Listening to You!

Listening Tour

By: Tim Quinn - Democratic Candidate for the Maryland House of Delegates, District 37B

     The last ten months of our listening tour has produced some interesting and wonderful results. We have been to numerous dinners and meetings asking a simple question: "What do you want and need for yourselves and your communities?" We have interviewed over 40 business, economic, environmental, educational and health care leaders and asked them how we accomplish the driving need of our citizens "to learn, work, play and live" in their own communities.

     Bridging the gap between our citizens' wants and needs and allowing our experts to help us fight for and accomplish these goals is one of the most important jobs of a legislator. If elected, I will continue to pay close attention to your wants and needs and work with our experts advise to help attain those goals. I will listen; I will be vigilant; I will advocate; I will act. Creating a comprehensive program that fills the social, economic, environmental, educational and health care needs and gaps in our lives is not an easy task. Yet, I believe we have managed through our "Listening Tour" to come up with ideas and suggestions that will help fill some of these gaps and improve our lives and those of our children and grandchildren.
In District 37B the average annual income for a family of four ranges from $37,000 to $48,000. The State of Maryland's average annual income for a family of four is $58,000 . These statistics are alarming because we have no legislators in our district addressing this problem in any meaningful way. To increase income levels and fill this gap we must create a positive economic environment which will benefit both potential employers who can provide good jobs and those who want to work here, where they live. Most people in district 37B say this is their number one priority.

     Also, I hear our fellow citizens throughout our district saying, over and over again, that it is difficult to get affordable, professional and responsive every day services, such as heating, air-conditioning, plumbing, environmentally safe lawn care, cleaning companies, etc. There is a technical service provider gap that could be filled by providing top level training programs -- and this would in turn be another source of good jobs, with good salaries.

     I propose that we bridge this gap through an increase in and commitment to technical education while simultaneously attending to our other needs in the academic world. According to business and economic experts I interviewed, we are not attracting new and environmentally clean and safe businesses because we do not have a local work force that can handle the technical needs of the twenty-first century. Increased technical education yields an attractive work force for today's businesses, and better paying jobs to close the income gap that we on the Eastern Shore have been experiencing for years. The income gap is the problem; technical and entrepreneurial educations are strong vehicles for a solution.