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Thalia Olaya, Governor Kathy Hochul’s Suffolk County Regional Representative, threatened Islip Forward in a direct conversation with our Executive Director, Ahmad Perez, after we organized alongside Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado to demand stronger protections for immigrant communities. During that same conversation, she also made remarks questioning Delgado’s racial identity. This is not secondhand reporting. It is conduct our organization experienced directly.

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Suffolk County has spent far too long operating through a political culture where loyalty, access, and backroom relationships are rewarded while working-class, Black, brown, and immigrant communities are expected to stay quiet. We need representatives from Albany who are willing to break from that culture, not reinforce it. A state official tasked with representing the Governor should not be threatening a grassroots organization because it organized with the Lieutenant Governor or demanded more from the administration.

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That is why Islip Forward is calling for Thalia Olaya’s removal as Suffolk County Regional Representative. Suffolk County deserves representation from the Governor’s office that respects community organizing, welcomes dissent, and stands apart from the political machine that has failed our communities for decades. We deserve public servants who answer to the people, not to the culture of intimidation and political loyalty that has defined too much of Suffolk politics.

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