Pete Harckham says he’s got the experience the public needs 

State Sen. Peter Harckham has passed 121 bills into law since coming to the senate and he says that’s only the beginning if he is reelected.

The Democratic and Working Families incumbent seeks re-election in the upcoming Nov. 5 General election for Senate District 40, facing off against Republican and Conservative opponent Gina Arena, a junior administrative assistant at the Westchester County Department of Public Works.

“I bring experience,” Harckham told the Herald on Oct. 18. “These are challenging times and the public deserves to have people who know what they’re doing and have experience. I have passion and I have compassion.”

Some of his top priorities, he said, include affordability, environmental justice, promoting gun safety, providing equity, funding schools to assist underserved students, and protecting reproductive health care.

“We codified Roe v. Wade into New York State Health Law in 2019 and sure enough Roe v. Wade was overturned. So we were protected there,” Harckham said. “We then protected women who come to New York for out of state reproductive health care and we protected the doctors and the clinicians who provide that care out of state prosecutions because many red states criminalized women going to other states for reproductive health care.”

Harckham said they need to ensure that the equal rights amendment is passed so that reproductive health care freedom is protected in the constitution. This, he said, is important in case there’s a national abortion ban at the federal level.

What Harckham is most proud of accomplishing through his latest term, he said, was constituent services and passing a lot of legislation.

“We bring a lot of grant money home, we’re good at that,” Harckham said. “But to go to a street fair and have someone come up to me I don’t know and say ‘Hey, I want to thank you. My wife needed help with her unemployment and you guys came through for her.’ What makes my day is when I hear things like that.”

Harckham grew up in Rockland County. He graduated from Dickinson College in 1982 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. His start  in organized politics came while working in the communications business. 

“I had a client who ran for Congress in 2000 and one of the reasons he lost was there weren’t organized Democratic committees, really north of White Plains,” Harckham said. “ I was living in Bedford at the time, joined the Bedford Democratic committee, helped them with capacity building. That’s where I really started learning the nuts and bolts of the business of politics.”

While president of A-HOME, an organization that builds and manages affordable housing, Harckham said he saw how helpful Westchester County was in facilitating affordable housing and thought it would be a great vehicle to confront environmental challenges in the district.

Harckham ran for the Westchester County Board of Legislators in 2007. He served four terms from 2008 to 2015. He also made a bid for State Assembly in a 2010 special election but was unsuccessful. Upon leaving the board in 2015, Harckham worked for former Gov. Andrew Cuomo for three years as an assistant director of the Office of Community Renewal. 

In 2018, Harckham ran  for state Senate, defeating Republican incumbent Terrence Murphy. Harckham ran for re-election successfully against Republican Rob Astorino in 2020, and again in 2022 against present challenger Arena. 

“When I was a candidate in 2018 I met with the (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) and they said they didn’t feel they had a voice with my predecessor,” Harckham said. “And so right then and there, I decided we’re going to put our office in Peekskill (because) Peekskill’s the most diverse community in the district.”

Some accomplishments he highlighted were increasing funding in Peekskill school district by $25 million, a 55 percent increase, securing $101.8 million in direct discretionary grant assistance, his office connecting over 1,000 families with unemployed benefits during the pandemic, holding 17 food drives, dozens of blood drives and Narcan training, and giving out $30 million in discretionary funding, with $8 million going to first responders.

The chair of the Senate Committee on Environmental Conservation also highlighted legislation of his to transition New York sales of automobiles to EVs by 2035, as well as a law protecting over a million acres of fragile wetland drinking water supplies and serving as a reservoir for stormwater during big storms.

When asked about his opponents anti-trans girls in girls sports stance, Harckham said Arena was wrong on the substance because state law does not regulate girl sports, rather a federal regulation, Title IX does. He warned voters they should vote Democratic because Donald Trump and Project 2025 call for the overturning of Title IX, he said.

“This is right out of the most extreme right wing playbook,” Harckham said. “…These are the most fragile kids we have in our community and it’s this kind of bullying from right wing politicians who make their lives miserable. They have the highest rates of mental health issues, highest rates of substance use disorder. They just want to be kids like anybody else and they need our support, not this constant scapegoating.”

Harckham said he is proud of his record both legislative, fiscally, and from a constituent service perspective, and that experience matters.

“I have passed 121 bills into law since I’ve been in the Senate. That’s one of the highest of any senator,” Harckham said. “But we still have another 100 bills in our portfolio, so we’re not going to be scrounging for work. We’ve got a very ambitious portfolio for next year and I look forward to continuing the work if reelected.”

Gina Arena wants New York to be affordable for residents

Gina Arena has been very active knocking on doors and says she envisions being a state senator who works for the people and makes things affordable.

The Republican and Conservative junior administrative assistant at the Westchester County Department of Public Works is running for Senate District 40 in the upcoming Nov. 5 general election, facing off against Democratic incumbent Peter Harckham who she also ran against in 2022.

“I bring my knowledge of what’s lacking in the community and what people are looking for,” Arena told the Herald on Oct. 16. “I’m a people person. I want people to be able to live in New York and not have to leave New York. I’ve lived here my whole life and I want to fight for it. I want to make sure New York stays the Empire state that I grew up in.”

Some of her top priorities, she said, include combating addiction, opposing cashless bail, redirecting funds from the migrant crisis to veterans and disabled, keeping trans girls out of girls sports, and affordability, particularly with disabilities, seniors and veterans.

“The system for a lot of them, especially our seniors, is hard to maneuver,” Arena said. “We have the highest taxes in the country here, especially in Westchester, and a lot of people are struggling with whether they should pay for their  heat or they should pay for their pills. And we really need to take this seriously. This is why we have such an out-migration problem because people just can’t afford to be here.”

Arena said she wants to take a deep dive into figuring out how they can lower costs for people, as well as where they can pull back on spending, such as the $2.4 billion allotted for the migrant crisis in New York City.

“We should be taking care of the citizens in New York that need our help,” she said. “We have veterans who live on streets, we have disabled who have at least a 10 year waiting list for adults to get into a group home. Those things should be a priority for the taxpayers of New York and their families.”

Arena grew up in Bedford, then Pound Ridge and Vista. She attended high school at John Jay Senior High School in Cross River, then graduated from Katharine Gibbs Secretarial School in 1985. She is pursuing a Bachelor’s in Business Administration from Eastern Gateway Community College.

In 2005, Arena’s son, James Raymond “Jimmyboy” died from a brain tumor when he was six years old. Arena, along with her husband, established the Just Imagine Making Miracles Yours Foundation in memory of their son. The organization assists children with life-threatening diseases and injuries with financial assistance.

A mother of a nonverbal autistic daughter, Arena also helped to create the Foundation for Educating Children with Autism and the Devereux Millwood Learning Center.

As a junior administrative assistant at the Department of Public Works, Arena helps make sure the department is running smoothly by assisting with bill paying, purchasing and bookkeeping. One campaign issue that has been personal to Arena is the opioid addiction, in which the mother of eight had a daughter who suffered an addiction and relapse. Arena ended up sending her daughter to a long term program in California which was very successful. However, prior to that, Arena said she tried but failed at getting her daughter into a New York hospital because addiction doesn’t fall under mental health laws.

“We need to, first off, make it clear that addiction is part of mental health and that people suffering from addiction also suffer from mental health issues,” Arena said. “And the other thing is a 30-day stay in a facility is nowhere near enough time to get rid of an addiction like an opioid addiction… Many doctors have told me that it takes six weeks for the person to even realize that they have an addiction. Once you get through that part you have to start then working on getting over the addiction. So a long term program is necessary if we really want to help people who are addicted to opioids.”

Arena, an opponent to having “men in girls sports,” said she supports trans rights outside of having trans girls in girl sports.

“But I feel really strongly that this keeping biological males out of girls’ sports is about the girls,” Arena said. “It’s not about trans, it’s about the girls and protecting their rights as well.”

In 2022 when Arena ran against Harckham, she received about 57,900 votes  or 46.6 percent of the vote. Discussing her opponent, Arena said they differed on things like energy lithium battery farms, accessory dwelling units and transit oriented development, and local control, which she believes should remain with the cities and towns that have the zoning.

“I’ve noticed in many different instances in talking with people, he’s out of touch with the people,” Arena said. “I’ve gone down and met with some people in Peekskill and some feel they don’t even see him there and his office is there… I hear from a lot of people as well that he doesn’t get back to them. I’m very different in that sense, I believe in keeping good communications with the constituents.”

Arena described herself as a boots on the ground person, who likes to go out and talk to people to learn their needs and what is lacking.