Object References not linking

I’m getting “Object Reference not set to an instance of an object,” and “pCon is assigned but never used.”

        public  PadController pCon;

	void Start() {
		PadController pCon = GetComponent<PadController>();
...
	}
	
	void FixedUpdate() {
		float inputX = pCon.getAnalog(ControllerAnalogs.LEFTX);
		float inputY = pCon.getAnalog(ControllerAnalogs.LEFTY);
...
	}

Any ideas why?

Get rid of the duplicate “PadController” in Start, leave the rest as is