Local Candidates Tackle Issues at The Lincoln County News Forum

Lincoln County candidates debated topics from domestic violence to spending priorities during The Lincoln County News Meet the Candidates forum at Lincoln Academy’s Parker B. Poe Theater in Newcastle Monday, Sept. 29.

A dozen participants hope to represent Lincoln County towns in the Maine House of Representatives and Senate; two more are candidates for district attorney.

The Lincoln County News Editor Sherwood Olin moderated the forum and, after candidate introductions, kicked off debate with a question about what lawmakers and prosecutors can do to prevent domestic violence.

The question sparked a number of suggestions, as well as some personal anecdotes about the impact of domestic violence, including a frank plea from Les Fossel, candidate for Senate District 13.

“I don’t consider myself a victim, but have I experienced domestic violence? Yeah,” Fossel said.

“When I was a kid,” Fossel said, choking up, “my mother would keep us all outside because my father was not safe. How could my father not be safe? And that’s not the only time in my life.”

Fossel encouraged all victims of domestic violence to talk about their experience.

“Be a witness of it in a place where it will do good, and if you have to do that quietly, that’s fine,” Fossel said. “If there’s a way to do it loudly without harm, I’d appreciate it.”

District Attorney Geoff Rushlau, R-Dresden, also talked about the need for witnesses of domestic violence to speak up.

“Don’t ignore it, and don’t make it a police problem only,” Rushlau said. “Call 911.”

Rushlau’s opponent, David Sinclair, D-Bath, said restorative justice programs can help combat domestic violence, but the state needs to fully utilize the programs.

“Restorative justice works,” Sinclair said. “We need to increase our investment in it. We need to do what is working in order to help move the community forward.”

House District 53 candidate Jeffrey K. Pierce, R-Dresden, said good jobs can help fight domestic violence and other problems, like elder abuse, and the Legislature can help create jobs with initiatives to train workers and reduce energy costs.

Substance abuse often contributes to domestic violence, and people who have a good job with good pay “don’t tend to hit the bottle, they don’t tend to turn to drugs,” Pierce said.

House District 87 candidate Jeff Hanley, R-Pittston, suggested recruiting help from outside the public sphere. “I’m a Catholic man,” Hanley said. “I have a deep belief in God and a moral foundation.”

Hanley suggested that “all the churches in the state of Maine should be drawn into this discussion so we can drive the issue home to the children, the littlest people, so they don’t grow up believing a man can strike a woman or vice versa.”

Olin next directed the discussion toward spending priorities, sparking discussion about the state’s responsibility to fund public education.

Rep. Lori Fowle, D-Vassalboro, started the discussion. “I think education gets people off of welfare,” Fowle said. “It breaks the generation after generation of people who need the services.”

“I think education has to be top on the list of what we’re spending money on,” Fowle said.

Candidates from both sides of the aisle connected adequate state funding of public education in general and early-childhood education in particular to later savings.

Rushlau said legislators face a significant challenge because “you’re talking about spending money to educate a 4-year-old so they won’t be a criminal 15 years from now. That’s a very long-term view … but it’s still an important view that we have to take.”

Senate District 13 candidates Fossel, R-Alna, and Sen. Chris Johnson, D-Somerville, both called for early-childhood education.

“We need to drive spending down to pre-K,” Fossel said. “We need it because there is a good chance we could have a whole lot fewer special ed students if we caught them early.”

Johnson, citing a recent study, said “Every dollar you spend on quality early-childhood education for at-risk children is going to pay back in the course of their lifetime” at a ratio of 16:1.

House District 91 candidate Rep. Jeff Evangelos, a Friendship independent, called for the state to fund 55 percent of public education and 100 percent of public special education in accordance with a 2004 referendum.

The state currently falls well short, at about 45 percent, according to Evangelos.

“Our schools are starving for money, and this has resulted in a situation pitting our schools against our towns, which is an untenable situation,” Evangelos said.

“The people have voted to fund education at 55 percent,” Evangelos said. “The solutions are there. The political will, so far, has not been.”

Evangelos’ Republican opponent, Rep. Ellen Winchenbach, of Waldoboro, agreed, despite some concerns.

“I support 55 percent funding for education,” Winchenbach said. “I believe that we should follow through with that.”

She said she would like “some guarantees” that towns would use the savings to lower property taxes, and said legislators need to look hard at where to find the money, with the Maine State Lottery one possible source.

Other Republicans expressed caution about spending more state money on public education.

“Every dollar the state spends is all of your money,” Pierce said. “So which pocket are we going to take it out of?”

Regardless of the source, “it’s still the taxpayers’ money first and it has to be taken from them and given to the government to spend, whether it’s through local property tax or whether it’s through expanding your income tax,” Pierce said.

Evangelos and Johnson, however, agreed that local property taxes hurt the people who can least afford to pay, like retirees whose home represents their entire net worth.

Returning to the question of spending priorities, some candidates questioned the state’s tax breaks and loopholes, which cost the state $2 billion a year, according to Johnson.

Senate District 23 candidate Alice Knapp, of Richmond, the only Green Independent candidate for a Lincoln County seat, said these tax “expenditures” roughly equal the combined income and sales tax the state brings in each year.

“One of the things we need to do is restore some rationality to our spending policies, to our revenue policies, and we have to restore fairness,” Knapp said.

The forum ended just after 9 p.m. with closing statements. Rep. Tim Marks, D-Pittston, summed up the cordial atmosphere of the event.

“I appreciate the respectful debate tonight,” the first-term legislator said. “It was very bipartisan. I hope we can take that to Augusta when we get there.”