Meet the candidates in Senate District 13
In advance of the 2022 General Election, The Newport Daily News reached out to candidates running in contested races via emails filed with the Board of Elections to learn more about their candidacy.
All candidates were asked the same questions with a 450-word limit per question and provided two weeks to respond. Responses can be seen below without editing to ensure voters are reading the candidates' own words.
Dawn Euer
Position running for: Rhode Island Senate District 13, Jamestown & Newport
Hometown: Newport
Current office held (if any): Rhode Island Senate District 13
Occupation: Attorney, General Counsel for The Capital Good Fund
What makes you the best candidate for the position you are seeking?
Since being elected in 2017, I have focused my efforts on issues that would make a positive impact on the residents of Jamestown and Newport. I believe that, especially in these turbulent times, it’s critical that we find common ground to make big changes to adjust systems that aren’t working for us. Working together, we’ve accomplished so much: we’ve expanded voting rights, we’ve created additional oversight of short-term rentals in an effort to protect our housing stock and provide additional safety for the community & renters, we’ve streamlined regulations to support small home-based food businesses, we’ve protected Rhode Islanders from the federal roll back of civil rights and abortion access, and we’ve had the best two years of environmental policy making in RI’s history. We also passed legislation that increases insurance coverage of mental health coverage for children, expands protections against financial exploitation of elderly RIers, expands the Circuit Breaker Tax Credit program to support elderly and disabled homeowners and renters, ends the tax on military pensions and increases the amount of pension income that is exempt from state taxation, and expands early childhood education opportunities and the child tax credit.
I’m especially proud that I was able to pass three major priorities this past legislative session. 1) The Let RI Vote Act creates “no-excuse” Early Voting and Vote by Mail for the first time in RI law. Every eligible voter should be able to access the ballot, no matter which method of voting they use. 2) The Address Confidentiality Program creates a pathway for survivors and their families to safely participate in the many public aspects of life, which is something everyone deserves. 3) The offshore wind legislation helps to advance a clean energy economy by making sure that the offshore wind projects that are taking place in federal waters are done responsibly and aggressively. Transitioning away from fossil fuels to local, renewable energy sources is critical to stabilize prices, create local jobs, and fight climate change.
I continue to hear from people who are frustrated because they don’t feel the government is working for them, and I understand how they feel. However, I also believe the government can do good things: support small businesses, protect our environment, advance civil rights, and ensure that no one gets left behind. We can only accomplish these things if there are good people in government working hand in hand with the communities they serve. We need more than talking points and buzzwords to address these challenges. We need leaders who are rooted in our communities and have a proven track record of creating positive change in Jamestown, Newport, and Rhode Island. That’s why I’m running for re-election to the State Senate.
What do you believe is the biggest issue facing your district and how would you approach improving the situation?
We still have a lot of work to do to build the RI we all deserve - especially with increasing prices and affordability concerns - and I look forward to continuing this work. I think there are three areas of relief that are important to focus on at the state level: addressing the housing crisis; diversifying and transitioning our energy sources; and properly funding programs in our state budget that will ease the pressure on household budgets. Housing is a critical issue for all RIers, and I am committed to ensuring that all my constituents have somewhere to live. As coastal communities, Jamestown and Newport face pressure from short-term rentals. Short-term rentals increase the cost to year-round residents by reducing the number of properties available to year-round residents and by driving up costs for neighboring property owners due to speculative purchases by investors.
I sponsored legislation with Rep. Lauren Carson that requires all short-term rentals register with the state to ensure tax compliance for these businesses and improve safety for renters. In addition to this bill, Rep. Carson and I sponsored and passed a law that would enable the City of Newport to create a two-tiered property tax system for residents and non-residents. We need to continue to advance and invest in programs that will address the housing crisis by providing funding and structural changes that will create & preserve more housing units for year-round residents.
Addressing increased energy costs has been a huge focus of mine as well. In Rhode Island, most of our electricity comes from “natural” gas. We do not produce “natural” gas in state and the gas that is purchased is bought in speculative and exploitative markets. We all pay for the infrastructure to bring gas into our state. Furthermore, “natural” gas prices have nearly quadrupled over the past two years due to instability and war overseas and fossil fuel companies taking advantage of the chaos to gouge customers. (Fossil fuels are also a huge component of broader inflation driving up everything from food prices to consumer goods.) Wind and solar power, on the other hand, is more affordable than ever. The Revolution Wind Farm off Cape Cod will be selling electricity to the grid for about $0.07 per kilowatt hour. By contrast, in Rhode Island we will pay nearly $0.18 per kilowatt hour for our on-going fossil fuel dependence. If we want to lower energy prices and rein in inflation, we need to get off fossil fuels as soon as possible and start producing clean energy here at home. Getting more renewable energy project operational also creates greater market competition in the electricity supply markets which will help drive prices down.
David Quiroa
Response received after deadline.
Position running for: State Senate District 13, Jamestown and Newport, RI.
Hometown: Newport (33 years).
Current office held (if any): None.
Occupation: Senior Center Administrator, City of Cranston, Department of Senior Services.
What makes you the best candidate for the position you are seeking?
I cannot sit on the sidelines and witness our state deteriorate and have our politicians destroy our economy in the name of going Green. We must protect our environment, but it must be balanced. We must respond to the mental health crisis we are facing. We need to support all our schools and families by increasing funding for schools and expanding school choice. Our seniors are becoming the fastest growing segment of our population and we need to secure an infrastructure that is going to give our older aging adults a dignified life where they can remain independent. We must come up with strategies that will help us face the epidemic of Dementia among our elderly. The current political environment needs a dose of realpolitik. I can help bring that change.
The economy needs job creation, access to affordable housing, and taking advantage of our greatest resource: The ocean by developing a strong Blue Economy with the sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth. Inflation relief for all Rhode Islanders. We are all experiencing a $5,000 pay cut p/yr. with the current inflation. This pay cut to middle class families is making it difficult to keep the standard of living we enjoyed back in 2017 through 2020. In RI we rely on our cars for transportation and the price of gas is making our individual economic situation worse. Half of the middle class cannot afford to buy a home. The median price of a home in RI is $430,000, which means that a family or individual will need to earn an annual income of $120,000 to buy a home. State government must ensure that housing inventories don’t go to making entire neighborhoods into virtual hotels with the CEO of Airbnb becoming the unelected Mayor of our City or Town. We cannot let unregulated housing investment unlink generations of family heritage that make the fabric of communities. Neighborhoods filled with families and children are what gives a city or town its soul.
My life, education, community service, international, private and government sector experience with a deep understanding of executing programs that fix identified community needs puts me in a unique position to serve as a member of the RI General Assembly. As state senator, I can give back to my community by working full time hours, for the yearly stipend of $16,000 the post pays. It is basically a volunteer position.
What do you believe is the biggest issue facing your district and how would you approach improving the situation?
As a State we need to generate jobs, ensure affordable housing for all Rhode Island residents as the lack of housing opportunities is now affecting even families with incomes of $75K to $110K depending on the family size. If we do not secure housing for Rhode Islanders, the state will become the AirBnB State and will no longer be the Ocean State for residents and families. State, city, and town governments need to get rid of duplication of efforts and trim down their spending.
As the economy keeps getting worse with food, gasoline, utilities, cost of living going up and up, and quality of life declining at a fast rate, RI faces losing its middle class. We need to reinforce our schools by providing a new funding formula from the state to the cities and towns for those municipalities that are educating asylum children as the funding for those schools cannot be left to the homeowners alone. The General Assembly must pass a resolution forcing our Federal Delegation to bring funding for the current unfunded mandate to provide schooling to asylum children. In addition, we must increase school choice for all families, and we must place a Mental Health professional in every school across the RI. On the other end of the spectrum, we need to ensure that our infrastructure to take care of our older Rhode Islanders is adequate and reflects our ever-increasing older population. RI per capita is the oldest estate demographically in New England with the 85 plus years of age population being the fastest growing segment. RI needs to invest more money in healthcare oriented to the older population, especially in Memory Loss, Alzheimer’s, and other Dementias.
I’ve been a Newporter for over 33 years. I got married to my wife Iris in 1995 and together we raised five children. I made a career in the hospitality industry moving up the ladder at The New York Yacht Club. In my mid-thirties, I started a second career at The Cranston Department of Senior Services. There, I have served as the Retired Senior Volunteer Program Director and as the Assistant Director for the last 7 years. I served, under Mayor Fung, as Interim Director for 3 years. The first two years during a transition period and the last year during the first full year of the Covid19 pandemic, leading the Food Security Program for most of the State, serving 5,000 meals per week to homebound seniors. I want to pursue solutions in the following areas: Mental Health, State of our Senior Population, new Funding Formula for Schools (homeowners cannot keep paying for schooling asylum children), and Economic Development. Thank you!!!
This article originally appeared on Newport Daily News: Meet the candidates in Senate District 13
