X101’s Mike Eves Speaks with 52nd Senate District Candidate Mike Bolles

Mike Eves: [00:00:00] In the X 1 0 1 Studio, I am Mike Eves with me, Mike Bolles, and he’s running in the 52nd Senate District right here in the great state of New York. Mike, welcome into the studio. How are you?

Mike Bolles: I’m doing well. Thanks for having me.

Mike Eves: A little bit of background on you, Mike. I know you’re a a, a Broom County native, and yeah, if you wanna just kind of give me a brief.

Brief background, on your, on your past a little bit, and then we’ll get into some, some questions we wanna, we wanna ask you here.

Mike Bolles: Absolutely. Yeah. Sure. My professional background is I did, 22 years with the, Binghamton Fire Department as a firefighter paramedic, hazmat specialist technician.

Okay. And I also did 22 years in the Army, took me 45 years to get that. 22 years.

Mike Eves: Yeah.

Mike Bolles: But, all of it under the law enforcement umbrella. Nine years as a uniformed patrolman, and then 13 years as a plain clothes, special agent. Kind of like NCIS.

Mike Eves: Okay. No, no, very, very cool. Local guy. That kind of leads me into my first question.

You being a, a first responder now as a retired firefighter, as you just said, are you gonna help to address the ongoing issue of getting more volunteer? [00:01:00] Firefighters not only here in our district, but across the state as well. You know, there’s been some recruitment, issues on some of these smaller departments.

Mike Bolles: Yeah, absolutely. So one of the issues that I see is. We are losing people from the state of New York and we’re, it’s not like we’re losing, people my age. We’re losing young people. Since 2013, we’ve lost something like 880,000 residents. How many of them might have stepped up to be. The, volunteer firefighter, as well as with the ongoing tax burdens and increases in, in everything.

Mm-hmm. People are having to work more. They’re picking up second jobs, part-time jobs, and just to be able to afford their life. They’re not able to dedicate any more time to something, that is as worthy as being a volunteer firefighter.

Mike Eves: Yeah. Yeah. We know it takes lots of man hours and, and training and things too.

And that kind of leads me on to my, my second question, really, like, you, you hit the nail on the [00:02:00] head, people leaving and things too. Again. You said some of the, things, just the affordability. Crisis. And, we wanna of course get into the so soaring utility costs for both nine second National Grid, to grocery prices.

Do you have any plans too to kind of, reduce some red tape, reduce maybe some regulation to help in that department area too?

Mike Bolles: That was the head that you headed on? Yes, absolutely. Reduce red tape. One of the things we can do immediately is to repeal the Climate Act. In that respect, I absolutely support Governor Hool and her, desire to repeal that.

Unfortunately, the, the, the current senator from our district, is in favor of keeping that.

Mike Eves: Mm-hmm. Alright. And so, and that leads me to another one of course. Big investment news has been coming down the pipeline for a couple years. We’ve seen the manufacturers invest, of course burned dairy. Of course we always think Micron to the north up in Onaga County.

With, there’s so large parcels as you’re familiar with Mike, former Apex site in the city of Corland and the start of construction again, with Micron has just started [00:03:00] here in the past couple weeks. What are you gonna do to help to entice some of these supply companies and some of these different industries to come back to Corland.

Mike Bolles: Well, we need to reduce regulations. First of all, it’s very difficult, to start. Any kind of a business in New York State. I myself am a small business owner, with a, and, and I’ve found the, the difficulties in just running a home-based business. Mm-hmm. Jumping through hoops and, satisfy everybody.

But we have a lot of red tape that, that could be eliminated, not just reduced. Absolutely. Eliminated. You know, I’m looking forward to, if I get to Albany, hope I’ll be in Albany mm-hmm. To work with colleagues. Both sides of the aisle, as cliche as that.

Mike Eves: Yep.

Mike Bolles: Is,

Mike Eves: yep.

Mike Bolles: Bipartisan to reduce, absolutely.

Reduce government spending. We have a lot of ridiculous spending going on in the state and reduce costs, of doing business. And I just want to be, you know, a champion for Cortland County.

Mike Eves: Nice. I I like that. A champion for Cortland County. Mike, we’re almost outta time here, but any, anything else you wanna say here, kind of a statement or a last thing or maybe something that we, we didn’t [00:04:00] hit on here?

Mike Bolles: Well, just, I, I feel compelled.

Mike Eves: Okay.

Mike Bolles: To, to run it. And this is a, a brand new thing for me. I’ve never been a politician. I am not a public speaker. A lot of this, I, I have a lot to learn myself and I am, my career, whether it’s as a firefighter paramedic or whether it’s been as a federal agent, criminal investigator, I’ve had to listen to people and listen more and talk less.

Because I can talk for long periods of time, but yeah, I just wanna listen and hear what the residents are saying. See what they would like done and go to Albany to do just that. To do the bidding of the people. Mm-hmm. Not my own personal bidding.

Mike Eves: Mike Bolles, I want to thank you for coming into our studios here in Homer.

Of course, Mike is running in the 52nd Senate district right here in New York. And, thanks for joining us, Mike.

Mike Bolles: Hey, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Mike Eves: Yeah, of course. On X 1 0 1, always classic. I’m Mike Eves.