Delaware Governor candidates on education, growth and the environment

The state of Delaware will elect a new governor in this year's general election. New Castle County Executive Matt Meyer is representing the Democrats; State House Minority Leader Michael Ramone is representing the Republicans.

CoastTV News Anchor Charlie Sokaitis sat down with both candidates in the lead-up to the election. These are the transcripts from four key topics.

STATE OF THE RACE

Charlie Sokaitis: We're going to start off with what might be one of the tougher questions when you look at the numbers from the most recent polling you're down double digits. What is the path forward? Is there a realistic enough time to make a difference? For you to make up that ground and become governor?

Mike Ramone: I'll say this, numbers are numbers, right? And it depends on how you look at them. Truthfully, what I see when I look at the numbers is, traditional elect-able, centrist Republican who won their convention by by the most ever, won the primary by the most ever, and now is running for a general election in which probably 99% of the party is finally united and organized. I'm running against a candidate who got maybe 47% of his own hard party's vote in one of the most controversial, just very deeply mudslinging campaign that I've seen for very long time. Many would say when Markel ran against Carney, you know, that was the same thing. But John Carney endorsed Jack Markell after it was over. This time, that hasn't happened.

Charlie Sokaitis: You have a big lead in the polls right now. Something in the area of double digits, maybe 19 points-ish. What has it been like since you won the primary with that lead? How are you running this campaign? Are you looking ahead? Or what is this last month or two been like?

Matt Meyer: Charlie, I'm a sixth and seventh-grade math teacher who ten years ago decided to run for county office. Now I'm the front-runner to be the next governor. I have my head down very focused on the issues facing Delawareans. I don't pay much attention to polls. Plenty of examples of times when people were up in the polls, things didn't turn out right. Other people were way behind the polls and things turned out fine. We have our head down.

We're laser-focused on developing the policies that Delawareans need. There are Delawareans now struggling with affordable housing and health care. There are Delawareans without access to quality education, and particularly in low-lying coastal areas, you have roads flooding every time there's a hard rainfall. These are real problems that require real leadership, and we're really focused on how do we develop those policies, howdo we get the right people around the table. How do we make the hard decisions to move this state forward?

SCHOOL VOUCHER PROGRAMS

Charlie Sokaitis: One of your day one priorities, it says, is to expand vouchers. We've seen that in some other places. Arizona'sactually an example of where that is happening. ProPublica just did a big exposé on it and how it is costing way more than people had anticipated. I believe that the original, thought was that it would cost somewhere in the area of $68 million, instead, it's up over $400 million, and their schools are having a hard time now with this voucher program. Their budgets are having a hard time with the voucher program. How would yours be different? Because a lot of different states have been trying to follow their model, and now their model isn't working.

Mike Ramone: Well the problem I'm trying to solve by introducing a mechanism where there could be a tax credit to offset the price of a child, to go to a private school, or even a, Catholic school, or any type of a school other than a traditional public school, without having to drive two hours from the city of Wilmington out to Christina, is something that enables most of our minority population, where all the schools that are doing so poorly are, the opportunity to get a fair education like everyone else. If mom is a single mother living in the city without a real good income with 1 or 2 children, and she doesn't have a choice but to bring them to that school because she can't get anywhere else, that family should be able to qualify for some sort of a tax credit rebate that enables them to survive. If your child only has a choice to go to a school where 95% of the children can't read at reading level by third grade, that child should have a choice to go somewhere else. I'm not saying everyone, what I'm saying is that's part of a solution.

Charlie Sokaitis: You were a former public school teacher. We just talked with your opponent about education. One of his first day one priorities he talks about expanding vouchers for schools. What is your opinion of school vouchers?

Matt Meyer: I believe we need to invest in our public school system. I believe that we have a funding formula that was written in the 1940s. It's the oldest funding formula of any state in the country. Think of the values of those individuals in the 1940s who created the funding formula to fund our schools. That has resulted in unequal funding. They often point to the per capita funding of students but what's actually happening is certain districts are getting resources that they should not get in many schools, many classrooms are not ending up with the resources that they need. We should also keep in mind that what vouchers will mean, the sort of Republican proposal of vouchers, the privatization of education, is going to result in many Delawareans being left out. If you're struggling and going to a school today that is undeserved and under-resourced, that's going to get a lot worse. When resources are drained and given to private schools that already have plentiful resources.

SUSSEX COUNTY

Charlie Sokaitis: Let's head down towards Sussex County. You were just talking about roads being flooded. We are a growth area, there's been a lot of development down there, it seems like the infrastructure of the roads hasn't necessarily kept up with the number of homes being built, the number of people moving to the area. How, from a governmental l standpoint, do you address some of those problems?

Matt Meyer: Sussex County is being left out and left behind, of equal equal funding from Dover and equal attention. Quite frankly, the growth challenges, particularly in the coastal areas, but actually through much of Sussex and even some of Kent County, are among the hardest problems of growth in our country right now. It takes leadership to say no, to say we're going to grow and we're going to grow intelligently, smart growth. We're going to make sure that we preserve and grow open spaces. Our policy and our plans include expanding the number of open space acreage in our state by over 5000 acres in my time as as governor. To do that takes plan, to do that while there's a crisis of affordable and workforce housing, we're going to make sure that we plan appropriately and signal to the community this is where housing needs to go, and we're going to make sure the roads, the sewers, the water, the infrastructure is in place and maybe some some doctors as well.

Charlie Sokaitis: How do you help the people of Sussex County specifically? What is your pitch to them? 

Mike Ramone: Often you feel left out because you were, right? If you were the last guy picked on the game, but you got in the game, but you were still the last guy pick, you feel a little left out. But the reality is simple, you have to go to Sussex and listen to the issues and come up with the solutions. A simple one, overdevelopment. When you have hundreds of millions of dollars coming into your campaign, even though maybe you said you're not going to take money from builders, from builders, I don't know that I'd be able to trust that person if I'm worried about overdevelopment in Sussex. If you have a county executive who, with his goods and his bads, worked in Newcastle County, and now it's trying to somehow tell Kent County why he's going to be good for them, that's a tough sell. But when you got a guy who's run businesses in the entire state and then has been a rep representing 41 districts, and now he's in leadership. Remember, I'm one of two Republicans north of the ditch, we're an endangered species up here in the South. All my colleagues that chosefor me to be the leader aresouthern representatives. Why? Because they saw something in me they believed would help our house be stronger and better. And I, quite frankly, think we were stronger and better, and I can't wait to be able to help the entire state. I'm not here about red I'm not her about blue, you see, everything I have, it's always yellow, right? Yellow's my thing. I'm not even purple. Yellow's Delaware. Ask me a question. Let's figure out what's best for Delaware and that's what we vote on.

OFFSHORE WIND

Matt Meyer: Listen, first and foremost, we're going to protect Delaware. We're going to protect Delaware residents and Delaware interests. I know people are looking for are you pro wind or are you anti-wind one or the other? I think it's really not that easy. The economics of wind right now, and particularly the last few years have become really challenging. We're not going to do something that economically does not make sense for Delawareans. And to lead our community forward in a sustainable way, if there's a way for us to do it without impacting viewshed, without impacting the environment. When the wind energy comes onshore, we certainly will will look at that. We're not going to allow Maryland to get all the benefits of its offshore wind to come in and provide burdens to the coastline of Delaware.

Mike Ramone: We're not going to do that. Wind power is not a problem for me. Wind power, forcing people to drive cars, all that. It's just chaos. There will be no secretaries putting mandates on people on what they can drive. There will be no states saying, well, you can't connect to my state, so go connect to the neighbor and then we get all the headaches and all the terrible stuff, and they get all the energy. That's not me, isn't happening. I as an entrepreneur, the one thing I do know is how they negotiated good deal and how to walk away from a badone.