Candidates look to represent new districts
In January, more parts of Lenawee County will have state representatives who are different from the representative for most of the county than at any time in recent memory.
While there has typically been one township that has been in a different district from the rest of the county — for the past 10 years that has been Cambridge Township — Michigan's new redistricting commission put parts of the county on the eastern and western edges into three other districts.
On the east side of the county, Ridgeway and Deerfield townships are in the 30th District, which stretches across the southern half of Monroe County and includes the city of Monroe. Macon Township is in the 31st District that stretches to the east and northeast and includes Detroit Metropolitan Airport and the northwest part of Monroe County.
In the 30th District, Republican William Bruck of Erie Township is running against Democrat Suzanne Jennens of Lambertville. In the 31st District, Republican Dale Biniecki of Monroe is running against Democrat Reggie Miller of Belleville.
On the west side of the county, the city of Hudson is in the new 35th District, which covers most of Hillsdale County. Incumbent state Rep. Andrew Fink, R-Hillsdale, is running against Democrat Andrew Watkins of Osseo.
For state Senate, Lenawee County will again mostly be in a district with a large part of Monroe County, but the new 16th District now extends into Hillsdale County. State Rep. Joe Bellino, R-Monroe, is looking to move to the Senate. He is running against Democrat Katybeth Davis of Monroe Township.
The northeast corner of Lenawee County is in the new 15th Senate District. Incumbent Democratic Sen. Jeff Irwin of Ann Arbor is running against Republican Scott Price of Ypsilanti.
More:Jeff Irwin running against Scott Price in Michigan Senate's 15th District race
More:Monroe County candidates participate in two days of forums at MCCC
Most of the candidates for the districts in Monroe County appeared at a candidate forum last month at Monroe County Community College. Jennens did not participate. The forum took place over two days, with different groups of candidates each day. Excerpts of their answers to questions were compiled by The Monroe News.
Biniecki and Miller were asked: “Over the past couple of years, the pandemic, economic and racism crises deeply hurt many communities you represent. How do you plan to lead our region to recovery and growth? What do we need to do, and who do we need to focus on?”
Biniecki: “In order to achieve economic recovery, we have to fix our labor pool. We have to invest in our skilled workforce by investing in career training and education. Right now, there’s a real shortage of every kind of skilled worker in Southeast Michigan. I propose to make Monroe County the skilled training and education center of the country; at least the Midwest. We could work with our CTE programs to teach truck driving, auto technology education, welding, fiber-optic technology, and a lot of these educations can be co-opted with unions like the lumber union and electric union.... We also need to re-purpose our old factories, old industrial centers, modernize them and make it more efficient and more pollution free to attract more businesses into Southeast Michigan. We also need plenty of energy; electrical power is a must. Steel is made with electricity nowadays, cars are built using a lot of electricity. We have to make sure the power grid is strong enough....”
Miller: “...I do agree with all of what the candidates are saying: manufacturing is important. We do have that new facility coming to Van Buren Township which, as Rep. Garza said, will bring over 2,000 jobs. And it’s clean energy, that’s what we need. But we also need to address affordable housing. When we have $15-an-hour wages and an apartment costs almost $1,200 a month, $15 an hour just isn’t enough. Our kids will live at home forever....”
The Senate candidates were asked: “What do you think about solar farms?”
Bellino: “My question to you is: If we’re not going to have solar farms, and we started this renewable kick back in 2008, where are we going to get the power? The coal burner generates 3,200 megawatts a day, and the new plant generates about 1,600. That’s about 54,000 acres of solar just to make up for those two. That’s not happening in Monroe County. But the second question should be what rights do a farmer have? Does a farmer have the right to sell their property to DTE for development, or are we going to tell him he doesn’t have that right? It’s his own personal property, what if he’s 82 years old and no kids want to be farmer? You’re going to tell him he can't sell it for $15,000 an acre? We have to have a commonsense solution here. There are a couple bills going around Lansing right now, because we need power but we don’t want to be like California or Texas. We don’t want to have happen (here) like what happened in Texas two years ago because the renewables are screwed up and gas couldn’t get there. We don’t want to be like California two years ago, where they had rolling blackouts all the time. We’ve got to have a commonsense solution; we need solar and we need some backup power too. DTE said the coal burner is going to shut down by 2040. They’re going to move that up, I think. They’re going to move that up, and I think they want to make that a gas plant, and that may make some people here upset. But we’ve got to have power to push the renewable power through.... Solar power, wind power doesn’t make enough power right now to push it through the lines to our house. We’ve got to have base power do that. I don’t have a problem with solar farms; I don’t have a problem at all. But like most of us here, we don’t want it in our backyard and we don’t want to upset our agriculture history we have here. But there’s got to be a commonsense solution and it probably has got to come from Lansing, because we can’t have 5,000-foot setbacks in a township for solar and say that’s legit.”
Davis: “I completely support solar farms. I was actually admiring the (college’s) solar panels on the drive in. One of the things that has come up over last couple of years in Monroe Charter Township specifically is we we had some farmers that do have acres and acres of land, 100 acres of land that they want to be able to turn that into a solar farm. But because of zoning and other regulations, they’re not able to do that. I just want to mention that there were two bipartisan House bills that would have supported the development of solar, they would have created jobs and would have given us just energy freedom, especially from DTE.... These bipartisan bills would have started allowing customers who might not be able to afford high prices. I attended a meeting in Detroit of the public services committee, because DTE was wanting to raise our rates up 9%. I went as an advocate for Monroe County, and Lenawee and Hillsdale, to tell them no, especially right now when inflation in the economy and gas prices are so high. We need alternatives to lower costs.... Out in Hillsdale they have beautiful wind turbines, and I’ve never really experienced that many acres of it. It’s just a beautiful sight to see. I completely support solar farms, and all green and clean energy.”
Bruck was asked: “With the overturning of Roe v. Wade, what is your opinion of how this will affect women’s reproductive healthcare?”
Bruck: “When I think of abortion, I think of human rights. You can tell the morals of a country on their value of life. I’m not here to make a choice for you, and you’re not here to make a choice for me. In human rights, all life should be protected. We protect our elderly. People are going to stand stalwart on each side, but I believe life is precious. It’s not necessarily a religious issue; it’s a human rights issue.”
Bruck was asked: "What actions will you take to reduce gun violence in our country?"
Bruck: “I’ve been to places like Iraq and Afghanistan, and there is something in common that they have, and that is that common citizens are not allowed to own weapons outside a very few makes and models that they can use to shoot coyotes and things of that nature. We look at our country, some of the worst places that have the worst gun violence have the strictest laws. I am for background checks that take in (account) the minors’ records. I think that’s common sense.”
This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Candidates look to represent new state districts in Lenawee County
