Why we support Figueroa for state rep
Experience matters, and Anabel Figueroa has plenty of it. She has served on the Stamford Board of Representatives as a volunteer elected official since 2001, where she’s learned the ins and outs of our city. This means she has sat through countless hours of committee meetings, combed through more than two decades of budget books, approved contracts, advocated for resolutions, and voted on many an ordinance. As such, Ms. Figueroa has a lot of accumulated knowledge, which will help her immensely on the state level if elected as state representative.
Moreover, as a unit coordinator working at Norwalk Hospital, Ms. Figueroa has first-hand knowledge of the challenges present in the health care industry. During surges, doctors and nurses are sometimes spread too thinly across patients, affecting the quality of care received. This is something Anabel would like to address legislatively on the state level. At the same time, premiums and deductibles are rising, making it harder for everyone to access care when needed. In addition, Ms. Figueroa has seen the challenges of rising health care costs on municipal budgets. In November of 2021, Anabel supported a resolution in favor of “Medicare for All.” While such a lofty goal may not be achieved overnight, it is an important one. Monopolies across varying sectors of the healthcare industry are causing out of control price increases. It is important that the government acts as a countervailing force to bring prices down. The state of Connecticut has already worked to cap insulin prices and out of pocket fees for diabetes monitoring supplies, and it should work to cap other prices in the healthcare industry as well.
Anabel Figueroa is a strong believer in education. She used to work as an elementary school teacher in her native country of El Salvador. When she first arrived in the United States, after escaping a civil war, she took free adult English classes at Cloonan Middle School. She then went onto Norwalk Community College, where she studied to become a therapeutic recreation director and a certified nursing assistant. Ms. Figueroa truly believes we have to work to provide the best education possible for the citizens of
Stamford (kids and adults alike). This means aggressively advocating for more resources from Hartford. Stamford has more students from low-income households and more English language learners in our public schools than our surrounding towns. As such, she will be working to reform the Education Cost Sharing (ECS) formula so that it works more in Stamford’s favor. Moreover, she supports programs such as PACT (Pledge to Advance CT) funding which covers the gap between federal and state grants a student receives, and community college tuition, in addition to other efforts to reduce the cost burden on students looking to achieve higher education goals.
Anabel also believes we need to address the affordable housing crisis. Stamford should increase its BMR (Below Market Rate) percentage, currently at 10 percent, to include more affordable housing in new developments. At the same time, the state of Connecticut has to ask our neighboring communities of Darien, Greenwich, and New Canaan to do more to address this crisis. This is not a problem that Stamford can solve alone. Lastly, the state of Connecticut should limit rental increases to a certain percentage so that tenants are not met with sticker shock when it comes time for lease renewal. Unfortunately, this is exactly what happened to tenants in the Hamilton Gardens and Daycroft complexes when their buildings were bought by a new owner in late 2021. This is simply not right to do to people, especially those on limited incomes.
Ms. Figueroa is energetic, responsive to constituent concerns, and has a knack for collaboration with her colleagues. She will be an asset to the Stamford delegation. Please join us Feb. 28 in supporting her at the polls, by electing Anabel Figueroa as the 148th district’s next state representative. Voting is open from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. For more information, check out www.anabelfigueroa2023.com.