Representative Jeffrey Evangelos, I-Friendship, has his eye on addressing the minimum wage, healthcare, and education funding if reelected this fall and hopes to achieve his goals with a cooperative approach.
Evangelos, an incumbent in the current House District 49, is running against another incumbent, Rep. Ellen Winchenbach, R-Waldoboro.
The two representatives are now running in the new House District 91, which includes Waldoboro, Friendship, Washington, and part of Union.
Evangelos began his professional career working in town government, but after serving as Warren’s town manager in the latter half of the 1970s he was hired as then-School Administrative District 40’s business manager.
Working with Superintendent David R. Gaul, Evangelos said he and Gaul helped bring about the “golden age” for the district.
“We literally brought the Waldoboro Washington, Friendship, Warren and Union schools into the 20th century in terms of facilities,” Evangelos said.
Evangelos said he helped save the district millions over his roughly 15 years as business manager by going out to bid on “everything of substance,” such as going out to bid on insurance saving the district $30,000 annually, and using a state grant to help reduce annual heating oil usage by 50,000 gallons.
The accomplishment Evangelos is most proud of during his time working for the school district, however, was his efforts to both institute a wage scale based on experience and providing health insurance to the non-professional district staff such as custodians, secretaries, and teachers’ aides.
In 1980 the school board asked Evangelos to investigate poor morale among that part of the staff, and at the time it was legal for school districts to pay lower than minimum wage, he said.
The school board was stunned by the conditions he found, and after the above changes were implemented morale soared, Evangelos said.
“I’m proud of the fact that we changed lives, and made people’s lives better. Paying liveable wages and providing healthcare are at the top of my agenda, and they’re at the top of my legislative agenda as well,” Evangelos said.
Evangelos was a co-sponsor of LD 611, which would increase Maine’s minimum wage, and said he was proud to have fought the battle despite Governor Paul LePage’s veto. He also co-sponsored one of the vetoed bills to accept federal funding to expand Medicaid in Maine.
He aims to pursue those issues again if reelected, and is also looking at how the economy can affect those parts of people’s lives.
“I’m very concerned about the economy. We’ve had this disastrous month where we lost the mills in Millinocket, we lost the mill in Old Town, … we’re losing the mill in Bucksport,” Evangelos said. “We’re talking about 580 jobs that employed people in 16 counties in this state.”
“We’re kind of in the eye of a hurricane right now, with our economy, where we think we came out of the rough seas, but I think we’re entering the rough seas again. I don’t think our economy ever healed,” he said.
Evangelos, who lives in a community filled with fishermen of various types, fought against a bill which would have allowed the use of commercial draggers to fish for lobster.
“I thought that was an incredibly bad idea, I opposed that,” Evangelos said. “I take my responsibility of representing the fishing community very seriously.”
He also opposes the planned site for the wind power project in Muscongus Bay because of the potential interference with the lobster industry.
A big issue for Evangelos is his desire to see the state provide 55 percent of the funding necessary for K-12 education and 100 percent of special education costs as required by the referendum that passed in 2004.
For Evangelos, the issue ties in not only the lack of funding but the impacts on the property tax payer and the political climate in Augusta.
“We’re in this unprecedented situation where the people of Maine have spoken. There’s nothing more democratic and powerful than the public referendum process,” Evangelos said. “If you vote by public referendum to enact something, it happens. That’s our system of democracy, yet successive governors and legislatures since 2004 have ignored the will of the people.”
“The political will just isn’t there to do it because it’s going to involve tax reform on a large scale to get it done. It’s going to mean that the regressive property tax no longer be the chief engine of education funding,” he said.
To solve the issue, Evangelos says, the legislature will need to take up income tax cuts which favor the wealthiest individuals in Maine, as well as closing corporate tax loop holes.
“I don’t have all the answers on this. My door is open to the answers, but I’m simply not going to continue to support regressive taxes,” he said.
With any issue, Evangelos says he is a proponent of civility in politics.
When Assistant Democratic Senate Leader Troy Jackson proposed legislation to require a governor be elected to a second term to receive a pension, Evangelos was the only legislator to testify against the bill in committee, he said.
“I thought it was the worst bill in the legislative session. Just because one particular party may not agree with somebody’s policy initiatives or politics, it doesn’t mean we go there and act like that,” Evangelos said.
“We have to heal the politics of this state. We have to come together as people,” he said. “Beyond all the factual and legal stuff is the atmosphere. It has to get better. We just have to start cooperating.”
Evangelos, who does not caucus with either party, said he takes every issue on its own merits.
“I’m going to Augusta to make things better for Maine, not to fight partisan battles, and the fact that I’m an independent proves it,” he said.
