After more than three decades of practicing law and years of working in government and community service, Irene Villacci is seeking a new role representing the communities she has called home for most of her life.
The East Rockaway resident is challenging incumbent Assemblywoman Judy Griffin, a Democrat, for the seat in the 21st Assembly District, and is making taxes, affordability, public safety and education central themes of her campaign.
“I’m pretty disgusted with our New York state taxes and crime — I was fed up with it,” Villacci said. “And I believe, and I see it in the proof, that my district isn’t getting the representation that we need from Albany.”
Villacci, 62, moved from Brooklyn to Lynbrook with her family when she was 2, and later moved to East Rockaway, where she has lived for about 25 years. She has practiced law for roughly 35 years, including the past two decades in her own Rockville Centre practice, focusing on residential real estate, special-needs trusts, guardianships, elder law, trusts and estates.
She also spent about four years as a Nassau County deputy county attorney, serving as counsel to the Office of Community Development before becoming its executive director last August. Villacci previously worked for the State Senate, and served as an East Rockaway village trustee from 2005 to 2011. She was president of the Women’s Bar Association of the State of New York from 2014 to 2015.
Affordability is central to her campaign. The state, she said, should reduce spending and identify government waste while preserving funding for priorities such as education.
“I think there’s tons of waste,” she said. “I think if we get rid of the waste and find the revenue and find the money and take back the money into our state, not paying it out to other states, I think that’s the beginning of the property tax reduction.”
Villacci also supports repealing New York’s cashless-bail laws, particularly for repeat offenders, while saying she could envision cashless bail remaining in place for some minor offenses. “I think the repeal of it is necessary,’ she said. “I can see it possibly with minor offenses, but it can’t be for repeat offenders.”
On education, Villacci said she supports increasing the amount of funding per student, and believes school districts across the state are not receiving a fair share of available resources. She is also opposed to defunding the police and “anything that's going to risk the safety of our corrections officers."
Her approach to governing, Villacci said, would draw on her years of working with clients, lawmakers and community members with differing views. She said she hoped to bring a more collaborative spirit to Albany, where lawmakers can discuss their differences and work toward finding common ground.
“I care and I listen, and I have a conscience that when I come home from Albany, I need to be able to face the people that I just represented,” she said. “And voting against them will not be my job in Albany. Voting for them and with them will be my job.”
