Candidates for Senate lay out their goals

Flanagan kicks off her campaign, promises work on health care, to be prudent with money

By Owen Boss

LEOMINSTER — State Rep. Jennifer L. Flanagan, D-Leominster, officially kicked off her campaign for state Senate Monday at the Sheraton Four Points in Leominster, and listed funding for health care, transportation, education and public safety among her campaign’s top priorities. “It is important to work on issues relative to transportation, education, health care, and public safety and really meeting the general needs of the public,” said Ms. Flanagan. “There has been a lot of concern in these tough economic times about how to make ends meet; we need to look into our economy as a state, and into what our future holds.” Ms. Flanagan said that if elected, she will do everything she can to help residents of the region who cannot afford the health care that the state recently made mandatory. “Part of the problem that we are having is that people just can’t afford health care. We need to make sure that they can afford the premiums,” said Ms. Flanagan. “We also need to make sure that health care delivery in Massachusetts is as streamlined as possible.” Like her opponent, former state Rep. Brian Knuuttila, Ms. Flanagan has also recognized that state government placing of Lottery aid funds into the state stabilization account is going to be a major issue during the campaign. “Some of the problems with taking a one-time payment out of the stabilization fund is that it will greatly affect our bond rating,” said Ms. Flanagan. “It is certainly important that citizens know that their legislators are looking out for them — is it the most popular decision? No, but our information shows that we are going to have difficult economic times over the next couple of years and we need to be prudent with our money.” Although she is in favor of building up the state’s stabilization account, Ms. Flanagan says that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t wish she could provide the towns and cities in the region with the funding they need. “I would love to bring money from this account to the cities and towns, but the truth of the matter is the one-time payment may not go as far as we like,” said Ms. Flanagan. “We have a lot of bond bills before us, and those bond bills are going to provide funding for our region’s citizens.” oboss@thegardnernews.com

Appeared on Page 1 on 5/22/2008 (Vol. 206 No. 122)