In Fairmont, residents said the main challenges their community faces include finding work, homelessness and substance use disorder. Additionally, even though the area has more health care providers than much of West Virginia, they said they struggle to find affordable health care.
As part of Mountain State Spotlight’s “Citizens Agenda” approach to covering this year’s elections, we asked candidates running to represent Fairmont about these issues.
Fairmont is split into two districts. In House of Delegates District 75, incumbent Republican Phil Mallow faces Democrat Stephanie Spears Tomana. In Delegate District 76, Republican Jon Dodds faces Democrat Rick Garcia. Only Tomana and Dodds answered questions.
Find out which House district you live in here.
These interviews have been edited for clarity and length.
Even though your region has hospitals and more health care providers than many other parts of the state, residents frequently mentioned affordable health care. They talked about the lack of specialty care, providers who take Medicaid, prescription drug prices and other out-of-pocket costs. What will you do to improve access to affordable health care?
Dodds: Well, the first thing off the top of my head, being in technology myself for 34 years, is telemedicine can save a lot of people, in the future and near future, if not now, a lot of money. Telemedicine can not only be economical, but it also can get people access to specialists and to medical care they need at the moment, without having to wait for an appointment. Of course, then that goes to making sure that we have our internet fiber infrastructure in place so everybody has broadband.
For specialty care, so many times the specialist can get the results of the testing that was done locally and can read the results and then meet with the patient over the phone or video chat to determine what the next best steps are. I really think telemedicine is the way to go, and I also think that will be more accessible to more people.
As far as prescription drug prices, I agree that anything we can do as a state to lower prescription drug costs, we need to absolutely do. We need to all band together. These are nonpartisan issues, and I think that if we work together with enough people, with enough good ideas, we can resolve some of those issues.
Tomana: That’s the deep end of the pool. I can say that I understand and empathize with where they’re coming from, especially in our more rural communities. I have a daughter who has an autoimmune disease, and finding a specialist and getting to the specialist and getting there in a timely manner has been a massive challenge. We have to try to draw these people to our state. It’s just like economic growth and development. We want to bring this company or draw this person or that person. That’s kind of the first step.
We need to support our medical schools, so that these students will want to come here and want to learn and will want to stay here.
I can’t pretend that I know how to fix these problems. I should probably preface this with – I don’t think any one person or any one party has all of the answers. As a legislator, it’s your responsibility to seek out the experts and to use that to drive policy.
We need to identify the problem, and then we need to work with people who are experts in that field to find solutions to the problem, and talk about the problem. Ignoring the problems is not helpful. I really do believe that the biggest, most important thing we can do as legislators is to try to tackle these projects head on and seek out the people and the experts who can give us the best solution, the most informed solution, and look for long-term plans.
I don’t feel like we’re looking at 10 years down the road. I don’t even know if we’re looking a year down the road with some of the decisions that are being made in Charleston right now.
Also regarding health care, many residents brought up addiction. People who provide treatment and recovery services to people with substance use disorder said transportation to appointments and the lack of recovery residences are two major problems. What will you do to address those concerns?
Dodds: We need to ensure that adequate funding and resources for existing programs continue to be funded and make sure that they’re funded adequately. We need to collaborate. This is a complicated issue. I believe it’s going to take a combination of the government and businesses and citizens. There are so many nonprofits, and there are so many businesses that will help support those nonprofits, and then, of course, the government. I think we all have to work together on those solutions.
Because it is an issue that affects almost every family. This is nonpartisan. We’ve all got to put our heads together, and we’ve got to work for the same common goal, and that is to help eradicate this problem that has been ravaging our state.
I’ve got great relationships with cities and town councils and law enforcement, and I kind of want to work to try to pull all these resources together, even with myself as the middle person, to work with them to find out what are your high crime areas? What are the areas where the drugs are originating from? I think it will take coordination between all of our local law enforcement in our district, working along with the sheriff and working along with the state police and sharing information.
Public safety is a priority that cuts across all political lines. And safety and security, to me, are non-negotiable. Every person, every family, every student at Fairmont State, they deserve to be safe in their homes and in their communities. I strongly support law enforcement, and we’ll advocate for tough measures and smart measures to combat crime.
Tomana: I really believe there needs to be accountability, a large amount of accountability, in how we’re spending the opioid funding. Look at how bad the drug epidemic is. There’s not a family unaffected. It is across all socioeconomic levels. Our foster care system is overwhelmed. One thing that I think would be really helpful is if we somehow incorporated our primary care physicians and drug rehabilitation treatment. And I do think that we need to find some way to expand the halfway houses and inpatient facilities.
There has to be more of everything. We have to destigmatize it. We need to expand it. It has to be multifaceted. There is not going to be any linear solution. It has been a problem since OxyContin came on the scene in the 90s. It has only grown. We have to support our law enforcement as they’re targeting trafficking. We need to expand access to treatment and increase funding for telemedicine. We can integrate the addiction services and primary care we need. We need support for these families. A lot of these are grandfamilies or kinship care, and for the kids – and it’s going to continue to cycle if there’s not some type of support for them.
And then prevention education campaigns. We’ve already lost an entire generation, and if we don’t do something, I’m fearful that we will lose another generation. Trauma-informed care. We need more of that. Economic development. Half of our problems come back to the fact that we don’t grow economically. People need to have something to aspire to and having a job so you can support your family, and economic development will revitalize these communities. Everything to me is interconnected. Nothing stands alone.
What will you do to help with homelessness?
Dodds: We do seem to have a number of people in Fairmont who don’t seem to be from the area. I don’t know how accurate it is, but I was told last week that somebody saw a bus pull up and about 30 people got out who seemed to be homeless. They had their belongings with them, and the bus left, and they were dropped off in Fairmont.
I have the biggest heart in the world. But on the other hand, there is a part of this issue that involves crime and the threat to public safety, and I have no patience for people that are going around assaulting others. I myself have been stolen from, and I live in a very visible area. I had a vehicle stolen last year.
The people that can use the help will take advantage of the help and then let the help get them out of their circumstances.
I belong to several nonprofit organizations. I’m on the board of directors of the West Virginia Black Heritage Festival, which does so many amazing things, and one of them is we have a food bank where we actually deliver meals to 120 families. We provide a week’s worth of groceries to working families that are struggling each month.
The problem we seem to have in Fairmont is, we take care of 10, we’re going to get 20 more. If we had housing for 50, well, what are we going to do for the next 50 next month? What are we going to do for the 50 the month after that? It’s a difficult issue. We need to find an actual solution to the problem, and not just try throwing some resources out there and seeing if they stick and if they help. I’m willing to work with anyone and everyone to improve the situation. It’s a difficult problem, and I don’t have the answer for it.
I don’t pander. I don’t tell people what they want to hear. These are tough problems. If they weren’t, they’d be solved already. The people that are struggling with addiction, the people that are struggling with housing and homelessness – it’s difficult. I have a big heart, but you’ve got to take care of your own kids before you can take care of the neighbors’ kids. And we’ve got so many residents in our county that are struggling while working.
Tomana: I don’t even know where to begin with that. It’s actually a conversation I had the other day with my husband. It seems like the homeless population is ever growing, and I know that we have subsidized apartments. My honest answer is, I don’t know. Part of it comes back to having an opportunity economy where people can thrive, but sometimes people just need a little leg up, and that has to be addressed. Nobody should be homeless, nobody. I know a little bit about a lot of things, but a problem like the drug epidemic is completely multifaceted, and I’m not an expert nor is anyone else in the Legislature, but I think that we need to to come together and come up with some plan and talk to the experts and find a path forward, because it really does affect so many. That’s the honest answer I can give you. I’m not naive. I know it’s not going to be easy, but I just think we can do more.
The pillars of the economy are education and infrastructure, and we have ignored our infrastructure to the point that there are whole communities without reliable drinking water. We don’t have connections to the outside world. Our infrastructure is terrible; our roads and our power grids are outdated and sometimes incapable of handling the load, but then at the same time, we don’t have reliable internet or cell phone service to even support emergency services when two-thirds of our residents live in rural communities.
Is there anything you want to add?
Dodds: We’re constantly talking about, obviously, the pain of rising prices and jobs, public safety and education. Those things are significantly important to me, job creation and particularly middle class or blue collar jobs. I’ve toured factories in this state to speak to the leadership about the challenges they face and learn from them what seems to be working and what’s not working. I will absolutely advocate for any legislation that helps our manufacturing and business sectors grow so that we can create more jobs that are beneficial to all West Virginians. Because I don’t care if you’re a parent or if you’re a business owner or if you’re a new young person just entering the workforce, economic growth is going to benefit all of us.
I believe we have to invest in our infrastructure.
I want our schools to prepare our students, not just to be able to enter into college. But also, I’m a strong supporter of the trades and of the technical schools.
We can’t ask companies and corporations to come into our state unless we have an educated and eligible workforce.
I’ll advocate for transparency in healthcare pricing, so the consumers know what they’re paying for, because I do believe that’ll lower overall cost. I believe in healthy competition, even in our medical system. I know it’s an expensive thing. I know that they have specialists, and they have to invest in their technology to be able to continue to increase the care that they can get. But still, I believe in transparency.
When I get elected and go to Charleston, I will represent every citizen in our district, in our county and in our state, Republicans, Democrats and Independents. I’m a firm constitutionalist and a fiscal conservative, and I believe that everybody’s rights should be defended.
Tomana: Regarding the allowance of the School Building Authority to build charter schools, that money is very competitive the way that it is. We have schools that are really struggling or closing and kids who are going to school in buildings that are not incredibly safe.
The recently cut personal income tax makes up a large portion of general revenue. I’m all for cutting taxes. I work two jobs, and I feel the taxes at the pump. I feel the taxes everywhere, just like everybody else does. But I think we need to have a serious conversation about how we’re going to replace that income, or better yet, how are we going to cut costs? And it can’t be cutting essential programs, because we know that things like our prison system and our DHHR are really, really struggling. Education is struggling. We know that there’s been lots of cuts already. So where can we look administratively to get rid of duplicate expenditures? Where’s the waste? We can raise revenue, I think, by eliminating a lot of waste without eliminating services. But there doesn’t seem to be any action plan on how we’re going to replace this income.
And I’ll just call it what it is. It’s low hanging fruit. All of the things that they’re doing right now in special session they could have done in the regular session. We’re wasting money on a special session doing things we could have done in regular session, and it’s all kind of election year pandering. They’re going to be able to say, we did all these things, we supported all these things. But shouldn’t they have done that eight months ago? It just feels so wasteful.
I know we’re not going to be the mecca that Morgantown is or draw the things that the FBI has brought to Clarksburg. But we certainly need to try, because at the end of the day, if you go to some of these more rural towns like Mannington or even Farmington, they’re just a shell of what they were.