Asked how his previous experience best prepared him for his second career, and Greg Ball responds it was the time he was stranded alone in the wilderness of the Rocky Mountains for a few days of survival training.
Ball is not a Catskill Park ranger. Rather he is a New York state assemblyman making himself heard in the Democratic wilderness in Albany ”“ a wilderness at least from the vantage point of his Republican platform.
If half-facetious in comparing his current job to a survival drill, Ball”™s early days in Albany brought all the drama of a novice scaling The Trapps cliffs near New Paltz ”“ without a safety line.
Less than a month into his freshman term, Ball, R-99th District, excoriated Assembly Democrats after they voted to install former Assemblyman Thomas DiNapoli as state comptroller, calling the body “the most dysfunctional legislature in the United States of America.” That earned him boos and catcalls to resign from some members present ”“ and according to The New York Times, a top-80 ranking on YouTube.com after a video recording his words was posted on the Web site.
For a former U.S. Air Force protocol officer who worked for four-star generals (and a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, where he undertook the survival training), it was not the most diplomatic way to win Democrat friends and influence in Albany. After his 2005 discharge, the Carmel resident briefly worked for an Illinois-based development company called Exceed International before winning a seat in the Assembly last November. Ball represents eastern sections of Dutchess, Putnam and Westchester counties.
“I am sticking by my guns,” Ball said. “This Legislature is running the state into the ground and they are all doing it with a smile on their face. They are anti-business and anti-taxpayer.”
Ball wants more business people to consider a second career in politics ”“ if nothing else to populate the state Assembly with people who are there to get things done, rather than set up a path to higher office.
“The one thing, from my business perspective, is I don”™t need this job,” Ball said. “There are a lot people who get here, where they have to hang onto that job. That”™s dangerous because then they become part of the problem.”
Ken Zebrowski, another rookie legislator from Rockland County, is just two months into his own second career in politics. Zebrowski, D-94th District, took the seat of his father, Kenneth, after the senior Zebrowski died in March of complications from liver disease.
His previous political experience consists of a single term in the Rockland County Legislature, where his father served between 1973 and 2004 before getting elected to the state Assembly. Zebrowski, who plans to seek election in 2008, is winding down his case load at the law firm he partnered with his father in order to focus full time on his new career in state government.
Zebrowski feels his experience in law adequately prepared him for the new job, although he acknowledges the technical nature of some of the bills before him.
“The most important thing is to recognize your lack of experience in any situation and realize it is important to listen to colleagues, special interest groups and constituents on the issues,” Zebrowski said.
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