While many are asking, “Are you ready for some football,” others are out pounding pavement asking residents more serious questions about taxes, transparency, and local aid.
Upton and Mendon both have hometown representation in the Massachusetts House of Representatives Republican Primary.
Upton Finance Committee Member Shawn Craig is running for the State Representative seat in the 9th Worcester District against Republican David Muradian of Grafton. Mendon Selectmen Mark Reil is running against Republican Chris Kivior of Milford for the 10th Worcester District State Representative seat.
Upton Daily took a moment to speak with both local candidates.
Shawn Craig decided to throw his name in the race in April of 2014. “When Peterson retired I wanted to see someone who had business or municipal experience run for the seat,” said Craig. When Craig realized no one was running with that type of experience he decided this was his time to run.
Professionally Craig brings military, business, and municipal experience to the race. In addition to being on the Upton Finance Committee he is the liaison to the Mendon Upton Regional School District and outgoing Vice-Chairman of the Mendon-Upton Multi-Board Task Force.
Craig has always served. “My twenty year career has been about helping the public. I always enjoyed wearing the white hat, it was the way I was brought up. I grew up with people involved in community service.” Craig said he enjoys being able to help people out, from serving in the military to assisting an elderly couple on a fixed income about their finances while working as a financial planner, helping others is just part of who he is.
Three issues important to Craig are lowering the tax burden, increasing transparency, and growing jobs.
“Residents are already taxed enough. We should be providing tax relief, not raising taxes on the hard-working people of Upton, Northbridge, and Grafton,” Craig said.
Craig would like to see a one-year waiting period before any new tax or regulation goes in effect to give time for businesses to adjust. He’d also like there to be hearings or similar forums during that period to get feedback from businesses on what type of impact they would have. “Through that dialogue you can craft a better bill,” Craig said.
If elected he could see himself serving on the Post Audit and Oversight Committee where he would work to close loopholes and reduce fraud and abuse.
Craig said he would also like for conference committee meetings to be open to the press and public and see an end to the legislature’s exemption from the public records law.
To find more information about Shawn Craig visit his website http://shawncraig2014.com/
Mark Reil’s goal has always been to help people and make government work for the tax payers. “Since becoming Selectman it has become very clear that most of the problems that are affecting our communities are stemming from Beacon Hill,” said Reil. “I have always felt that if you see a problem you must act and that is what I am doing by running for State Representative,” said Reil.
“We have seen local aid decreases affect our communities greatly and it is a driving force of increasing property taxes,” said Reil. “I am a major proponent of bringing tax dollars local. It is more efficient and more accountable at a local level,” he said.
Reil said Illegal immigration is a major issue affecting our nation, cities, and towns. It is driving up education cost, putting stress on our police resources and costing taxpayers millions of dollars. “My great grandparent immigrated to America to escape the Armenian germicide in the early 1900’s and they did it legally and worked very hard to raise their family with no help from the government,” said Reil. “This is unsustainable and we must act to curb the effects of illegal immigration. A necessary step must be to end taxpayer funded benefits to illegal immigrants,” he said.
Reil would like to reduce the tax burden on residents and businesses. “Last year our legislature raised taxes by $500,000,000 and in that included the gas tax indexing which means our legislature does not have to vote on increasing the tax in the future it goes up with inflation. This is taxation without representation. It is critical that the voters recognize the importance if reversing this on the ballot in November,” said Reil.
Reil believes we should look at making government more efficient and more accountable in order to provide more services instead of taxing more.
Mark Reil serves as a Selectman in Mendon and has served as a Park Commissioner. He helped administer grant money awarded to the Town while serving as the Green Communities Program Manager. He is on the board of Directors of the Daniels Farmstead Foundation and Lake Nipmuc Association. To find more information about Mark Reil visit his website http://www.markreil.com/.
UPTON DAILY 