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10/09/2018 03:00 PMDemocrat John-Michael Parker is seeking the 101st General Assembly District state representative seat, serving Madison and part of Durham, this November. When voters go to the polls on Nov. 6, residents get to choose between Parker and incumbent Republican Noreen Kokoruda.
Parker is new to local politics, but not new to Madison. He graduated from Daniel Hand High School in 2006 and then attended Yale University, graduating in 2010 with a degree in neurobiology. After college, he went to New York City where he worked as a middle school science teacher at The Dalton School.
While in teaching, he joined the founding team of a non-profit called The Future Project, an organization focused on empowering students to “build the future, one dream at a time.” There he worked as a “dream director” and was later promoted to vice president of development.
Parker moved back to town in early 2018. While he doesn’t have experience with municipal or state government, he said his work in the non-profit arena gave him good experience with money management, working collaboratively, and understanding the need for creative solutions to complex problems.
He was driven to run because of the state’s economy and a hope to encourage a higher level of political debate than the country has witnessed on a national level for a few years.
“This is not a place where you come in and win by being the most far to one side or another,” he said. “This is a place where you have the opportunity to build bridges and so I have been spending my days talking to people, regardless of who they voted for president, and say what are the common problems that we share and what are our common values...I think that is the most important thing we need in our politics in order to serve people.”
Education
Madison and Durham have seen significant cuts to their respective education grants over the past few years. Parker said he would like to see those grants go back to the level they were at a few years ago—in the millions—but admits that is probably easier said than done.
“We need to have a formula [to determine how much each municipality gets in education dollars] that works and we need to stick to that formula, regardless of what party you are in or inside politics where you get more money because of what town you are in,” he said. “We need a formula that is equitable.”
Additionally Parker said just because a town like Madison might be viewed as wealthier than others doesn’t mean the town shouldn’t be given money to support the education of its students.
“We work so hard to provide a good education to our students and we deserve to be met by the state with a similar commitment,” he said.
Pensions
Pensions can dominate much of the conversation coming into an election because the pensions, between the current obligations, unfunded liability, and agreements, lock up a significant portion of the state budget. Staring down the barrel at extraordinarily large pension payments for the foreseeable future, legislators and governors have pitched numerous solutions. Parker said the state has to meet its obligations to those workers and teachers who have been promised pensions, and start making some hard decisions.
“A lot of it is dealing with what is right in front of us and making hard decisions and maybe even fiscally unpopular decisions up front so that we don’t keep kicking the can down the line...We need to pay more of the debt upfront so that the debt isn’t just rising,” he said.
The pension issue in Connecticut is often exacerbated by the Legislature’s inability to vote on the agreements or negotiate the contracts on a regular basis. Parker said the state needs to start doing a better job of bringing more people to the table and making sure one group, like the unions, doesn’t have all the power.
“With an institution, the bigger it gets, the more it’s incentivized to totally look inward and do things for its own benefit,” he said. “Knowing that and knowing how powerful some of these institutions have gotten, let’s make sure there is a balance of power in how those decisions are getting made.”
Transportation
Connecticut’s transportation issues are well known. Every day residents deal with crumbling roads, bridges slipping in their safety ratings, and alternative transportation services like Shore Line East (SLE) struggling under the constant threat of funding cuts. Parker said lots of areas need help and legislators need to remember that the state can benefit from smart investments in transportation.
For example, Parker said repairing roads could help ease congestion and get people to and from work faster, extending the runway at Tweed Airport could help foster business growth on the shoreline, and extending rail lines eastward to places like Groton would help connect employees and employers.
In regard to funding transportation projects, the Special Transportation Fund (STF), which funds transportation projects, has only a few years left before running out of money. Tolls have been widely debated as a way to fund the STF and Parker said he would support a tolls proposal.
“I have talked to hundreds and hundreds of people about this, people across the political spectrum, and I would say the vast majority of people want to see tolls on the highway,” he said. “They say it’s crazy that we pay when we go into Massachusetts and New York, and I say yes it’s crazy how we are subsidizing out-of-state travel by hundreds of millions of dollars a year for people to come through and use our roads.”
Parker said there needs to be conversations about what returning tolls to the roads would look like before final decisions are made. Tolls cannot be placed only at the border to catch folks as they come in and out of the state, but Parker said there are ways to protect Connecticut residents with in-state rates and looking at possibly pulling back on other taxes like the gas tax.
Ultimately Parker said the state can’t turn away from the amount of revenue tolls would generate and wants to see people support the transportation lockbox question on the ballot in November.
“I talk to a lot of people who say, ‘Well, how can we trust the legislature to do what they say they are going to do?’” he said. “The idea of the lockbox is good and making sure we protect it is important.”
A Younger Generation
Parker, 30, said the number of young candidates running for election this cycle has resonated with people of all ages.
“The future of Connecticut needs to be young families, young entrepreneurs, young employees—young people coming to this state to build from the ground up a growing economy and growing tax base,” he said.
Considering his age, Parker aid he understands the struggle people his own age face when they want to stay in Connecticut to work and live, but just can’t afford to do so.
“That’s the lens I have for this conversation,” he said. “We need to have more people of a younger generation with a seat at the table to make sure we have representatives that understand the challenges that people face today in Connecticut when they are fighting hard to be able to afford housing here and get a good job here.”