Easton First Selectman Adam Dunsby is seeking a second term representing the 135th State House District, which includes Redding and Weston. Democrat Anne Hughes is running against him. The Easton resident moved back to take care of her aging mother. Hughes says having automobile-dependent suburbs doesn’t work for seniors trying to age in place. She was part of the first class of Emerge Connecticut, a program to train female leaders. Hughes wants to advocate for a new era of accountability in Hartford. She has a background in community building and advocacy.
Last session, Dunsby helped expand access to grant money for police dash cams and helped to reform Freedom of Information statutes. The biggest challenge he sees coming up is balancing the budget and erasing the deficit. Dunsby also wants to help the state grow its economy again.
Hughes says the growth of the economy depends on a three-legged stool. One is to help state college graduates, work in Connecticut. She suggested student loan relief for graduates who work for a Connecticut-based company for 10 years, likening it to national public service programs. She wants to partner with community colleges and trade schools, and businesses, to invest their talents in Connecticut. The second leg is to have affordable health care. Hughes says people aren’t getting preventative care and she wants to expand Access Health Connecticut, enticing more carriers to provide coverage. She says the state has done a good job of expanding Husky B and Medicaid, but wants to do more. Hughes says a state-public option would not only help employers, but also would help people not worry about medical bankruptcy. The third leg is to invest more in transportation infrastructure. She says it’s become untenable for commuters and businesses to navigate around.
Dunsby wants to balance the budget without raising taxes, especially since there were two massive hikes in the past 8 years. He notes that when taxes went up, the deficit also went up and Connecticut is beyond the tipping point. Dunsby favors cutting the income tax, calling it a tax on work. He says the deficit cycle wasn’t created in a couple of years and getting the state out of the red ink won’t be solved in two years.
Dunsby opposes tolls. He notes that the Special Transportation Fund takes in $1.6 billion a year. That money comes from two gas taxes, a half point of sales tax, and soon all sales tax on new cars. One problem Dunsby sees is that the cost of transportation projects is inefficient. He says the cost to build a mile of road is about as expensive as anywhere in the country, as is administrative costs. Dunsby was also critical of what he called ‘trophy projects’ such as the bus from New Britain to Hartford. He want safety projects to become a priority. Another priority for him would be highly travelled roads and rail. Dunsby would like to see more bonding used for transportation and not for other things, like splashpads for New Haven.
Hughes supports a constitutional amendment to create a lockbox for transportation dollars. While acknowledging that the language isn’t perfect, Hughes says it does go a long way toward assuring taxpayers there will be accountability on transportation revenue. She says Connecticut could benefit from smart tolling, calling for commuter pricing, congestion pricing and higher fees for out of state drivers. She says tolls can be a viable start to reinvesting in roads and bridges and mass transit. Hughes says Connecticut cannot bond and borrow its way into improvements.
He supports the constitutional lockbox question on the ballot this November, even though Dunsby says the language is not as strong as it should be. He says it’s better than nothing. The fundamental flaw, according to Dunsby, is that it doesn’t define what money goes into the transportation fund. His interpretation is that the legislature could simply chose not to put money that should go into the lockbox, into the fund.
Dunsby is still studying regulation of sports betting and hasn’t yet reached a conclusion.
Hughes says regulating sports betting is a shiny option to raise revenue. She is concerned about economic disparity growing and it not just being a recreational expense for families that can’t afford it. She wants to further study the matter. As for legalizing recreational marijuana, Hughes supports it. She did read recent studies on drugged driving fatalities and increased injuries on the job. She is concerned about how it could be implemented in a way that safeguards public safety. Hughes says there can’t be a burden on administrating it or on law enforcement regulating it. She called for extreme responsibility if the state does move in the approval direction.
Dunsby wants to address employee benefits like pensions and the fact that the fund hasn’t seen enough contributions. He would like to see Connecticut move to 401Ks, like the private sector. Agency consolidation is also a way to cut spending.
Hughes says the opioid crisis was avoidable and has caused countless preventable deaths. She called it a scourge of big pharmaceutical companies that knew this was something that’s highly addictive. She doesn’t think the epidemic has crested in Connecticut and is not yet on the decline. She says opioids were only meant for late-stage cancer pain management and not regular post-surgery pain management. Hughes would like to see more treatment and less incarceration. She works as a social worker for the Coordinator for the Center for Elder Abuse Prevention and sees a lot of clients who became addicted after knee or hip replacement surgery. She says they are not suited for in-patient treatment because they often times have dependent spouses or someone caregives for them. Hughes wants more screenings in hospitals with other treatment options rather than opioids.
