Lawson Wants To Address Education, Health And Small Business

By Scott Benjamin

It’s quite a commute from Brookfield in the heart of metro Danbury to North Canaan near the Massachusetts border.

“I didn’t realize how long that drive is,” Democratic nominee David Lawson of New Milford said regarding his recent trip from the southern to the northern end of the 30^th state Senate District, which covers 14 municipalities Geographically it is the largest of the 36 Senate districts, which each have about 95,000 residents.

You can go from Brookfield to Torrington to Salisbury and think that you’ve been in three different regions of the United States.

The 30^th District hasn’t elected a Democrat since Litchfield attorney Joe Ruggiero captured the seat in 1978 and held it for one term.

Lawson, who is chairman of the New Milford Board of Education, faces Republican state Rep. Craig Miner of Litchfield, who formerly was first selectman of that town, in the contest to succeed two-term Republican state Sen. Clark Chapin of New Milford, who announced last fall that he would end his legislative career – he was in the House for 12 years – at the end of this term. Lawson has long been active in municipal elections in New Milford and has attended several Democratic functions in the region through the years.

This is the seat that Republicans M. Adela (Dell) Eads of Kent held for 20 years, including the two years she was President Pro Tempore of the upper chamber, and Andrew Roraback of Goshen occupied for 12 years before he narrowly lost the 2012 election in the Fifth Congressional District.

However, former Connecticut Democratic Executive Director Jonathan Harris of West Hartford has noted that Northwest Corner towns such as Kent, Salisbury and Sharon have supported Democratic U.S. Rep. Elizabeth Esty of Cheshire in the recent elections in the Fifth District.

“My experience has been that most people are more interested in the person than the party,” Lawson said in an interview.

The Democrats, who have controlled the state Senate since early 1997, currently hold a 21-15 majority, but political insiders say it’s a toss-up as to who will have control following the November 7 election. Democratic Gov. Dannel Malloy of Stamford signed huge tax increases in 2011 and 2015 and the state budget for the fiscal year that ended in June had a $279 million deficit, according to Democratic state Comptroller Kevin Lembo.

State Rep. Art O’Neill (R-69) of Southbury said this spring that only 74 percent of the jobs lost during the recession and a disproportionate number have been low paying.

In June, Malloy’s approval rating in a Quinnipiac University poll plummeted to 24 percent as he and legislators scrambled to close a more than $900 million budget gap for the current fiscal year.

Lawson said the state faces future fiscal hazards, since dating at least to former Gov. John Rowland of Middlebury, a Republican who left office 12 years ago, it has neglected to keep pace with its pension obligations. There now is about $32 billion that has to be funded by 2030.

Brookfield Democratic First Selectman Steve Dunn has said he’s alarmed that no one has a solution.

Lawson, a long-time teacher at Dover High School in New York state, is focusing his platform on college affordability, health care access and small business development.

He said he and his wife have spent more than $250,000 over the last six years to fund their two children’s college educations.

Lawson said the state needs “a comprehensive plan” to “increase access and affordability,” a concern that he hears regularly from voters.

However, the Connecticut Board of Regents, the largest public college system in the state, spent more than $1.8 million two years ago to have the Boston Consulting Group conduct a study for its Transform CSCU 2020 plan, which sought to entice more of its community college students to further their education at the four-year schools in the 17-campus system; attract students that had previously been taking classes but had left school; upgrade facilities and information technology; install distance learning classrooms; and expand online offerings.

Gregory Gray, who was then the president of the Board of Regents, has said that there was “no other way” than to reform the way the system operated, largely because of reduced state funding and smaller enrollments. He said that he hoped the 2 percent tuition increase for fiscal 2015 would set a trend for future years so that families could accurately estimate their college costs.

Transform 2020 had the support of Malloy and the Board of Regents, but after the study by the Boston Consulting Group was completed many faculty balked – saying the plan didn’t promote academic excellence and would add too many online classes - which led to campus votes of no confidence in Gray, who departed the system last year.

Lawson said he would “have to take a closer look” at Transform 2020 before he could determine whether it should be resurrected.

He said another of his goals would be able to have the colleges better coordinate their curriculums with the jobs market. That apparently has been a chronic problem, since some years ago former Lt. Gov. Michael Fedele (R-Stamford), who served under former Gov. M. Jodi Rell (R-Brookfield), said, for example, that Electric Boat in Groton had trouble hiring enough oceanic engineers and Blue Sky Studios in Greenwich needed to find more skilled animation specialists.

Regarding job growth, Lawson said the state needs to boost small business and start-up company development by making some “of the existing [state] programs more business friendly.”

He said he agrees with Malloy that there is potential in alternative energy, such as the projects being constructed in Torrington by Fuel Cell Energy, as well as in such fields as nanno-tech, bio-tech and bio-med. Additionally, he declared that there is huge potential in “medical innovations and medical devices.”

“It used to take months to get the DNA results, now you can do it in a day,” he said.

Lawson said he hopes that the farmers markets in the 30^th District will soon start selling more of their produce in local stores.

On K-12 education, Lawson, who is in his fourth term on the school board in New Milford, was a major proponent in making the district one of the first in Connecticut to adopt full-day kindergarten and also led the drive to eliminate the pay for play sports fees.

He said he opposes Malloy’s increase in funding for charter schools, saying that it “hurts the other public schools,” which excel at preparing students for college and careers. Some Democrats in the General Assembly complained during the last session that Malloy reduced funding for conventional public schools while boosting the money allocated to the charter schools.

Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton - a former high school Social Studies teacher who still belongs to the Connecticut Education Association (CEA), the state’s largest collective bargaining unit for teachers - has said that some of the most “fascinating” results that he’s seen in education have come from his visits to two of the charter schools.

Boughton, who was the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor in 2010, has noted that the performances have been impressive, partly because the students have a longer academic day, attend school on alternating Saturdays and the principal teaches a class and maintains a classroom. He said Danbury should have charter schools devoted to aeronautics, theater arts, teacher preparation, medical services and police enforcement. He noted that not all students learn alike and that there should be more options available.

Boughton has said he is concerned that “whenever anybody tries to break the mold, the CEA has to step in and say, ‘We can’t have this.’ “

Lawson said, “That’s his opinion.”

Lawson said he also opposes Democratic President Barack Obama’s call for a 197-day academic year. The president announced his plan in 2010, saying that American students are attending classes about a month less than those in Japan, South Korea and New Zealand.

“One size does not fit all,” Lawson said. “More is not necessarily better. It’s how you use the time.”

Lawson said he is committed to help secure adequate resources to the three hospitals in the district - Charlotte Hungerford in Torrington, New Milford Hospital and Sharon Hospital - “to ensure that they stay open and provide the services that the people in the district need.” He noted that they also regularly have patients from New York state and Massachusetts.

Malloy has reduced funding for hospitals since taking office in 2011, which has prompted the Connecticut Hospital Association to launch an advertising campaign to get money restored.

On a related topic, Lawson praised state officials for approving legislation this spring that will limit the opioid prescriptions to just seven days.

He said the misuse of the prescriptions is both a “mental health and drug abuse” issue that “is devastating to families” across all social demographics. He added that there are not enough hospital beds in Connecticut to accommodate the mental health and drug abuse patients that need care.