Voters Guide: NEW YORK STATE SENATOR, DISTRICT 5: John E. Brooks

JOHN E. BROOKS

DEMOCRAT

BACKGROUND:

• Brooks, 72, a lifelong Seaford resident, was elected to the New York State Senate in 2016. 
• Brooks chairs the Senate Veterans, Homeland Security and Military Affairs Committee. He has been a volunteer firefighter for 53 years and is ex-chief of the Seaford Fire Department.
• In 2001, he was appointed as Nassau County’s first director of risk management, after retiring from a career in the insurance industry. Brooks has a bachelor’s degree from New York Institute of Technology and served as a medic in the New York Army Reserve National Guard.

ISSUES:

• Brooks said that as a state senator he has “passed major benefit programs for veterans” and was instrumental in “elevating the state veterans service to a cabinet level department in the state.”
• He sponsored and passed the EMS Cost Recovery Act, which is included in the state budget, and which he said will save the state’s taxpayers $100 million.
• He said he continues to work on property tax reform “to make homeownership more affordable.”
• He said that he is “a leader in proposing needed reforms to the state’s bail reform act.”