MORGANTOWN — Three candidates for the House of Delegates 51st District met with The Dominion Post Editorial Board to share their views.
This was the third of several scheduled meetings with the 12 candidates. The three questioned at this meeting brought the total interviewed to 10.
All three candidates are challengers: Democrats Danielle Walker and Evan Hansen and Republican Roger Shuttlesworth.
Walker moved here from Louisiana eight years ago, she said. “I am just an everyday working person and a mother, first, of two disabled children.” She started here in a gated Cheat Lake community, then moved to HUD housing in Marjorie Gardens, then built a Habitat for Humanity home.
That experience led her to support a platform of safe affordable housing for all, she said. She’s also focused on the opioid crisis.
Hansen ran in 2016 and fell just 37 votes shy of gaining the district’s fifth seat, he said. He’s a father to a college sophomore, and founded and is a principal of Downstream Strategies, an environmental consulting service. As a business owner and scientist, he believes he can offer perspectives not common among legislators.
His business, he said, enables him to provide jobs to native West Virginians and transplants. He works with water utilities and policymakers and played a role in shaping state water policy following the 2014 Freedom Industries chemical spill.
He supports a diverse energy mix, he said. “I think it’s really important that when we look at opportunities to grow jobs, we’re not just looking at what worked for West Virginia in the past but we’re also looking at what can work in the future.”
Shuttlesworth is a lifelong Monongalia County resident. He worked at the Fort Martin Power Station for 32 years as a maintenance supervisor and fire brigade chief and still works as a volunteer firefighter. He has two adult children and two adult stepchildren.
He’s concerned about adequate funding for the roads, the opioid crisis and investment in schools. “If we can increase the wages for teacher, the benefit program for teachers, I think we can get the cream of the crop.”
The candidates listed their top three priorities.
Hansen wants to find ways to diversity and grow the economy and bring people into the state. More residents, more jobs, a growing tax base will help make tackling the state’s problems more manageable.
Some small adjustments to state code, for example, could bring in more solar energy workers.
He’s also concerned about PEIA and the roads. “We need a long-term solution to PEIA and that’s something I’m going to fight for. … It’s just crazy that our state government can’t figure out how to pave our roads and ditch them and maintain them. This is a basic government service and there’s really no excuse.”
Shuttlesworth said he’s focused on the financial stability of the state and drawing more manufacturing, infrastructure and roads and Division of Highways hiring problems, and the drug problem.
“It’s not going away,” he said of the drug problem.
Walker is concerned about food insecurity. “I’m at the senior centers and our seniors are hungry. … What we’re feeding them there is preposterous.”
With safe, affordable housing, she said, families will be able to afford their homes, and food.
“We need green jobs. We need those solar jobs. We need those wind jobs. We need cannabis to be legal in this state, medical and recreational. This will allow an economy like nobody’s business.”
On tackling the opioid crisis, Shuttlesworth said, “The best thing we can do is work in partnership with the federal government.” State law enforcement should work with federal police agencies to stop drug imports.
For imprisoned offenders, he said, the state needs to offer treatment and education to help keep them from reoffending.
Walker said the crisis started in physicians’ offices. Ordinary workers were prescribed opioids for pain and got hooked. “We need to look at those families that’s hurting.”
For those who are recovering from addiction, the state should form farming co-ops at abandoned mines, where they can grow lavender and have access to on-site counselors.
Hansen said we must recognize it’s not just a medical issue. It’s also a crisis for foster care and workforce development, among other issues.
There’s a role for law enforcement but doctors and drug companies must also be held accountable, he said. “If we can get our fair share of the money from the companies that have started this crisis, that’s going to help.”
Just as important are education and treatment. All levels of government need to work together and not unreasonable to ask the federal government to make an investment, he said. It’s smart to invest state money in education and treatment, considering the costs of the alternatives.
All three support fixing the banking flaw in the state’s medical cannabis program, so that the state can accept and use tax and fee revenue.
Walker said the issue affects everyone in her home. Her mother, a breast cancer survivor, and her two sons with disabilities all could benefit from cannabis.
She sees a state bank as the answer. (A state bank could process cannabis funds without being subject to federal involvement and federal prosecution.)
A cannabis program, she said, will help curb other addictions and benefit the economy.
Hansen said his father could possibly likewise benefit from cannabis. Pennsylvania has legal medical cannabis and one condition it’s used to treat is his father’s. “I don’t know if it would work or not but I would like to have the opportunity for him to try it without breaking the law.”
A state bank could also perform other (state and local government) banking functions, he said, without competing with private banks, thereby keeping more tax dollars here to reinvest. Setting up a state bank could take some time, so some kind of stop-gap system may be needed.
Shuttlesworth said, “I am a conservative but I do see the value of medical marijuana.”
He’s not for opening the economy up to general recreation use. And a medical program has to be carefully regulated and not left solely in the hands of doctors and pharmacists, some of whom prescribed and dispensed the state into the opioid crisis.
Creating a state bank, he said, will require bipartisan cooperation.
Gov. Jim Justice announced plans to use $100 million of the state’s newly emerging budget surplus to shore up PEIA. The candidates were asked about possible long-term solutions.
Shuttlesworth said he knows finding other funding sources is difficult. The Legislature has been struggling with it. “Are there other sources to fund PEIA? I’m sure there are.” He hopes the state can invest more not just in PEIA but in education overall.
Walker wants to fund it through cannabis revenue – medical and recreational – and through promoting solar and wind jobs and through fines for corporations that violate regulations.
Hansen said General Revenue Fund allocations won’t solve the problem. PEIA needs a dedicated funding source. People attending the PEIA Task Force listening tour stops advocated for raising the severance tax.
He said it’s not realistic to raise the severance tax on the still ailing coal industry. But natural gas is doing well and growing; companies are investing and won’t go anywhere if the tax goes up a bit. Finding the optimal price is the question.
Another potential solution, he said, is legalized marijuana. It’s been a game changer elsewhere. “If we’re going to move in that direction, we need to do it right. We need to be very careful.”
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