PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — Candidates for county and state office shared their perspectives on citizen referendums, economic development and other issues at a forum hosted by Presque Isle High School students Wednesday.
Organized by the Presque Isle High School civics class, the forum hosted nine candidates: Shawn Gillen and Matt Irwin who are running for county sheriff; Dustin White, current representative for state House District 146; Bob Saucier and Trey Stewart, candidates for House District 147; David McCrea and Katherine Schupbach, running for House District 148; and Mike Carpenter and Karen Reynolds, candidates for state Senate District 2.
The forum featured questions from students on topics including economic development, the citizen referendum process, and the Aroostook County Jail’s recidivism rate. A recording of the event can be viewed online at Livestream.com/AroostookOnline.
The candidates also were asked to give a three minute statement on any topic.
Among their responses:
Dustin White, a Republican from Washburn currently serving in the Maine House of Representatives, said he’s supported changes to the state’s welfare system and reduction in the state income tax. He also said he worked to have Washburn selected as one the Maine communities to be eligible for the Opportunity Zone tax credit program under the 2017 federal tax law.
“That incentivizes big businesses, manufacturing facilities, to choose rural Maine, as the home for their businesses, creating good paying jobs for our area, lessening the property tax burden by expanding the tax rolls, and giving our well-trained and well-skilled youth a place to work.”
David McCrea, a Democrat from Fort Fairfield currently serving in the House of Representatives, said he tried to address a range of issues in his first term in office, from financing for potato storage facilities to proficiency-based education and the price discrepancy in gasoline across the state.
“I didn’t make any headway on that,” he said of the gas prices, which are often more expensive in northern Maine than the rest of the state. “Nobody even wanted to listen.”
McCrea also offered the crowd of high school students his thoughts on the rural population challenge.
“There’s a lot of reasons why The County is smaller than it was 25 years ago,” he said. “People in Maine do seem to move to the urban areas. It’s not just in Maine.”
“But when people have to move for jobs, that’s an issue. What I would suggest is that all of you, especially you young people, is it’s all skills-based.”
Katherine Schupbach, a Republican who is running for House District 148, said that she and her family moved to Aroostook County from Ohio and hope to help solve some of the rural challenges facing the region.
“Our hometown was basically destroyed. Oil companies came in, they used a process called fracking, which is very dirty and very loud,” Schupbach said. “We came here because it’s clean, it’s beautiful and it’s old. The trees have been here. I got into this for my kids. I didn’t want them to give up their dreams for the jobs they needed.”
Schupbach also relayed the story of a person who died of an opioid overdose while on a waitlist for addiction treatment.
“We’ve done very little to stop the drug problem. The fact that we can’t get people into rehab when they need help is the problem.”
Karen Reynolds, a Republican from Fort Fairfield, who is running for the Senate District 2 seat, spoke about the importance of working with people with different backgrounds and beliefs.
“I address you tonight with a challenge. No matter how smart you are or how smart you think you are, the reality is that half the people are going to agree with you and half of the people to some varying degree are going to disagree. It’s easy to surround yourself with those that agree with you. It’s easy to look up who’s registered with your party and go knocking on their door knowing that you have common ground. But I urge you to start listening to the other point of view, because it’s going to be that common ground that’s going to make decisions and make an impact in your world. It takes more strength to effect change with those who don’t know you or share your beliefs.”
Mike Carpenter, a Democrat from Houlton who currently holds the Senate District 2 seat, urged high schoolers to urge their peers and parents to vote, and suggested that more schools host forums for people running for elected office.
“The more people we can get out to vote, the better off we are. In the Legislature coming up in the next two years, there are some really big issues,” Carpenter said.
“I will not vote to roll back the minimum wage. I will not vote for anything that harms the environment. I will vote to expand MaineCare. MaineCare will provide health insurance for 4,000 Aroostook citizens using money that we have taken from our paychecks and sent to Washington.”
Bob Saucier, a Democrat from Presque Isle, is running for the House District 147 seat that he previously held, and said he would be focused on education.
“The thing that I really am passionate about is education. I come from a family of 10. Only four of us graduated high school. Of the four who graduated high school, I am the only one who graduated college.”
Saucier recounted how he helped his children pay for college educations at some fairly expensive private colleges, including Vassar College, Colby College and the University of New England.
“If you don’t spend money on your children, you’re not going to give them a head start in life. You talk about workforce development, education is there. You talk about kids staying in the area, education is going to keep them here.”
Saucier pledged to work on increasing state education funding according to the 2016 law approved by voters that would have generated new education revenue from a tax on high income households.
“We’re going to find a way to put that $138 million back into the budget.”
Trey Stewart, a Republican from Presque Isle, who currently holds the House District 147 seat, said he has been focused on the issues of economic development in northern Maine, workforce development, and the opioid epidemic.
“Two years ago, I was here and I said I was going to focus on two things: Jobs and the economy in northern Maine and I was going to work hard to address the opioid crisis,” Stewart said. “It’s going to come down to collaboration.”
Stewart said he has tried to work on a bipartisan basis in the Legislature and also to bring a voice representing rural Maine.
“I sat on the opioid task force, it covers the entire state, and I was the only one from north of Bangor.”
Stewart also urged the high schoolers at the forum to consider pursuing careers in northern Maine and offered to meet with them about their concerns and help them navigate education and career issues.
“Our demographic challenges are going to be the number one problem we face going forward.”
Matt Irwin, a Republican running for Aroostook County Sheriff, said he wants to bring his experience and perspective in law enforcement to the sheriff’s office.
“Aroostook County is really at a crossroads in so many ways. You see that in the schools, trying to figure out how to right-size the schools for the student population. You see that in the different municipal governments trying to figure out how to work together, if they can work together, to share resources.”
“I understand the budgetary issues that go into our municipalities. We have to find ways to work together. From the office of the sheriff, I think that it’s imperative to identify things that we all do over and over again. We’re all trying to find the right employees, we’re all trying to train them, and then we lose them to the next, better pay raise. We are all trying to solve this drug problem.”
“From a county-wide standpoint, we have to have an analyst that can coalesce all the information we have.”
Shawn Gillen, a Democrat from Blaine who is currently acting sheriff, said he would continue a positive trend at the Aroostook County Sheriff’s Office.
“We’re not broken. We’re doing very well and we’re thriving. We have more deputies on the road, almost double, then what we did five years ago. And those deputies on the road are solving crime at double the state standard. We have a domestic violence detective that covers The County, and we have another domestic violence detective coming online in January through a grant that we received.”
“We have three deputies assigned to Maine Drug Enforcement. They’re focusing not just on the low-level dealers but on the big-level dealers. They just did a four-and-half pound methamphetamine bust in Houlton.”
