The Enterprise
By Kris DiLorenzo Jan 27, 2023
After 11 years representing District 92 in the New York State Assembly, 77-year-old Tom Abinanti is now a civilian, back home in Pleasantville.
Following her victory in the Democratic primary, MaryJane Shimsky of Dobbs Ferry was elected to replace Abinanti this past November, and was sworn in on Jan. 4. The district includes most of Greenburgh and Mount Pleasant as well as part of northwest Yonkers.
Before and after he left office, Abinanti was honored by communities he served. He received proclamations from the Town of Greenburgh as well as the villages of Elmsford, Irvington, and Pleasantville.
“I’ve been very humbled by the appreciation shown,” Abinanti said on Jan. 19. “I tried to tailor my work to meet the needs of all the communities, to identify their most pressing needs.”
Abinanti is now focusing on the private law practice he maintained, at a minimal level, throughout his political career. “I’m expanding my law practice,” he explained. “Now I’m trying to re-focus on law and people with special needs.”
Before the Assembly, Abinanti was a member of the Westchester County Board of Legislators from 1992-2010; the Greenburgh Town Council from 1980-83 and 1990-91; and was prosecuting attorney for the villages of Ardsley and Dobbs Ferry and the Greenburgh Housing Authority at varying times during the 1980s.
In the Assembly, Abinanti was chair of the People with Disabilities Committee. “We were doing some cutting-edge stuff in the Committee,” he stated.
During his last year in the Assembly, Abinanti sponsored a dozen bills signed into law to aid people with disabilities (PWDs), raising awareness about their experiences and how the State needs to address their issues, beginning with nomenclature. One bill dealt with replacing references to “mentally retarded” or “mentally ill” persons with the term “individuals with a developmental disability” or “developmentally disabled.”
Other bills established a public awareness campaign to combat the stigma and stereotyping of individuals with developmental disabilities; directed the state Office for People with Developmental Disabilities to establish a voluntary training and certification program for employers who take the EmployAbility Pledge; and set regulations for providing certain services to camps for children with developmental disabilities and students enrolled in an individualized education program.
Abinanti lobbied for crisis centers to deal with potentially dangerous encounters with authorities who might misinterpret the behavior of PWDs. He pointed out the need for police training to deal with what they might not recognize as autism, for example.
Abinanti also served on the Assembly committees for codes, environmental conservation, health, and the judiciary.
The New York League of Conservation Voters gave him a 100 percent rating. In the Assembly, Abinanti sponsored a half-dozen laws relating to environmental conservation, including having supermarkets donate their excess comestibles to food banks or similar organizations that request the food. “The last bill of mine in legislation is a bill to study establishing a commission to determine the feasibility of setting up a new department for New York State on clean drinking water,” he noted.
Abinanti also received a 100 percent rating from Planned Parenthood. “Before New York was a pro-choice state, I was a founding board member and pro-bono attorney for 18 years for the Westchester Coalition for Legal Abortion,” he said. Abinanti sponsored bills passed into law prohibiting professional misconduct charges against health care practitioners for providing reproductive health services to patients who reside in states where such services are illegal, and prohibiting medical malpractice insurance companies from taking action against reproductive health care providers who provide legal reproductive care. Another law provides confidentiality to protect providers, employees, volunteers, and patients.
On the subject of gun control, Abinanti sponsored bills signed into law addressing undetectable “ghost” guns made with 3-D printers; imitation weapons such as toy guns; safe storage of firearms, and more. One of his last bills signed into law requires “the creation and imposition of restrictive commercial practices and stringent recordkeeping and reporting to prevent gun and ammunition sales to individuals with a criminal record.”
“It’s immoral to produce weapons of mass destruction designed to be sold to kids and to adults who are not part of the military,” Abinanti asserted. He noted that suicide is a gun-related problem, as are accidents in the home because of weapons improperly stored. “I’m a strong advocate of making sure guns don’t fall into the hands of those who misuse them,” he added.
Regarding property taxes, Abinanti sponsored a bill allowing the Town of Greenburgh to impose a hotel tax, and a bill that increases the amount of income that property owners who are over 65 and PWDs with limited income may earn to be eligible for an exemption.
Though he’s a Democrat, Abinanti stressed that he made it a point to include Republicans’ input and maintain cordial relations with them. Despite divided political opinions in the country, he said people can “disagree without being disagreeable.”
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