Democratic candidates meet public
HARMONY — A large crowd of curious voters turned out Thursday to meet Democratic congressional and state House candidates.
The event, at the Steamfitters Technology Center in Harmony, gave voters a chance to hear from Congressional candidates:
16th District, which includes Butler and nearly all of western Butler County — Ron DiNicola, Dr. Rob Multari and Chris Rieger. Much of the 16th is the former 3rd Congressional District, currently represented by Republican Mike Kelly of Butler since January 2011.
14th District (Washington, Greene, Westmoreland, Fayette counties) Amy Fazio.
Also state House candidates:
8th District (north central Butler County and eastern Mercer County) Lisa Boeving-Learned.
12th District (Cranberry, Adams, Forward, Penn, Clinton and Middlesex townships) state House candidates Honora Rockar and Daniel Smith Jr. both seek to unseat Daryl Metcalfe, the Republican incumbent since 1999.
Butler County Democratic committee volunteer Catherine Lalonde said the event's goal was to increase the involvement of Democrats in the county.
“It's time we stop hearing people say 'I thought I was the only Democrat in the county,'” she said. “We're going to have an active presence in the county.”
Each candidate presented the reasons they're running and vision for the future.
“We're running a campaign around bringing people together, finding out where we agree and getting the job done,” Fazio said.
In addition to running for office in the 14th District, she is a mother, business owner and community volunteer, serving on the New Brighton School Board.
“I think good education and job training is good for all of us,” she said. “Preparing our children for the jobs of tomorrow is good for all of us.”
Boeving-Learned spoke to the theme of growing together through dialogue.
“It's this whole toxic nature that no one wants to talk to each other any more,” she said. “I just want to talk to people, because people inside are the same.”
Boeving-Learned is a U.S. Army veteran and retired police sergeant who developed a program to monitor sex offenders in the community.
“I'm here for workers, I'm here for the people of this state,” she said.
Rockar emphasized her years of business and academic experience.
“What I'm looking to do is to take my understanding of what collaboration really is, what problems really are and how they need to be defined and look at what changes need to be made in terms of legislation and support business growth in the community and quality education to support that,” she said.
Also running in the 12th is Smith, who emphasized coming together across party lines to address the issues in the region.“We need to work together to bridge the divide,” he said. “No more Democrats and Republicans and independents. We're one district, we work together.”Smith grew up in Zelienople and now lives in Adams Township. He has spent the last 14 years at Carnegie Mellon University where he is a senior supervisor.“I've had enough,” he said. “I've seen something I've not seen before in all the elections in House District 12. We have Republicans coming on board. I have a Republican campaign manager, and she wants to help.”The congressional candidates also spoke on the importance of helping constituents regardless of political registration.“What this race is about is 'What can we do to help the working families of Western Pennsylvania?'” DiNicola said.He is a former U.S. Marine and Harvard graduate working as a lawyer in Erie and serves on the boards of several nonprofits.“I think we have the chance to bring it home and elect a Democrat in this district,” he said.Multari agreed, and added that a greater focus should be paid to the decreasing population in the region.“The first topic on everybody's list in Pennsylvania seems to be jobs and manufacturing, but I think what we need to think about along with that is how our population … has declined,” he said. “We've lost 10 percent of our population over the last 10 years ... Also our median family income has gone down 12.5 percent in that time.”Multari emphasized the need to improve the Affordable Care Act, specifically to having Medicare and Medicaid play a more direct role in paying for treatment and care rather than going through an insurance company.“Medicare is paying all these insurance companies with money that should go to your health care,” he said.Rieger brought his largely Democratic audience back to 2016, the day after the last election and a surprise victory for many of them by President Donald Trump.“I swore to myself I'd get involved somehow,” he said.Rieger lives in Cranberry and has a law practice in Pittsburgh.“What we've been trying to do in this campaign … is spread a positive progressive economic message to the voters of the formerly 3rd District now the 16th District,” he said.Rieger, along with many of the other candidates, believes this is the year Democrats turn out to vote in Butler County.“In all of these special elections that we're seeing across America where Democrats are over performing by 9, 10, 15 and sometimes 20 points or more,” Rieger said. “This is a newfound wave environment and what we've done is we've embraced these new emerging grassroots organizations and grassroots activists all across Pennsylvania's 16th District.”
