Howie Hawkins, the Green Party nominee for Governor, will speak about his campaign in New Paltz on Monday, June 23^rd at 7 PM. The open community event is at the Village Hall. 

Hawkins will outline his campaign platform and discuss the recently completed state legislative session, including the flawed medical marijuana bill.

Hawkins is calling for a Green New Deal to provide jobs while creating a 100% clean renewable energy system for NYS. This includes a ban on fracking for natural gas and a shutdown of nuclear power plant. Hawkins supports fully funding public schools and opposes Cuomo’s push for high stakes testing, charter schools, and centralized control of the education system. Hawkins would reduce local taxes through a single payer health care system (replacing Medicaid) while restoring state revenue sharing with local governments to their traditional level. He opposes the austerity budget proposals and tax cuts for the 1% promoted by Cuomo.

Howie has been an organizer for peace, justice, labor, and the environment since 1967. Howie is a member of Teamsters Local 317 and active in Teamsters for a Democratic Union, US Labor Against the War, and the Labor Campaign for Single Payer Healthcare. He received 40% of the vote in his recent run for Syracuse City Council. Hawkins received 59,906 votes for Governor in 2010, finishing third.

The Green Party of New York is committed to the principals of ecology, grassroots democracy, nonviolence and social and economic justice. Green Party officials in the Village of New Paltz, Jason West and Rebecca Rotzler, helped ignite the successful campaign to make same-sex marriage legal in New York.