Eight candidates for local seats in the Maine legislature engaged in spirited debate during the first night of The Lincoln County News‘ biannual candidates forum.
The candidates fielded questions about the economy, education, health care and same-sex marriage from the moderator, News Editor Sherwood Olin, as well as the standing-room only crowd at the Newcastle fire station Oct. 22.
Olin kicked off the event by asking the candidates why, especially in the current, divisive political climate, they decided to run for election or re-election.
District 53 House candidate Timothy Marks, D-Pittston, retired from the Maine State Police after a 25-year career as a state trooper.
“As a trooper, I enjoyed helping people,” Marks said. “When people had problems, they called me. My house was like the Pittston PD for many years.”
He said he wants to continue to help people and serve his community in Augusta, where he worked for five years as the doorkeeper of the Senate and enjoyed watching the legislature at work.
Marks’ opponent, Raymond Soule, R-Wiscasset, talked about streamlining business regulations.
“There’s a lady in Wiscasset that’s been trying to open a small convenience store and redemption center,” Soule said. The woman has been struggling to get answers from various state agencies.
“I visited her today and I thought I might have to load her and take her to the hospital, she was so upset,” Soule said.
District 52 Rep. Deborah Sanderson, R-Chelsea, said she wants to build on recent improvements in government accountability.
“We’ve uncovered some real shocking things and we’ve worked really hard to shore up and create mechanisms for more government accountability for how your tax dollars are spent, and I think that’s something we need to keep searching for,” Sanderson said.
The candidates quickly moved to the economy. District 51 House candidate Michael “Mick” Devin, D-Newcastle, said he would “encourage the governor to release the $40 million worth of bonds that have been approved and that he’s sitting on,” including $20 million for research and development.
“I’m going to push for education,” Devin said. “I’m going to push for the bond for research.”
He noted that the state, from September 2011-September 2012, had lost 500 jobs, a figure Sanderson said was inaccurate.
“In 2011, we’ve actually gained 1697 jobs here in the state of Maine,” Sanderson said. “I don’t know where you’re getting your information from, perhaps a different place than I am, but I just wanted to point that out.”
District 20 Sen. Chris Johnson, D-Somerville, talked about trying to find a slot in Maine’s community college system for a constituent who, after satisfying all the prerequisites for a radiology program, was placed on a two-year waiting list.
The system turns away thousands of students every year, Johnson said.
“That’s obviously an area where we need to invest more,” he said. “We need to support our college system.”
District 51 House candidate Alan “Buzz” Pinkham addressed tax rates in Maine, using the example of a Pennsylvania man he met while knocking on doors in his district.
“He said, ‘I’d like to be a citizen here, a resident, but I can’t afford to do it. If you can just get the taxes down a percent or two, I’d be here in a minute,'” Pinkham recalled.
He said he had a similar exchange with a man from New Jersey.
“Higher tax rates, I think you’re just going to chase people away,” he said.
Sen. Johnson disagreed. He said constituents complain about their local property taxes far more than any state tax.
“New Hampshire has lower taxes than Maine, but more people have moved from New Hampshire to Maine than the opposite,” Johnson said.
He said he does not agree that state taxes drive people away from Maine. “They’re coming in, and they’re coming in with higher salaries than the ones that are leaving,” he said.
A member of the audience asked the candidates how they will vote on Question 1, the Election Day referendum about same-sex marriage.
The Democrats all said they would vote yes for same-sex marriage; the Republicans said they would not, except for Rep. Les Fossel, R-Alna, who would not say how he would vote.
The candidates briefly talked about rising costs and declining enrollment in rural K-12 schools.
District 52 House candidate Lisa Miller, D-Somerville, said some rural schools might have to increase class sizes. “It may have to be a trained teacher with more aides,” she said. “It may have to be multi-grade like we have done in Somerville for years.”
Sen. Johnson, who also serves as a member of the Sheepscot Valley Regional School Unit board of directors, talked about closing Somerville Elementary School this spring.
“We have now got all the students from Somerville going to Windsor,” Johnson said. “The kids are happy, the parents are happy, it’s a great program.”
The district has saved money by consolidating the schools and moving its administrative offices into the Somerville Elementary building, he said.
The candidates also discussed the tenor of the campaign, including the flurry of negative, third party mailers in some races.
“They’re awful,” Miller said. “There are negative mailers about Deb [Sanderson]. They’re awful.”
“I’ve never seen anything like it before,” Miller said, in her five races for state office. “This is very different.”
Sanderson also denounced the negative tactics.
“I specifically directed my leadership not to send anything nasty out and what do they do?” Sanderson said. “They send something nasty out about Lisa.”
“We should be allowed to run on the issues and where we stand on the issues without having our parties pumping in things that are completely false and completely misleading about each other,” she said.
Marks and Soule described a more positive experience.
“I don’t need to put him down to make myself look good,” Marks said of his opponent.
The only hostility he encountered on the campaign trail was from a dog that bit him at a house in Alna, he said.
Soule told a story about going to dinner and running into a group of acquaintances that told him they had spotted one of his signs on Marks’ lawn.
“It spoiled my evening,” Soule said. “When I went home, the first thing I did, I got on the phone [and] I called Tim.”
“I have never, in all of the doors I have knocked on, said anything negative about that guy,” he said.
