Chair Morano opening: value of committee hearings and past work

Good afternoon.

I am Councilmember Frank Morano.

I have the privilege of being the chair of the Committee on Veterans.

Thank you for joining us today for our oversight hearing with the Committee on Mental Health and Substance Abuse.

And you will hear from their distinguished chairperson in just a moment.

And I'm very, very much looking forward to today's hearing.

I really can't say enough about the value that I think these hearings have had since I've been lucky enough to chair this committee.

You know, New Yorkers, as many people know, are cynical.

And if possible, Staten Islanders that I represent can be the most cynical of a cynical group.

And oftentimes when it comes to the public and, quite frankly, even a lot of legislators, there's a lot of head scratching about what these hearings actually accomplish.

I'm not necessarily talking about this committee, but any of these hearings in general.

There's the feeling that, in fact, I said this today multiple times, there's a feeling that there's a lot of grandstanding politicians

asking questions to a lot of stonewalling bureaucrats, and it's not necessarily clear what's being moved forward.

I really do think that the committee hearings that we've held have stood in stark contrast to that.

Not only the testimony that we've gotten from the administration, not only the reports that the committee.

has prepared, but the dynamic testimony from the public, including the public, by the way, who is occasionally critical of the work that this council's been doing on veterans affairs.

Whether it's been the hearing that we had on post-9-11 veterans, whether it's been the hearings that we've had on LGBTQ plus veterans, whether it's been the roundtable that we did on

veterans of color, whether it's been the hearing and associated roundtable that we've done on post-9-11 veterans or on female veterans,

each of those hearings has produced concrete legislation that I am looking forward to introducing.

In some cases, I have introduced.

And I think it really does lay the groundwork for actually improving the lives of the large number of veterans that live in New York City.

And I'm hopeful that this hearing that we're going to undertake today, which is on a very important issue, does that same thing.