Three Candidates Debate Human Services Issues at MCC

NOTE: This forum was held prior to the party nominations on May 21 and 22. At this time, all three candidates quoted in this story are still candidates for governor, with Malloy winning the Democratic nomination, Griebel is planning a Republican primary run and Marsh is pursuing signatures as an Independent candidate, with the goal of earning a place on the ballot in November.

"The Prospering Communities, Thriving Families” gubernatorial candidate forum, held May 10 at Manchester Community College, was well attended by an estimated 250 nonprofit advocacy and service organizations from across the state. The audience heard from three of the candidates for governor – Democrat Dan Malloy, Republican Oz Griebel and Independent Tom Marsh. The forum was moderated by John Dankosky, WNPR’s news director and host of “Where We Live." The event was sponsored by CT Association for Human Services, CT Voices for Children, CT Association for Community Action, Legal Assistance Resource Center of CT, End Hunger CT!, CT Nonprofit Human Services Cabinet, CT Women's Education and Legal Fund, and the CT Council of Family Service Agencies.

“These non-profit advocacy organizations are working together to change policy and on-the- ground service delivery to improve the lives of low-income people in Connecticut,” said Maggie Adair, the deputy director of CAHS. “The issues we work on include: basic needs, food and nutrition, early care and education, healthcare, behavioral health, developmental disabilities, housing, financial literacy, economic development, workforce training, asset-building and tax policy. This year, we decided these issues need to be front and center with the gubernatorial candidates. In a recession as deep as this, so much is at stake for our children and families, our future workforce, and Connecticut’s economic future.”

Questions were prepared by members of each of the sponsoring organizations.

In his opening statement, Independent candidate Tom Marsh, the current first selectman of the town of Chester and a small business owner, said he sees a dysfunctional and distracted form of government, and if elected, he would bring accountability and good governance to Hartford. Marsh is also a former member of the Governor’s Council for Early Childhood Education.

“We all want children in school who are healthy and ready to learn, but we get distracted from those core issues by bureaucracy that are false walls we put up ourselves,” Marsh said.

Malloy, who served as Stamford’s mayor for 14 years, didn’t sugarcoat the state of the state. "Aw heck, the state’s a mess,” he said. “We might as well get that on the table. We have to do things differently."

But Malloy went on to note that the current economic crisis is also a good opportunity to make change. "We need to restructure Connecticut,” he said. “We need to understand that long-term investments should drive our decision-making. I intend to take this crisis as a time to restructure Connecticut’s government and make sure we do better work with less money, and that we do not seek to balance the budget on those who are least among us. [We need to] take this opportunity to make sure we provide better services more efficiently or as efficiently as possible, and that we take care of those who need our help.”

Oz Griebel, the president and CEO of Metro Hartford Alliance (currently on leave) and former CEO of BankBoston CT said his concern over the past 18-19 years has been the erosion of opportunities for Connecticut’s residents. It’s first and foremost about restoring jobs, he said, restoring the resident’s and the private sector’s confidence in this state. In looking at Connecticut’s future, Griebel looks back to the 1980s, when the state was prospering, to the dynamic and vibrant economy, and getting back to that time of prosper

"To attack in a meaningful and systemic way, the structural deficits that are also a long-term burden…will require thinking outside the box,” Griebel said.

Griebel knows the state has an obligation to take care of those who need assistance, but he suggests taking a look at that assistance in an economical and creative way.

When asked how Connecticut can help narrow the achievement gap for Connecticut’s students, each candidate had a different take.

Marsh suggests putting a stronger emphasis on state funding of education, rather than local funding.

"When a family moves to town, [people] say, ‘Oh my gosh, they have kids – how are we going to pay for that?’ That’s not how it should be. If some of the pressures were taken off property taxes and put more at the state level, we would be welcoming these families, these children to town. We’re almost in a race to the bottom.We’re concerned about levels of taxation and we’re questioning our educational values in response to our taxation pressures."

Griebel spoke of linking the needs of the private sector with the educational institutions more effectively. "You don’t guarantee a [robust player] when you have an aging workforce [in the insurance area], without understanding the skill set those companies need,” Griebel said.

Malloy turned to the universal pre-K program that was implemented in Stamford 11 years ago. It guaranteed all 4-year-olds, regardless of income, the opportunity to attend at least one year of pre-K learning experience. "We did that because we understood about one-third of our children came to school 11 years ago without that experience. So we have a standard in the United States that says that every child should come to school ready to learn, but we weren’t doing anything in the first four or five years of a child’s life to make sure that was possible.”

After three years of asking the Stamford Board of Education to set up a commission on closing the achievement gap, Malloy did it himself.

"If we didn’t begin focusing on that issue – and that issue is more complex than simply race – it’s homeownership rates, poverty rates, it’s urban vs. non-urban," said Malloy. "What we have to do is drill down and make sure we’re taking an individual approach to education with respect to all of the children in the school system. And if we do that, we’ll be [successful].”

Each of the three candidates also had different ideas for early care system and expanding access to high-quality care.

Griebel said programs have to be looked at and how they will be funded.

“If we think early childhood care is critical and it’s going to add additional cost, we have to be honest and decide which things we’re going to do and aren’t going to do and how we’re going to consolidate activities to allow us to do them,” he said. “We have to have a serious conversation on where dollars are going."

Connecticut is a state that started underfunding education 16 years ago, said Malloy.

"We did some really bad things in Connecticut on a public policy basis with respect to public education,” he said. “I’m not sure I would call it a wholesale abandonment by state government of their local obligations, but it was darn close. Did some good things happen? School Readiness happened, and that program needs to be supported and we should not advocate eliminating early childhood education. We have a 33-year-old standard in this country that every child will come to school ready to learn and we need to honor that in this state. We’ve made some really bad decisions that I’m anxious to begin the process of overturning, and pre-K-12 education is one of those areas that is going to require some real attention.”

Malloy spoke of having combined efforts – perhaps combining existing departments into one – to examine pre-k-higher educational learning.

This is an issue that none of the candidates disagree about, noted Marsh. But leadership will be a vital piece to the puzzle.

"We need to have early childhood care that is going to be conducive to providing a strong foundation for the rest of their lives. Dan said for 16 years we haven’t been doing a good job with that and I agree with that – but why not? We’ve have a Democratic legislature, they seem to support it, but it hasn’t gone anywhere. We have a Republican in executive office – I was on the Governor’s Council for Early Childhood Education and nothing happened,” Marsh said. “We have a dysfunctional government, and when you look at an issue like early childhood education and care, it’s not a matter of just education, it’s a matter of home life. What’s the point of having quality child care so that the parent can go off to a low-quality job. It can’t be looked at in silos. It can’t be territorial. And that’s how our government looks at this."

To watch the full forum, visit http://ct-n.com/webstream.asp?odID=5437&odTitle=2010%20Gubernatorial%20Candidates%20Forum%20Sponsored%20by%20Connecticut%20Nonprofit%20Organizations">http://ct-n.com/webstream.asp?odID=5437&odTitle=2010%20Gubernatorial%20Candidates%20Forum%20Sponsored%20by%20Connecticut%20Nonprofit%20Organizations