Bowers, McCarter to face off in 154th Bowers

Democratic incumbent state Rep. Steve McCarter and Republican newcomer Kathleen Garry Bowers are vying to represent residents of the 154th Pennsylvania Legislative District in the Nov. 6 election.

The district includes Cheltenham, Jenkintown, Springfield and a part of Philadelphia’s 35th Ward. Both candidates are residents of Glenside in Cheltenham Township. Bowers, 53, a 49-year resident of Cheltenham and Cheltenham High School grad, is an insurance saleswoman with an associate’s degree in business administration from the Lansdale School of Business. She describes herself as “a

different kind of candidate.”

A divorced single mother of three — two college graduates and one currently in college — who has paid for their college educations herself, with “no support from the other side,” Bowers said her main focus is the need for “domestic relations and judicial reform in reference to our family court system.”

One goal, she said, would be to change the emancipation age — in Pennsylvania, the duty to support a child ends when the child reaches age 18 or graduates from high school.

The fact that a single parent no longer receives child support the day the child graduates from high school is “a problem no one wants to discuss,” Bowers said.

“Our children are not economically able to maintain themselves,” she said. “You still have to take care of them, and the other [parent] is able to walk away.

“Ideally it would be for all four years while they’re in college; ideally 20,” Bowers said.

The age in New York and Washington, D.C. is 21, and New Jersey changed it last year to 19, she said.

School safety is also an important issue, Bowers said.

“You need to go to the teachers, the people affected the most,” she said. “I will be the person on the phone to ask about their job.

“I’m not saying teachers should be armed with guns, they’re there to teach, but they should feel secure,” Bowers said, suggesting surveillance cameras in the schools, a security room and a plainclothes armed security person — “highly trained” retired military or police officers.

“We monitor our children everywhere. All of a sudden in school it’s taboo,” she said.

Schools also need to educate students about gun safety, drugs and violence, Bowers said.

“Schools around here have taken out drug programs,” she said. “We need to get to them when they’re young so they don’t start using drugs, and we need to find out the source and those supplying them.

“Teachers fear for behavior of children in their classes,” she added. “We have to make it clear there is some discipline going on. Not physically, but lay it on the line. This is where it will mold them for the rest of their lives.”

Being involved in the schools is not new for Bowers, who helped expose the mold problem at some Cheltenham schools and “found a lot of maintenance issues,” she said.

Bowers favors HB 76, which would eliminate property taxes by raising and expanding the sales and personal income taxes.

“Then you would have everybody paying,” she said. “It’s hard for those on Social Security to stay in their home.”

Asked about an issue that has gained local attention recently — reducing the level of perfluorinated chemicals permitted in drinking water — Bowers said, “It’s something created by the federal government; it will have to clean it up.”

At a state level, “I would have to look more into it,” she said.

“I’m not your everyday politician,” Bowers said. “I would sit down with people and try to work with state representatives on issues I feel people are not talking about.”

Kathleen Garry Bowers