Dist. 51 seat contenders still trying to lock up votes
They are still campaigning and contenders for Woonsocket and Cumberland’s state House of Representatives Dist. 51 seat on Tuesday, Nov. 6, say they have been encouraged by the responses gained while meeting district voters on the stump.
Incumbent Democrat Robert D. Phillips of Dunlap Street, Woonsocket, and his challenger, Moderate Rufus R. Bailey Jr. of Cass Avenue, Woonsocket, have both been walking the district while hoping to secure voter support on Tuesday.
“I’ve been walking the neighborhoods in my district and have been able to hit 1,200 homes,” Phillips, 62, said of this fall’s campaigning. Phillips has been hoping to reach active voters in the district and learn about concerns he would seek to address if elected to a fifth term as representative for Dist. 51.
Most of the people he has met on the campaign trail have voiced appreciation for the House of Representatives move to roll back car taxes under a sixyear phaseout.
“But a couple of people have also expressed concern that the car tax reduction is not going to go all the way through to the end of the plan,” Phillips said.
“If I am re-elected, I am going to make sure that everyone down at the General Assembly knows that this is a
priority throughout the state,” Phillips said.
The first two years of the car tax roll back has saved Woonsocket residents $2.4 million on their vehicles and in Cumberland $1.1 million. Changes in the age of vehicles assessed has also resulted in 13,000 vehicles in the two communities no longer being taxed, according to Phillips.
If House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello is re-elected to his leadership position, Phillips said he has no doubt that the planned car tax roll back will continue. But if someone comes in to replace Mattiello as Speaker, Phillips said there is a possibility that the program could be curtailed or stopped altogether.
In that case Phillip said he would seek support for a bill to at the very least change the car tax from a locally assessed tax to one that is levied on a statewide basis regardless of the community where the car is housed.
That would end the practice of some motorists seeking to register their vehicles in communities with the lowest car taxes and in turn charge a more equitable tax statewide.
“It wouldn’t matter where they live or registered their vehicle, it would be the same tax no matter what community they live in,” Phillips said.
Phillips said he would also like to continue his past work on improving the state’s business climate by reducing the number of business regulations enforced by the state and the costs they bring to businesses.
“It’s just too burdensome on small businesses and we should let them do what they do well and that is run their businesses,” Phillips said.
“The paperwork required by the state has to be simplified,” Phillips said.
Phillips would also work to improve school funding for the local communities and supports a review of the current funding formula to make it more equitable.
Phillips said he believes his constituents appreciate his willingness to the judge the issues on their merits and even take a position contrary to that of the House leadership if that is in his district’s best interest.
Phillips voted against the enactment of truck tolling under the House’s 51 to 21 vote with the 10 or 11 Democrats joining Republicans in opposing it.
“My district was 95 to 99 percent against the tolls and so I voted against it,” Phillips said.
As far as the campaign goes, Phillips said he has a record of accomplishments from his years as a representative and continues to update it with his recent legislative pursuits.
He worked for increased education aid for Woonsocket and Cumberland over the past two years and helped to secure $ 6 million in increased state support for Woonsocket schools and $1 million in new state support for Cumberland.
He also recently worked on securing $4 million in the state budget that will be used to create a job training and higher education center in Woonsocket in the near future.
Phillips authored a new law streamlining the process to obtain and renew commercial driver’s licenses and also
sponsored legislation to reduce fees that businesses pay for a sales tax permit.
As he met with district residents, Phillips said he also sought to learn what they t would like to see him pursue in a new term in office.
“I also always ask why,” Phillips said while noting that helps him to make the case r for a change or an addition to r state laws among his fellow legislators. t A 1974 graduate of Franklin High School, Phillips r earned his bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Rhode Island. A former banker, Phillips currently works for the Woonsocket Education Department.
He and his wife, Nancy, r have twin sons, Timothy and Matthew.
Bailey, the CEO of the d Woodlawn Federal Credit Union in Pawtucket, is a political newcomer but hopes to bring his experience in the financial world to bear in better managing the state’s overall budget and also creating options for curbing the state’s routine budget deficits.
“By restructuring some of our higher bonding costs, we could free up funding that r could be used to reduce the budget deficits we have experienced,” Bailey said.
And rather than offer a limited number of college students two-years of free tuition at a state college, Bailey said he would rather see that funding applied to improving education in grades 1 through 12 and also adding support for Pre-K programs.
Pre-K has been shown to be successful in giving students the start they need to do well in school and that may be an important step forward in improving education overall in the state, according to Bailey.
Bailey said he would also like to see the state take on addressing its crowded highways with roadway improve- ments that go beyond the current focus on correcting deficient bridges and highway fixtures.
In Miami, Florida, Bailey said a rapid transit system operates in the downtown that can move people across the city in minutes regardless of heavy road traffic.
Rhode Island, he said, could benefit from such mass transit initiatives if state leaders were willing to pursue their development.
Bailey has moved around in his life while following his mother, Dawn Ologun in her military career in the U.S. Army and Reserve from where he was born at Fort Hood in Texas through her service in Washington, D.C. at Walter Reed Hospital where she retired in 2006. His father, Rufus, Sr., is a longtime general contractor.
Arriving in Woonsocket in four years ago with his wife, Adderlin, Bailey said he decided it was time to make use of his financial background to the public’s benefit with a run for a General Assembly seat.
He holds a bachelor of science degree in accounting from Johnson & Wales University and earned his master degree in business administration from Johnson & Wales in 2013.
Bailey said he has already learned a lot about his district by going door-to-door to meet its residents. “You actually get to speak to people which I feel has become a lost art these days,” he said.