Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Highlights FY 2025 Budget Investments in the Southern Tier

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul highlighted FY 2025 Budget investments in the Southern Tier during a visit to Binghamton University. The Governor announced $1.4 billion in school aid for the Southern Tier – a $10 million increase in aid – as well as $123 million for renovations and maintenance at Binghamton University. The budget also includes $84.7 million for health care capital projects in the Southern Tier and $7.5 million for improvements at Taughannock Falls State Park. Governor Hochul also announced that the Hamlets of Roxbury and Grand Gorge, located within the Town of Roxbury, will receive $10 million in funding as the joint Southern Tier Region winners of the seventh round of the Downtown Revitalization Initiative. The Village of Groton and Urbana/Hammondsport will receive $4.5 million each as this year’s Southern Tier region NY Forward winners. 14 Southern Tier localities, including the Town of Roxbury, Village of Groton, Town of Urbana, and Village of Hammondsport, join 143 localities statewide in launching applications to become Pro-Housing Communities. The City of Binghamton, the Village of Dryden, and the Village of Johnson City are already certified Pro-Housing Communities in the Southern Tier.

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. Good morning. I've been here so often, people have offered me an apartment, but I hear there's a housing crisis, so I guess I'll have to wait my turn. I have been here many times. We've had such great celebrations here on this campus – the 76 West Awards, which really put this region on the map in terms of clean energy initiatives and all the spinoff opportunities that have flowed from that.

We've also announced new funding for our Upstate airports. I was checking on the progress we're making at our airport right here. I said, “I want to see some more construction trucks.” So, I'm very hands on and also the Southern Tier Welcome Center, which is such a source of pride for many of us here. I even came here Harvey reminded me— the President reminded me of getting my COVID shot on national television.

And I tried really hard not to wince for a second. So, I was tough. And just the future of SUNY Binghamton. President Stenger, you've been here, what, 12 years? Transformational era in the history of not just this university, but really putting our SUNY institutions on the map for attracting the smartest people, attracting over 300 million dollars in grants and all the investments from the State that I'm now giving you even more of because you're so darn persuasive and good at your job. So, I want to give you a round of applause.

I do want to recognize my partners in government. We have Assemblymember Donna Lupardo who's welcomed me here so many times. We have walked the streets of your district and I know you cherish it. You're always fighting for the farmers as well. I thank you for your leadership. Assemblymember Anna Kelles is here too. We've worked very closely together in our State Capitol. Senator Tom O'Mara, we've done a lot together as well, representing, as you represent this area with great dignity. I don't know if Senator Webb has joined us yet, but I think she's on her way as well. And I want to mention our County Executive. We just had a very productive meeting, Jason Garnar. We saw him in Albany a couple days ago and you are a real true fighter for this region and fighting to make sure we get the jobs and opportunities and shovel ready sites. We're ready to really step up when the businesses knock on our door and many of them are knocking now more than ever before.

So, I want to thank you for your leadership there. We have our Binghamton Mayor, Jared Kraham, here as well. Thank you for being – I believe the first pro-housing community designated. So, that's a big deal. That says that you understand – you understand how important it is that communities step up. I can't do this all from Albany. I need the local counties and the local towns and the villages to say, yes, we want to keep our kids here and I'll get into more of that, but I thank the individual elected officials who show the courage to stand up and be counted and we're going to be talking more, as I mentioned, about that as well.

Tom Secunda – I'll be mentioning him in a couple minutes, but I have to say now, this Empire AI Initiative, which you'll hear more about, is truly the brainchild of this individual and I know he got all of his great ideas when he was a student right here, right? He's been waiting all these years to be able to do this. He thought of it when he was here, and now we have the alignment of government and a Governor who gets it and a Governor who understands how we need to continue to unleash the full potential of this State, but not just always in New York City, the rest of the State needs this kind of attention. Tom brought in a great idea to my attention. I want to thank him for him and his contributions in many places, but to you and your family foundation – I'm grateful. I’m grateful we have New Yorkers like you. So, let's give another round of applause for Tom.

Julie Samuels from Tech:NYC– you're going to get to know her name because she's going to continue to be the face of all great tech innovations here in the State of New York. And I can feel the energy as I walk in this room and on this campus once again. The excitement of knowing that we're at the leading edge, the cutting edge of technological innovation and what— I mentioned clean energy. You are truly on the map – that was intentional. It was designating this region of our State based on the legacy businesses that came before, but also seeing the possibility for those who are yet to come.

And I want to just recognize another individual here. I saw his picture on the wall over there and his name on a building – but Dr. Stanley Whittingham you are extraordinary. Thank— please stand up. I mean you might want to get his autograph. How many of you actually met a Nobel Prize winner in person? He's sitting right there – the founding father of lithium-ion batteries. And my God, the world has been revolutionized since that time and now we're talking about aircraft being run on lithium-ion batteries. I'm not volunteering to be the first one on that flight, but somebody else will do it, right? Somebody else would do it and wouldn't it be great if we're doing that right here in the Southern Tier because of your work. Dr. Whittingham, thank you for being the innovator that has really made a mark, not just now, but for generations to come and continue to inspire. I had a chance to meet you in the lab and meet other young engineers and technologists who are learning from you. And so, thank you for being here so many times – we had the Startup New York program we talked about. So, I'm also the New Energy New York Coalition, bringing together partners from academia, government, not for profits, and transforming the Southern Tier into a place again for battery innovation and what that means is, the commitment is 160 million over the next decade from the federal government. This hub will accelerate innovation, also make sure we have the skilled workforce. I've been hearing about this for a decade. The jobs are coming. We reversed our fortunes and as Upstaters, we know what that looked like and felt like.

I come from Lackawanna, Buffalo, New York. I know what it's like when you're knocked down, when the great industries that built your economy and built the middle class, all of a sudden, the jobs go overseas or went to the south. I know what that feels like. It not just changes the character of your community when you now have empty steel plants or empty facilities. It also changes the psychology of the people. It takes you to a dark place.

And finally, after all these years, Upstate is emerging out of this with a sense of pride and swagger that is now ours. And projects like this just say that we matter. People are recognizing all the way down to Washington that these are projects worth investing in. So, this is going to expand the domestic battery industry and we'll be matching— my administration will match over 20 percent of those funds. That's on top of the 50 million we've already invested in the Build Back Better Regional Challenge. So yes, you're bleeding me dry, but it's worth it. But because Harvey always says, “What have you done for me lately?” I'm proud to make a huge announcement about the future of SUNY Binghamton. My fiscal 2025 Budget says we'll be investing $125 million for Binghamton University projects all across this university and I want to congratulate you on that designation. We just need your partners in government to sign up.

Chem labs, new lecture hall classrooms, the fine arts building, the biology department – we're making all these investments so you can upgrade and again attract the students and the talents you need to continue to lead this institution. And we'll make sure that the campus is vibrant for many years to come. That's just a small sampling of some of the investments we've made in the past. Like I said, the 32 million in the airport, new passenger terminal. As businesses are growing here, more private planes will be coming, more commercial planes will be coming. Also, we hosted— I mentioned how important agriculture is to this area.

I used to represent a district in Congress very similar to this – very rural parts of Upstate New York and I know how important this industry is. We're going to be hosting the Grow New York. We hosted the Grow New York Summit here in Binghamton and we're going to bring it back to the Southern Tier once again – we'll do it over in Ithaca. And we've awarded over $27 million in kickstart 16 different projects. So, you're seeing the impact of this in communities all over the Southern Tier. The new visitor center at Watkins Glen, one of the most spectacular state parks in our entire system, which actually hits 100 years this year, so make sure you go enjoy our state parks. Also celebrating our 75 years of racing history and Watkins Glen as well. And I will not describe what it was like for me to go in a pace car going at speed on the track because I'm still not quite over the experience. I didn't know you can get a concussion from being a passenger, but I definitely did. But I'm fine. I'm fine. Got some great pictures of me jumping out of it. So, Melissa was there. I'm still not recovered. But what a great attraction we have. The rest of the— the whole world knows Watkins Glen and that's just part of our identity – what makes this region so cool and so fascinating.

We're also focusing on transformation of existing buildings. We want to turn the Crowley Dairy Company building in Binghamton into 48 units of housing and retail space – that's how you do it. You don't have to accept that buildings that once had life now are vacant and have to stay vacant forever. It almost mocks you when you go by saying no, you can't, we're impossible to transform. No, I won't take that as an answer. I think we have transformational opportunities even in the smallest buildings. I want to breathe new life into our downtowns. I want people to live there. I want young people who just graduated from here. The people who work here. I want seniors who've downsized from their house to say I want to be part of the downtown vitality. That's what we're talking about and that's so important to add more retail space as well. Also, our public spaces – this is how you get the quality of life. Yes, it's our buildings, it's the charm, it's the character, but it's also can you breathe? Can you see some grass? Can you see some trees? Can you just relax and recharge your soul? And our $400,000 investment to support the Harriet Tubman Freedom Trail project right here at Binghamton University is going to be an important part of that and I know you're celebrating the completion around Harriet Tubman Day. Are we on schedule for that? I always want to okay. Just making sure. All right, Harvey, I'm coming. Sure. It's on my calendar. But I will digress, because I often do. That's why my speeches get pretty long, but that's all right.

Harriet Tubman – I was eight years old when I read her life story. I was a little kid ad I used to check it out of the library so often and the librarian finally said, “Can you just go buy your own copy? I mean because you're always checking this out.” I was so intrigued with this story of this young, tiny woman who was so courageous, and she inspires me to this day, and I'm hoping her story will be forever told with what you're doing here. And I thank you for that. And so, as we talk about some of the things we've done in the past, let's talk about where we're going with the future not just here in the Southern Tier, but throughout the State.

That's why I want to dive a little bit deeper into our 2025 Executive Budget – $233 billion spending plan, it does something that sounds quite impossible. We're increasing our spending by $6 billion to meet the needs of New Yorkers without any cuts or tax increases and this is how we take care of our communities and making sure that people feel safe – they can have a job, they can live here, they can work here, their kids have a future here and part of that is foundational is public safety. Fighting crime. A long-time people didn't want to talk about it. Right, Sheriff? People didn't want to talk about crime. I talk about crime, because as long as there's crime or perception that crimes could happen to you or your family, there's an unease and I'm not just talking about in New York City, I'm talking about urban areas, suburban areas, rural areas.

People deserve to have that foundation of security, and government has a responsibility to deliver that to them and I realized this. I spent a lot of time in local government. I hired police officers, I hired police chiefs, I understand how important that is. I also knew that there's money that's required to make this happen. So, gun violence was off the charts. The Iron Pipeline coming up 81, right? Coming from the south, the gun shows. They were in Pennsylvania, people loading up their trunks and bringing the guns up to Binghamton and then going either north to Syracuse or over to the Bronx. I knew we had to break that, we had to strangle that, cut it off, and we did. And I'm proud of that, but I'll keep investing in our gun violence issues and our gun interdiction because gun violence is now down a third from when we started, and shootings are down another 25 percent since the beginning of this year. But I watch the numbers like a hawk. When I see a hike or a spike at all, I know we have to jump on it and do something. So, I'm keeping in place the $340 million we've allocated for fighting gun violence here in the State of New York and many of your communities are beneficiaries of this.

Also, it's your, not just your physical safety, it's also how you feel personally. And I'll talk about mental health because no other Governor in the State of New York has ever even used the words mental health as something that society has responsibility to address. The pandemic, and you know I was here during the pandemic. The pandemic really shook society to its core. Foundationally, we've never been the same. And I don't, I think a lot of adults feel like they've moved on, they've recovered. Sit in a classroom with teenage kids. I just did this in Schenectady a couple days ago.

My friends, they're not over it. If you have children that age, or even younger – middle school, nieces, nephews, if they're not your own kids, you need to see what's going on in their lives. The fact that teenage suicide rates have skyrocketed, or young people contemplating suicide has doubled in the last decade. And the forces of social media, and these kids are asking for protection from social media, if you can believe that. I said, what do you think will make the difference? They said, we feel if we're not on our devices all day long, when they should be studying and in classes. They feel like they're missing out. They can't miss it. There's an addiction that's been created. We have to be able to manage the good sides of this dynamic, but also protect our kids while they're young and make sure that this does not affect their mental health. We want them to grow up strong and healthy. So, our mental health system has failed New Yorkers for a long time. No one invested in it. No one saw the toll it takes on society. Even I think about our police officers. The head of the PBA in Nassau County brought to my attention the fact that the suicide rate among men and women in uniform is 60 percent higher than the average population. That's stunning to me. These are individuals who society relies on. They’re strong, but they also see life at its worst. They see horrible things that most of us are never exposed to. And they deserve to be able to come forward and get help without fear of losing their job, which is why they told me they don't. So, we're talking about it, we're having forums on this, we're listening to people, we're trying to put money into training programs, and I'll keep doing that.

And as a result, I've increased spending for all the whole continuum of mental health, for kids in schools up to our adults. Increased that by 45 percent, up $4.8 billion. And I want more programs in schools. These kids told me if they can get the services in schools, they don't have to have their parents take time off from their job.

Make an appointment, drive far away if you live in a rural area and pull the kids out of school. Why aren't these services available right in the schools? The kids are asking me for that. And we're going to deliver. And I want this talked about in our communities.

Every school that does not have one, we're going to give them the seed money to get started. That is my commitment. So that's important to us. Also, in the Southern Tier here, the physical wellbeing of our buildings. We have to keep maintaining our hospitals and our clinics. We're allocating $84 million for transformational healthcare projects here in the southern tier. Those are important as well.

Let's talk about education. Now, despite what you're going to read, I have invested more in education than any Governor in history by far. Now look at this graph. Look at all the investment back to 1984 in education. See the ones at the far right that look really high? You know where those come from? Having me as the Governor, okay? Those would have otherwise stayed at the level they were funded. And then people say, “Wait, if you don't do those two big spikes again to make up for a decade of disinvestment, if you don't do that every year, that's a cut.” Tom, you studied analytics your whole life, you understand data.

I'm still thinking that's pretty good. That's still a lot of money. A cut means you're back down to where we used to be. So, can we have an honest conversation about education and the fact that because of money from Washington and the State, our school districts, thank God — we love our school districts — are sitting on $10 billion in reserves right now across the State.

You may have gotten $5 million in one year to make up for the past, and if I don't give you $5 million again, you think it's a cut? I need to have people rationally looking at this. Because I'm also going to make sure that we do not raise taxes in the State of New York because I'm attracting businesses and high net worth people to want to be here and help us Innovate all these ideas and new business.

I cannot drive them out of this State, to a lower cost State, because we decided we didn't care. We have to care. This is how we get the funding for the mental health services and childcare and healthcare. That's where the money comes from. We have to be reasonable in our approach to this budget. And I'd love to give everybody what they want.

It'll make me enormously popular. But I also have to be the adult in the room and manage a budget within our means and make sure we take care of what we have to, but not continue at a pace that is unsustainable. I really need my communities across the State to recognize what we're doing here. And I appreciate school aid funding has gone up $5 billion in two years.

We fully funded Foundation Aid. The southern tier will see a $10 million increase. An increase for a total of $1.4 billion for the Southern Tier schools. That's not a cut of $1.4 billion. That's an increase of $1.4 billion. So, let's have an honest conversation.

Also, our universities – increasing our funding for our universities. $207 million for CUNY and SUNY operations. $1.2 billion for capital projects, because you have to keep maintaining them. In the Southern Tier, we're investing tens of millions of dollars. I mentioned $123 million for Binghamton.

Cornell, Broome County College, Del High — all of those are going to be receiving additional funding – not cuts. A cut would mean there's a negative in front of that – like down $123 million – down. So, let's understand what an increase really is. And so, I'm excited about this.

We build in the infrastructure of our campuses, we build in the infrastructure of our streets, and roads and upstate here. We've been beaten with a lot of flooding— takes its toll on our roads and bridges. I've made too many visits up this area because of flooding. Climate change is really beating us these days. Our roads and bridges need a lot of commitment.

That's why I have $92 million in the Southern Tier alone to help pave the potholes. I initiated a $1 billion program to pave the potholes because as Lieutenant Governor, I traveled around this State so often, it equated to going around the earth 18 times. Do the math. It's a lot. And I had a personal encounter with every single pothole.

No more. We're closing up the potholes. Goodbye. Let me mention again about what is so extraordinary about this part of our State. The most beautiful parks. I mentioned Watkins Glen. I've toured there so many times. Taughannock Falls, all the gorges, the Ithaca Falls, spectacular deep lakes. Waterfalls, fishing, boating, and it really makes it special.

So, I wanted to make sure Taughannock Falls State Park received additional money. So, we're investing $7.5 million into upgrading the facilities there as well. So new restroom, new parking area — which I went there, and I said we need a restroom. So, we're getting a restroom. Also, I visited every State Park. I think I've hit them all and I'm going to continue.

But please go out and enjoy them. We're investing in them, and the quality of life is enhanced when you get a chance to enjoy such magnificent gifts from Mother Nature.

Alright, let's get back to housing. I mentioned it earlier. Why I'll never be able to find an apartment here. Okay. And I thank the County Executive for putting a spotlight on this as well, and our Mayor. Thank you for talking about this. And when you think about this, it's shocking to me that before last year, nobody in the State of New York was talking about the housing shortage crisis. I don't know why. The New York Times said I was the first Governor since Rockefeller to talk about housing.

Yes, it takes a little political courage to get knocked around. People don't agree. But you have to introduce the conversation to get people saying maybe she's right. Let's look around. What does our housing stock look like? Oh, it went from 1,300 down to about 200 in a short time. How are we doing with that?

At the same time, we're bringing businesses here. Look what I have to do up the road. I have 50,000 people be working. At Micron in the spin off businesses, 50,000 people, what are they going to do up there? What are you doing here as we continue to create jobs? If we don't build the housing, they will not be able to come. Employers are telling me that. So, let's be bold and aggressive. Let's push our local communities.

And here's why no one can get anything over me. I spent 14 years as a local government official. Planning board, town board, traffic safety board, zoning board, IDA. I know all the tricks of how you can say no to a project. Believe me, when Walmart wanted to come to my town and go somewhere I did not want them to go, I said, “I think it's a three-year traffic study.”

And guess where they ended up going? And I told them also, I said, “You need to make this be a beautiful building.” Now, they had this footprint of the cinder block gray and blue, you know the look. Okay, really inspiring, isn't it? I said, “You can come but you need to go over here, and you need to look like the community”.

“What do you mean the community?” There's this country club down the road that kind of looks like Monticello! You know – Jefferson. It’s got red brick, it's got arches, it's beautiful. If you go visit that Walmart in the town of Hamburg, it is the most beautiful Walmart in the country. Because I said, you have to.

But they came, we created the jobs, we got them where we wanted them, not where they wanted to go, but we made it all work. I know the power of local government. I know how you say no, and a lot of it is zoning or refuse it to allow for sewer and water lines to go through. I get all that, but stop doing that, please, because you're only hurting yourselves.

Your kids want to live next to the grandparents. Your kids want to stay in the same community they're raised in. They want you to babysit their kids. I'm just telling you right now. They want you to be the babysitters. They don't want it to go to another State. I'm a grandma. I know how this works. Also, our teachers, firefighters, police. They should be able to afford to live in the communities that they're there to protect and serve.

And all these new jobs that we keep talking about. I'm selling this State like there's no tomorrow. I'm about to call another big company as soon as I leave here and say, “This is the place to come.” And I said, “I've got the best workforce. I've got the best universities. I've got clean energy power. I've got everything you want.”

The most beautiful place. I hope they don't ask me if I have enough housing. Because I won't have the right answer for them. This is what I'm talking about. So, join me in this. Help me lead this State. Let's have every single community in the southern tier sign up to be a pro-housing community and I'll show you how many I have right now.

I have a lot of initiatives. I have $25 billion on the table right now to build 100,000 affordable units. Let me repeat that: It costs $25 billion of state money to get me 100,000 units. The southern: this area here needs 6,000. I need 800,000 Statewide. I'll never get there if I'm leaving it up to the State to do this, that's my point.

I'm willing to look at all the spaces that the State owns, former psychiatric facilities, former prisons, places near transit centers. I'll put $500 million to build on state owned property, because I won't say no, I'll say yes. But that only gets me 15,000 units. But the communities have to do their part.

And last year when I raised this, everybody said, “We don't want to be told what to do by Albany, even though you might be right. Please give us some incentives.” So, I said, “All right, you wanted carrots. You all asked for carrots. I had a press conference. I found the biggest carrots I could find.”

These are not those little cheesy ones you find in a plastic bag, okay? I had a giant bunch of carrots I put on the table. I said, I'm putting $650 million worth of carrots on the table. And that's what we call our pro-housing community initiative. And I, as I mentioned, am so proud that Binghamton was the very first certified. You stepped up, Mayor Cram, thank you for your initiative on that.

Pro-housing communities are the only ones eligible for $650 million of downtown revitalization money, Restore New York money; New York Forward money. Get the picture here? And you know what's interesting? The first week I announced it, we had 20 communities. And I got out there, I said “Isn’t this interesting?”

These 20 communities are going to be able to share $650 million. Isn't that great? I now have 143 and counting by the minute. Everybody now wants to be part of this. But they have to make commitments to us. You have to get your Legislature, your Town Board, your City Council to sign that I'll commit to growth targets.

And they're not that much. What I proposed last year was one percent a year. That's nothing. And everybody's hair was on fire. Okay, this time, go ahead and build 1 percent more, three percent, five percent, keep going. And you'll be the most desirable communities out there. Because you have the jobs, the great schools, everything else.

And you'll also be able to say, because we built enough housing, Remember supply and demand classes in college? You build more housing, larger stock, a housing stock supply, the prices go down. Smaller supply, the prices go up. That's what we're facing. We can fix it. We can fix this in no time. If there's the political will to step up and say to your local town board, say, stop this zoning, stop this from happening, allow this to open up, especially in downtowns.

Why doesn't every single little business downtown, a little retail shop, allow for housing above it? Some communities have zoning that don't allow that. People want to live in their downtown. They want to walk to the breweries. They want to walk to the library. It's a quality of life. But if you don't allow housing because your zoning says you have to have two parking spots for every unit, you're not going to get that.

So, look at your laws. I know I'm going on a long time on housing, but this is going to be a transformational issue if we can finally catch up with the demand. And I mean that sincerely. That's the only thing holding us back. Johnson City, down the road, is also certified. We have a lot of people applying, and I'm really excited about this.

Again, they will get these programs. And I — you know how I feel about the Downtown Revitalization Program. My favorite projects of all. We have done this for many years. It's a $10 million opportunity. When I was in local government, if someone had told me that my little town — I had a town with two villages — could apply for $10 million all at once to transform. a community based on the vision that we come up with, not Albany. I would have died and went to heaven.

Wait a minute. $10 million all at once. You know how long it took me to piece together playing? Get $5,000 from this grant, or you can get this $50,000— It takes you an eternity to get these grants.

You do it all at once you have maximum impact. So, I'm excited about this. I'm proud to announce that we have some winners in the audience. I know you've been waiting a long time, so maybe you don't even know who you are yet. Okay I'll keep that quiet. But now, I'm really proud to announce the Hamlets of Grand Gorge, which is spectacular, and Roxbury will receive the $10 million Downtown Revitalization Award for this year. Congratulations!

This former farming community, and it's beautiful, is now on the cusp of revitalization, and they're looking to embrace more tourists and welcome more residents, and they're coming in droves between the beauty of the Catskills and the strong sense of community, vibrant art scenes, the leaders laid out this great plan, a new training center to prepare individuals who want to live there in hospitality, because guess what? The Catskills, they're being rediscovered.

So, the hospitality and tourism industries will have people being trained in those areas. A new multi-use community center. How spectacular would that be? The conversion of an old vacant hotel into retail and co-working spaces. I want to congratulate Roxbury Town Supervisor, Allen Hinkley. Allen, stand up. Are you here? And there you go.

Allen, you worked with a great group of people, and I know everybody put their heart and soul in this. What I love about this, it brings elected officials, business leaders, civic activists, everybody together to come up with a shared vision. Congratulations. This is going to be transformative for years to come. Again, congratulations to your community. It's going to go to great places, so congratulations.

Also, I travel the State often making my announcements about the Downtown Revitalization Initiatives, again, ten regions, ten winners every year. I heard from a lot of small communities that said, “We like the idea, but we don't have quite enough to apply for, we're only this big,” and I used to represent small villages. And they said, “Can we have a shot at this?” And I said, “Sure, we'll create a new program for you.” We call it NY Forward, it is not the $10 million, but it is the $4.5 million, which will have the comparable impact on a small community.

Many of our communities are just an intersection or a little bit more than that, but they still deserve to be spruced up, to be revitalized, and that's why I'm proud to announce the two $4.5 million NY Forward award winners. One goes to the Village of Groton, the Village of Groton is here, and also the Village of Hammondsport in the town of Urbana. So, let's give them a round of applause.

Groton is the home of the former Smith Corona Typewriter Company, a place of innovation, just 20 minutes from three of the Great Lakes. And it's a commuting distance to Cortland and Ithaca, so it's primed to achieve its full potential. And they want to transform a former rail depot. I love that idea. I've seen that it's been vacant for decades.

Again, another one of those buildings that people just went by and said, “That's just how it's going to be.” It doesn't have to be that way when you have a visionary community that says, “No, let's do something different. Let's give hope to a community. Let's make it look beautiful and spectacular.” They're going to turn that into a multi-use restaurant and venue space. It’s going to be great.

Also, the facades of downtowns. My little downtown, the Village of Hamburg, had seen glory days after Bethlehem Steel left and took 20,000 jobs. It decayed. It really went down, a lot of boarded up storefronts. Built in the 1800s, a beautiful downtown. But all out of business signs and one of the small businesses had Genesee beer on sale now because no one was buying it. Just handwritten signs. Not exactly charming. And my mother, in that era, decided she wants to start a flower shop in that downtown. I obviously come from a family of risk takers, which is partially why I'm here today.

So, mom took a gamble, knew nothing about retail, nothing about flower shops. She just wanted to make things beautiful and give women jobs. Women who had been displaced from marriages and lost their income. She wanted to hire people. I don't think she ever made a dime, but she wanted to have a place that was beautiful.

And she and I started the Village Action Coalition to help other businesses and apply for grants and everything. And we never got the chance to really do it big until later. Improvements on facades and main streets really changed, I said before, the psychology of a community. So, I'm real excited you're doing this as well. It's going to change the streetscape. And just these communities have great charm. And I just want to make sure that they know that they matter. The small communities just ooze charm and character, and they truly matter to me as well.

So, also invested in these projects are housing units. I'm proud of that. Let's keep that going and also redeveloping the long vacant Curtiss building. So, congratulations to the Mayor Chris Neville and Hammondsport Mayor Jean Jensen and Supervisor David Durepo. Durepo, right? Durepo? Did I say it right? Did I? Is it close enough? My name gets mangled every day of the week, so I just, I'm a little sensitive about this, I don't want to do that to you.

Now I want to shift gears for one second. We'll wrap it up. You've been very patient. But I get excited. I get excited about this. I'm energized by audiences like this who all just so believe in your areas, and that's why I love this job. And let's talk about the possibilities for the future.

This region, as I said, is always has always been a hotbed of innovation. IBM and Smith Corona, all these companies have been here. The names go on, the list goes on forever. And I want people to know that we're building high tech ecosystem right here is rural as this looks. This is where innovators have come before, planted the flag and change the trajectory of this region.

And I want to make sure that we have a system, an ecosystem of other supportive businesses. You can't just say I'm going to come here and then have all your supply chain foreign or far away great distances, it's really hard to do this. We want to make sure that we have places that are ready to embrace the businesses.

Today, I'm announcing that I'm awarding $45 million for the next phase of our Fast New York program. And what this does is it says to the businesses, when you're ready, we're ready. This is all about having the shovel ready sites because as I said before, a business can show an interest in the community, and it can take forever to get through the permitting process and the approvals, and the traffic safety studies and the IDA fund. It can take a long time. Let's have the sites ready, so we're out there recruiting them. And this is how we got Micron. Micron was looking at a lot of other States. I know this because I had to help reel them in. They saw that there was a shovel ready site in Clay, New York. Everything was ready for them, and it made it a lot easier.

I want to repeat that all over the State of New York and that's what we're doing. So, $45 million for the next phase to make us more attractive. Two of the seven sites are in the Southern Tier. Broome County will receive $11.2 million for the former BAE site on Main Street in Johnson City.

And also, Chemung County will receive $4 million for improvements on North Main Street in Horseheads, where they can develop that site as well. We're adding another $100 million for these projects in our budget, so make sure you support that and continue building out these sites.

And there's one last area I want to talk about, artificial intelligence. Does anybody really know what that means? You will know what it means. You will know what it means because just as people could not have foreseen the transformation of an economy and a state because of the work of Dr. Whittingham and lithium-ion batteries or those who invented even having typewriters or IBM. No one could have seen the ripple effect of when that starts in one area, what happens afterward. But I can see into the future. I can see that whoever owns this next era of artificial intelligence and owns it and embraces it and celebrates it and makes sure that it's available to everyone – that state will not just own that chapter of innovation, they'll own the future.

And that's what I said in my State of the State. And as I love to say, “We go big or we go home.” This is the great State of New York. There is no limit to what we can imagine, but also no limit to what we can actually accomplish. This is not a pipe dream, my friends. This is happening in real time right now.

And for us to be able to stand here, the envy of all the other states, and I've heard it as far out as the West Coast, saying that we wish we had done this in our own state. I'm going to make sure that people look at this state and say, “Yeah, don't ever underestimate the State of New York. They're ahead of their time.”

And I want to make us the undisputed home of this new technologies. And a poll came out that showed that two thirds of New Yorkers support the plan. A lot of them aren't quite sure what it means. But they want part of it. They want to be there. They understand New York exceptionalism. And what that could mean, not just to them, but jobs for their kids later on.

And I love the fact that we can solve so many of society's problems. I want to innovate more therapies and cures for diseases that have just beguiled us for so long. Use this to give us advance warnings of storms because we're just getting beaten so much by Mother Nature in the last few decades, particularly the last few years.

Also, societal problems, stubborn economic disparities and racial challenges. And when I unveiled this, I had a young woman who's a PhD student, a young black woman, Holliday Sims, who stood up and talked about how she's using AI to find ways to deal with the child welfare system and solve some of the problems.

So, when people open their minds to the possibilities of challenges that have been there a long time but never been figured out and solved by government or society, that this could open up new possibilities. This is when people start thinking differently about it. And yes, there are elements and sides that we have to address, and the federal government is the best place to make sure that we have some guide rails on all this and we'll be talking about that as well. But that does not mean that we're not open to the possibilities.

So, we need to be the home of the next generation of supercomputers needed to power AI. I want it done here and not in China. See who we're competing with? I'm not just competing with other states. We're competing on the global stage. So, why not New York?

And this came out of a conversation I had with Tom Secunda. Breakfast. He’s like, “I got a crazy idea. We can talk about it.” As soon as he said it, I said, “Yes, the answer is yes.” “Can the state join a consortium, form a consortium, with academic partners, SUNY, for example?” And he specifically mentioned how important Binghamton was to him. “Can we do this with the business community investing?”

So, we have $25 million from SUNY. We have $125 million from private partners. I'm kicking in as the State with the Legislature’s support. We will kick in $275 million over the next 10 years. And this will put New York at the forefront of the next computing revolution.

And I want it in the hands of our leading academics, our schools, because that's how we attract the professors. I've already heard this from some of our academic partners, who said already that professors are calling them from other States who want to now come to New York because of this announcement we made just a short time ago.

So, that's what I'm talking about, people are chomping at the bit to come here now. So, I appreciate the support for that as you're talking about all our initiatives. I appreciate our legislators reviewing this thoughtfully but understanding that this could be transformative for us. But I also want to thank the individual who did bring this to my attention, and Tom Secunda, you'll go down in history as one of those great innovators and ideas people who just said, “Why not?” And I love that question. Someone comes with a great idea. “Why aren't we doing this? Why not us? Why not?” And today we're answering that question. We will. We'll absolutely embrace this.

So, ladies and gentlemen, it's my honor to introduce the Co-Founder and Vice Chairman of Bloomberg LLP, but more importantly, I'm going to call him the godfather of the AI revolution in the State of New York.