He has served as a town councilman for the last eight years and maintains his position as superintendent of operations in the Public Works Department. Prior to his career in public service, Parente owned gas stations, convenience stores, car dealerships, and a bowling alley.

“My expertise in business has been phenomenal over the years,” he said. “I’d still be in business if I didn’t end up with an injury that sidelined me.”

Parente is running for the seat in part because he believes he can be a better representative to the state government.

“I look at politics as, ‘I’m being hired. It’s your agenda, it’s not Bobby’s agenda,’” Parente said. “I look forward to being here as much as I can knocking on doors every week of the year and saying, ‘I’m your voice in Hartford.’ I think we’ve been lacking that from a lot of state legislators.”

He also makes a point of being nonpartisan, saying that too many state legislators act simply as a “rubber stamp” for their party.

“I never put a hat on somebody that says Republican or Democrat,” he said. “This is our town. We are East Haven.”

He says that he would not support tolls on Connecticut roads as a means of producing revenue unless computers could be used to adjust the rates for different drivers.

Parente sees the state’s decline in population and high taxes as its major problem.

“How many people…don’t know somebody that’s moved out of this state, that has talked about moving out of this state, that has worked their whole life in this state to possibly retire and they can’t afford it? How sad is that?” he said.

Parente wants to reform the welfare system as part of a plan to “bring back that dream.”

“People do need welfare at times, but not as a lifetime benefit,” he says. “Our unemployment rate is the lowest it’s been in 40 years…That should be taking a lot of people off of the welfare rolls,” Parente said. “But there’s people that are abusive towards it.”

He also believes that the income tax should be slowly phased out. He says that the tax cannot be “removed overnight,” but that the cost to residents needs to go down.

“We have to supplement the income tax with something; I don’t think tolls is the right way to go,” Parente said. “I think [tolls have] to be looked at to make it feasible so that it doesn’t hurt the people in Connecticut to any great extent.”

If elected, he would focus on efforts to improve the state’s business climate.

“Obviously, you have to make [Connecticut] more company friendly,” he said. “You have to create some incentives for people to stay and to bring in business.”

Parente would also want to reform the state legislature itself, including imposing term limits on legislators and removing lifetime benefits for lawmakers.

“You don’t need career politicians,” he said. “They’ve lost touch with why they’re there.”