So I found you through your proposed bill, which wants to change the suicide hotline number to 9-8-8. Tell me a bit behind what motivated the action, how you got started with it, and what you think the next steps are going to be to have it recognized on a larger level.

I’m 25 years old, so I represent a generation committed to destigmatizing mental health, right? Teen suicide is an epidemic. Through the rise of social media, we’re seeing levels of suicide and depression at really concerning rates. Being 25, I’m constantly interacting with students in high schools and middle schools who are telling me that they want to bring mental health to the forefront. Moreover, I’m an elected official who doesn’t shy away from expressing the fact that I go to therapy every week. I don’t think seeking professional health is something we should hide from. I think it’s something that we should embrace and bring to the forefront. Mental health has always on a personal level been really important to me. In terms of this bill, and why I sponsored it, my friend John and Ashley Meyer, their father took his own life a few years back. My brother’s fraternity brother at the University of Pennsylvania took his own life. I’ve been impacted personally by suicide and I was really inspired by the Madison Holleran Foundation and listening to her father speak, I was so inspired by their work and that’s how I got in touch with the foundation. The FCC came out with a report and the report said that we need a three-digit suicide hotline number. I’ll ask you a question: Do you, off the top of your head, what the five-digit suicide hotline number is?

No.

And that’s exactly the problem. So I started, basically, asking everyone in every room I walked into what the number was. And they said the answer was no.

I read this FCC report, and mental health experts say that we need a 911 for the brain. When you’re having a heart attack and you’re in severe distress, you still know to call 911. But when someone is contemplating self-harm, to expect that person to recall the ten-digit number or do research for that number, is not a pragmatic solution.

We need to make resources accessible in a time of crisis, and that’s why this bill is so important to me, and that’s why I sponsored this bill to make 9-8-8 the Nassau County suicide hotline.

I agree. I think that makes a lot of sense, and you put it in a way that I hadn’t thought about before, with needing a 911 for the brain, because mental heath is just as important and valid as physical health. You’ve also passed legislation that protects veterans and establishes a hotline for substance abuse interventions. What are your biggest platforms? And how do you balance what you personally stand for with that of your constituents?

I’m incredibly blessed because my constituents allow me to be independent as a legislator. I’m the only Independent in the legislature, politically, and my constituents allow me to be free and creative in pursuing a course of action which I believe is righteous and will help people in need.

Basically, the local government can be a driving force for good for those most vulnerable in our communities. I talk about it all the time. I think local government should be a place where everyone comes together and where nobody gets left behind.

I’ve dedicated my career in public service to helping those most vulnerable. Essentially, the themes of the bills I’ve sponsored have centered around helping people with disabilities, because I believe how we treat people with disabilities says a great deal about the moral composition of our nation. I’ve spent a significant amount of time working on legislation helping individuals suffering from substance abuse, because, quite frankly, with 72,000 deaths last year from substance abuse in America, I believe that recovery is real and recovery is a miracle and we need to help individuals suffering from substance abuse get the help they need. And of course, helping homeless veterans. I think there are very few things you can do in this world as noble as wearing the uniform of this nation. When you fight for us, the least we can do is fight just as hard for you when you get home. Those are a couple areas that I’ve worked in. Again, helping vulnerable groups expands beyond that. I passed the bill about food allergies and helping those who experience food allergies. I passed a bill about helping those suffering from bullying. I believe it is government’s responsibility to help those most vulnerable in our community, to expand access to services for all, and deliver an open, honest, and compassionate government.

Of course, I agree. And I thank you for your public service as well. So I am currently in Philadelphia for a little adventure; I live in San Diego. I have been volunteering while I’ve been here, and something I think about a lot is the juxtaposition of top-bottom reform, or bottom-top. Which is not the proper terminology, but I see so many of these human issues on a daily basis – homelessness, drug addictions, substance abuse, bullying, all of that. Do you think the best way to attack these issues, even though we do need both sides of it, is through legislation or personal connection, like serving food and creating safe spaces? Because so many of our personal human issues are at epidemic levels at the moment.

Sure. I think we are often presented with a fool’s choice in terms of if we want to make a difference, one avenue is better than another.

What I say is this: when you change the life of one person, just one person, you are changing their world. And when you change their world, you change our world.

I try not to quantify the level of making a difference because you can make a difference for one person, and that can be life-changing. I talk about, for some of my interns, the internship program and how they are treated like equals at 12 and 13 years old. Nobody else would give them a shot, and I give them a shot, and it helps them find their voice and discover their passion. That’s changing their world, and that is simply through showing common decency and humanity. I started a program in high school called Safe Ride Syosset where I drove home, with my volunteers, kids who drank or were driven by people who drank on the weekends. We didn’t eradicate teen drinking and driving in the world, but we did it in Syosset and it made a difference. So, I say that taking individual action in your community is incredibly powerful. Now, the reason I love government is because I am able to make a difference on a broader scale and I believe, truly, that I am a lobbyist for those most vulnerable. I have been so uniquely blessed in my life to grow up where I have and to have attended Cornell and Harvard, and I have been so lucky in my life to where I feel it’s my obligation to help open doors for opportunity and to help level the playing field for all. That’s why I love government, and that’s why I feel like it’s a great tool to make a difference.

Did you always know that you wanted to be in government?

It’s funny. I talk about how my first election was in first grade. I was elected to the Walt Whitman Elementary School student council. I joke that my career took off right from there. No, I fell in love in first grade with the concept that I could use my voice to lift the voices of others up. I fell in love with the concept that I could use my voice to represent those of my peers. Obviously, the issues have increased in importance and urgency from bake sales in first grade to the issues I’m dealing with today, but the theme of me soliciting feedback from those I represent to lift their voices up has not changed.

Ok. Something that I have noticed, and I don’t know if you maybe change your mind, but I feel like you just kind of add more to your plate instead. If you want to try something new, you just do it. You’re a legislator, you’re an author, a professor. You do all these different things. And you’re a dog dad. How do you balance all these different things?

Yeah, my dog’s adorable! I joke, but it’s not really a joke, that I don’t have a social life, which honestly… it’s not a joke. I commuted five hours on Tuesday and five hours on Thursday at Cornell, because I was serving on the school board. At Harvard, I commuted up to Boston for four and a half hours on Wednesday, back on Thursday. So, I didn’t have much time for truancy as a young adult. I’ve always been focused on delivering impact in my job. The truth is, without a social life, I have more time to pursue other passions. A lot of my friends were partying in college; I wrote my book in college. A lot of my friends go out on Friday night; I’m grading papers.

Not having a social life has been a conduit towards being able to pursue these opportunities, but the truth of the matter is that I think I’m never satisfied with the level of impact I make.

I talk about it all the time - I was in a really awful car accident in 2015 coming back from Cornell, and the pictures are on Facebook, but I walked away without a scratch, which honestly, to this day is impossible given the gruesome nature of the accident. At the scene, I thought about how if things went a different way, I wasn’t yet satisfied with the level of impact that I had made on the world, and because I felt that I had a second lease on life almost, that I would never cease to be comfortable with the level of impact I was making. I’m still infected with that bug… I always want to do more, and I don’t think I’ll ever stop.

That’s really inspiring and motivating to me. I guess my next question is, because we’re both the same age and we both are young. I’m sure we feel old in other ways, but some of our peers right now aren’t as set in their career paths and they don’t have that vision, or it hasn’t clicked for them. They struggle in some way, whether it’s financially, professionally, whatever way. What advice do you have for them?

This is a trap where I caution young people frequently: success isn’t linear. My mom has given me a piece of advice since I was very young that has played on repeat in my head: stay in your own lane.

We’re each the heroes of our own journey. Success is not linear, and there are no timelines for our lives except for the ones we set ourselves.

So, what does that mean? If you are not established at 23, or 25, or 27, or 29, that’s okay. And you are certainly not alone. Social media is a dangerous tool in that you hear all these hashtags… #liveyourbestlife, #grind… all these different hashtags and posts that make us feel like we have to be robots. We can figure it out for as long as we need. What I tell young people who come to me for career advice all the time is that being young is the opportunity to figure it out, but you have to be trying everything. Now is the time to try something. If you want to start that business, start that business. If you want to pursue music or art or academia or sports, being young and without the obligations of a mortgage or a family is the time to try everything. And if you don’t like it, then it’s better to find that out at 25 than at 45.

If you’re 23, or 25, or 27 and you haven’t figured everything out, that’s okay. The only thing that is not okay is being afraid to try something. We’re blessed to live in the greatest country in the world. We have more opportunities as millennials to invent, explore, and discover than at any other time in human history. There is no excuse for not taking a chance and trying something that you love. No excuse.

Right. Which is why I am in Philly right now. But circling back to how you want to help the people who need help the most… you are on a local level. You do put in the face time and it is a community thing for you. I think, and this is my personal opinion, that in a way, with the media and how the modern news cycle works, people are more focused on national government and what is not being done for them, rather than local-level things. Like, how many people actually know their mayor’s name, or a way to contact them? You get your ballot and there are a thousand things to vote on, so you kind of just focus on president and vice president. And I think a lot of people are very jaded about politics right now. They get caught up in the noise. How do you view the situation, and as someone who works in government, how do you push back against the stereotypes and misconceptions? What would you say to the people who feel as though nothing is being done for them?

To your point, I’m notorious for branding myself as a hyper-local politician. The phrase I always use is, “potholes are not partisan.” What happens in Washington is shameful and abysmal in that our elected officials forget that they work for us. At the local, that’s where the action takes place. The local level is where your services are delivered. Moreover, the local level is where you can have the most impact.

I tell the story of a twelve-year-old girl in my community named Shayna Sakhai. Shayna reached out and DM-ed me on Instagram. She said, “There is too much bullying in my school. What are you doing about it?” I joke that I was put on blast by a twelve-year-old girl. There’s two sides to this. One is the beauty that there are very few politicians who A, would respond to that direct message from a twelve-year-old, but more importantly, would instill confidence in that twelve-year-old that she could reach out to him, you know what I mean? Which I think is really important. The second point is that, working with Shayna, we created NassauStopBullying.org, which for the first time in this county’s history, gives an updated list of the DASA Coordinators – the Dignity for All Students Act – who are responsible for bullying in school. It has resources at the state, local, and federal level.

So, we created this incredible resource that is being used by thousands of children and parents because a twelve-year-old reached out to her local elected official. That’s why local government is so special and that’s why I love it.

That’s incredible, and that’s where I think the power of change really lies. 

I couldn’t agree more. Local government is different. I get stopped in the bagel store, I get stopped in the supermarket, on the baseball field. People stop me and say, “fix my road.” Or, “I have an issue with this part of my property tax bill.” You’re so local. I am really able to work with the people. 

Right. And then at the same time, the changes you make represent a whole people group, not specific individuals. And at the risk of playing devil’s advocate, I think it is sometimes in people’s nature to not all always be happy. I’ve learned that you can’t please everybody, no matter what do you. We all have different ideas of what our best community would look like. How do you come to terms with the idea that not everyone will be happy with every move you make?

It’s an incredibly difficult reality to accept considering the fact that my equilibrium is to have everyone like me. My mother and I joke that we are the softies of the family; we want everyone to like us. The unfortunate reality is that… here’s a perfect example. I had an overwhelming victory in my re-election last week. 68%, which means that 32% of the voters chose somebody else. Even in an overwhelming victory, there’s still people who won’t like you and that’s okay. What I say is this: I serve, proudly, 100% of the residents. Whether or not you voted for me is irrelevant; I still serve you proudly. That’s number one. And number two, I say that as long as my constituents believe in their heart that I am serving with righteousness, earnestness, and sincerity to want to do the right thing, then they may have not voted for me because they disagree with me politically, but I know that they will support me in my efforts to benefit our community. 

Okay. And so you are an Independent. We are currently kind of locked in a two-party system, for the most part. Not everyone is happy about it. Do you see, especially in our lifetime, us evolving to where the numbers can reflect more than two parties? 

I’ll never say never. I caucus with the Democrats, which means I am a member of the Democratic Caucus.

What makes me unique as an independent is that neither side sees me at the enemy.

I agree. Okay, so you went to both Harvard and Cornell, and I think college was an important time in my life. What was a big lesson that you got from your time as a student?

Have you seen my Ted Talk? 

Yes.

So, the biggest lesson I learned was at Nassau Community College.

It’s not where you start, but it’s where you finish. Often in life, we are made to believe that we’re inadequate because of where we may be now. Starting on the ground floor and putting in work and rising and rising has incredible gratification attached to it… The other lesson I learned at Harvard is that you establish credibility through pursuit of the truth.

All of my professors, who were renowned experts in their fields, were exceptional at looking at a problem and finding the truth through data. I’m very different because I’m an academic. So when I make an argument, I come prepared with facts and data. I don’t rely just on the rhetoric. I think that college prepares you to seek the truth and back up your argument through data and through analytics, which is a really powerful thing to have.

Definitely. And on the flip side of the coin, you are also a professor now. How is the role reversal? 

I’m a big believer that grades can have a truly deleterious effect on the college experience, where a student may eschew learning the lesson fully in order to want to get the best grade. And why would you blame them? There’s a lot of pressure to get a good job out of college, which relies on grades. So as a professor who just went through college, my students appreciate the fact that all I care about is effort, showing up to class, wanting to better yourself, and wanting to learn the material. The grades are secondary. I wish more college professors were more understanding of the stress their kids are under, and that the goal should be 100% behind learning the material.

Yeah. There is nothing worse than grading on a curve, in my opinion.

To me, at the end of the day, if I’m a professor, the singular goal I have is the comprehension of the lecture material and the comprehension of the lessons that I’m trying to share with my students. If they come with full effort, they should be rewarded. The fact that, as a student, I was more focused many-a-time on the grade rather than the lesson, was a waste of the tens of thousands of dollars I was forced to spend. 

Of course. I was lucky enough to take a lot of humanities courses that weren’t too strict on grading, but then to step into some business classes where you are essentially crunching numbers to see how you stack up against your peers, because you are graded on a curve, rather than collaborating and learning from each other… I think that is really detrimental to the overall experience and hinders what you can learn if the circumstances are a bit less grade-oriented. 

So, you’re from San Diego. Did you go to college out there? Where’d you go?

I went to UC Santa Barbara. 

I’m so jealous. I am so jealous of you.

You have to come visit it then.

A) 1000%. B) I don’t think you understand. My friends and I all went to Nassau. I was thrilled to go to Cornell, super excited. My friend wanted to go somewhere warmer so we were looking at schools, and Santa Barbara was like, our collective dream school. 

Aside from visiting Santa Barbara, where do you see yourself a few years from now? 

Sure. I’ve made no secret about my aspiration for seeking higher office, but I will say is that in a few years, I hope to be in this role, delivering for the residents I serve and continuing to help level the playing field for those most vulnerable in our society.

If I can continue on the initiatives I’ve focused on – helping people with disabilities, helping those suffering from addiction, making sure every veteran who has served this nation has a roof over their head – in a few years, I’ll be pretty happy with that.

That’s a lot. What is one thing everyone should know how to do?

That is an exceptional question. One thing everyone should know how to do is read an article or a piece of information, synthetize the information, and come to their own conclusion. I think reading comprehension in general is important, especially for young people who are thinking about going into politics. You have constituent groups who are often competing for the same resources and who often find themselves diametrically opposed on an issue. You, as that elected official, wade through the noise, read the data, and come to your own conclusion. I think that’s a really important skill.

I agree. I don’t think I knew how to really read and come to my own conclusions until college, as crazy as that seems. 

It’s an important and one I think we should continue to harp on. 

Yes. And lastly.. please tell me a fun fact about Fresco.

He won Puppy of the Month at doggy day care. 

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All photos courtesy of Josh Lafazan.

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