member of my family, all my family members in Ireland are dairy farmers, I'm big on dairy and that's why I worked so hard to bring new dairy opportunities for us here. So I support that. Also, the International Boxing Hall of Fame, which I've been to a number of times, I've popped in for their annual awards ceremony.
I actually saw the— I don’t know if it was Foreman and Ali? The great boxing match in Madison Square, was it Foreman-Ali? The boxing room was there. They brought it from Madison Square Garden. It was sitting right there and they let me stand in it. So I like these kind of things.
New York has the most extraordinary places, and I talk about this. And for us to invest in that it is important is part of our identity. It's not just about the Baseball Hall of Fame, which we're proud of, it's not the fact that we invented Jell-O in Le Roy, we have a lot of interesting stories, but we also have the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
So let's invest in that, make it part of our attractions. Also, Cicero and Hastings are going to make walkability improvements, new lodging options for visitors and new housing. Thank you for saying new housing. Everybody puts new housing in. It moves you up in my ranking. And that'll be really helpful because Micron will just be four miles away and people want to live and work in these communities.
And again, these communities, these investments we're going to be doing with the schools and the roads and the opportunities there. We're going to look back and say, “I was there at the beginning of when history changed,” and I'm telling you my friends, it is changing for the better. So, congratulations to Canastota Mayor Rosanne Warner, Hastings Town Supervisor Tony Bush and Cicero Town Supervisor Michael Aregano. Is that how you say it? Aregano? Did I get it right? People mangle my name all the time, so I'm going to get your name right. Congratulations, Supervisor!
And so, I just want to say, with these programs, with these investments, with this vision, I can just tell you as someone who's been coming here since I was an 18-year-old full of hopes and dreams and a future full of uncertainty, I was able to live my dreams starting out here in Syracuse, Central New York. And I want everyone else who's proud to call themselves a New Yorker, but also a Central New Yorker to have that same sense of awesome possibility and to be able to achieve all their dreams as well.
So, congratulations to everyone, the best is yet to come. And with that, thank you very much. I want to thank all of you for attending, but I want to call up our Secretary of State just to give some closing remarks because he’s the driving force behind the DRI and the NY Forward. Just to give a couple reflections. Our Secretary of State, Robert Rodriguez.