Housing, health care, water quality key issues for District 62 Statehouse candidates

A Monroe County commissioner and a Jackson County council member will vie in the general election next month to represent part of south-central Indiana in the Indiana House of Representatives beginning next year.

Republican Dave Hall, council member in Jackson County, and Democrat Penny Githens, commissioner in Monroe County, will try to succeed Republican Jeff Ellington, who is not defending his seat because he has moved into a different district.

District 62, which like other statehouse districts was redrawn this summer, includes much of central and southern Monroe County along with all of Brown and part of Jackson counties.

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Githens holds a master’s degree in educational psychology from Indiana University. Hall is a crop insurance agent and farmer in western Jackson County.

The Herald-Times asked both candidates to answer questions about their primary issues, criminal justice reform and the health of Lake Monroe. Their answers follow.

Which two statewide issues would you like the legislature to address in your term? How would you work to ensure those concerns are addressed?

Hall: Record inflation and a shortage of housing have drastically increased home sale prices over the last few years. As a result, we have seen assessed values go up significantly which has impacted the pocketbooks of all homeowners and taxpayers. This is an especially important issue to our elderly populations that are living on a fixed income in these high inflationary times. The state could potentially help address this issue with property tax relief to soften the impact to Hoosiers.

Healthcare costs have to be addressed across our state. As I've knocked on doors in our district I've heard a wide range of concerns from community members. I met an elderly gentleman that had been retired and ended up going back to work for a year and a half to pay off his wife’s medical bills in order to avoid filing bankruptcy. I also spoke with a small business owner that needed an MRI for a back injury. He said a local “non-profit” hospital would charge almost $4,000 for an MRI that he was able to get for $299 by driving to Indianapolis after searching online. We need to do what we can to bring down healthcare costs and add transparency in costs/billing.

Githens: It's really difficult to select just two. The first issue that needs to be addressed is education. We need to increase spending for public education with the primary focus on increasing salaries for teachers and other school personnel. I want us to provide universal pre-K to all 4-year-olds, put WiFi hotspots on buses to allow students to do homework, increase the number of scholarships, as well as the dollar amount of the scholarships, for education majors in our public universities, do away with textbook fees, and increase funding for the complexity index, special education and English as a learned language.

The second issue is healthcare. Indiana needs to increase funding for public health. Improving the overall health of Hoosiers will help lower taxpayer-funded healthcare costs if we can lower the incidence of smoking, reduce obesity and diabetes, improve maternal and fetal outcomes, reduce high blood pressure, and reduce the incidence of sexually transmitted infections. We need to invest in expanded treatment for those with mental illness and substance use disorders. We need to make birth control easily available and inexpensive. And, we need to expand what Medicaid covers and begin to approach healthcare from a wellness perspective instead of a disease perspective. What I have just listed only begins to scratch the surface on what is needed in Indiana to improve health outcomes, it doesn’t begin to look at the environmental issues like lead paint in older homes, lead water pipes, and dangerous chemicals in our groundwater from coal ash ponds and EPA superfund sites. Even the expansion of affordable broadband impacts telehealth.

You're both involved in criminal justice reform at the county level. How would you translate the known issues with mental health, drug addiction and jail overcrowding into action at the statehouse?

Hall: Our entire state is dealing with mental health and drug addiction issues that have led to drastically increased crime in our communities. Our jails have become a revolving door for the same people to return over and over again. We must take advantage of the time they are serving to teach them how to overcome their issues and become productive members of our community again. By rehabilitating these people we will ease our jail overcrowding issues and make room for the truly dangerous individuals that need to be off the street. I am proud to have helped start the Jackson-Jennings Work Release Center that allows non-violent offenders to serve their time while working a full time job, receiving counseling from a mental health/drug addiction therapist, and taking life skills classes. The state could incentivize the use of Work Release Centers and similar models as an alternative to typical incarceration.

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Githens: We need a regional approach, with state funding, to expand treatment for those with substance use disorders and mental illness. With expanded treatment, we can intercede before people come into contact with the criminal justice system. It is estimated that up to 80% of the individuals in our local jails suffer from mental illness and/or substance use disorders, so intervening should help to reduce the number of incarcerated individuals. It should also help to reduce our clogged court systems with fewer arrests. The State should also consider pardoning people with low-level marijuana possession convictions.

What would you do to work at the state level to protect the water quality of Lake Monroe?

Hall: This is a great question as House District 62 makes up nearly all of the watershed area for Lake Monroe. I am not going to wait to get to the statehouse to start working on this. After I attended the “Future of Lake Monroe” event hosted by the Bloomington Chamber in June I was able to learn about the concerns that are impacting water quality. Failing septic systems are a source of contaminants that no one wants in their drinking water. I have already met with representatives of the Regional Sewer District and Helmsburg Sewer in Brown County. I was able to connect them with my contacts at the USDA and share other funding options for future sewer expansion projects. Another concern was sediment and fertilizer runoff. As a farmer myself I can tell you that no farmer wants to see their topsoil or expensive fertilizer be washed off the field. Many farmers today use no-till conservation practices and cover crops to hold soil and nutrients in their fields. The state can continue to expand/increase incentives for cover crops in these vulnerable watershed areas.

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Githens: The best course would be to allow Monroe County to manage it. First, do not allow tree cutting around Lake Monroe. The root systems of mature trees hold the soil in place, preventing erosion of silt into the lake. This includes preventing the clearcutting, logging and burning that the U.S. Forest Service has proposed doing in a portion of the Hoosier National Forest which is in the Lake Monroe watershed. We need to expand Indiana’s Clean Water program to conduct more frequent testing of the streams and creeks which feed Lake Monroe. With this testing, if specific chemicals, like glyphosate, are found, we need to take a hard look at ways to reduce such chemicals. Animal waste and failing septic systems are a source of E. coli, which also harms the lake, and need to be tested. Failing septic systems should immediately be upgraded.

Riparian buffers are good ways to protect chemicals and silt from finding their way into the watershed. Working with farmers, homeowners and businesses to create such buffers may require funding from the state. We need to ensure there are sound agricultural practices throughout the Lake Monroe watershed. Over the past two summers there have been problems with water from Lake Monroe due to algal blooms, a problem which is only going to get worse with global warming. Being proactive could lengthen the useful life of Lake Monroe, ensuring that area residents have a safe, adequate supply of water.

Boris Ladwig can be reached at bladwig@heraldt.com.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: District 62 candidates Penny Githens, Dave Hall on health, Lake Monroe