Monument Mountain hosts debate

GREAT BARRINGTON – Before their Halloween meeting, Rep. William “Smitty” Pignatelli (D-Lenox) and his challenger in the race for the 4th Berkshire Massachusetts State House District, Lee Scott Laugenour, met in a series of three spirited debates at Monument Mountain Regional High School last week.

The race between Rep. Pignatelli and Mr. Laugenour, a Green-Rainbow Party candidate, former Marriott Hotels executive and resident of Lenox, is the only contested state legislative race in Berkshire County.

Of the three debates at Monument Mountain, only the last was open the public. The previous two were done for a high school civics class and for the press, respectively.

The debate was a pugnacious affair, with both candidates making sure to highlight key elements of their platforms and campaigns. It was Rep. Pignatelli, however, who went on the attack, making sure to criticize his opponent’s positions while highlighting his own.

A small crowd attended the debate, with students Bridget Monti and Kevin Marzotto presenting the questions along with English and Journalism teacher Meghan St. John.

The candidates debated a wide variety of questions, touching on topics that included medical marijuana, Medicare for all, climate change and tax policy.

The first of Rep. Pignatelli’s attacks on Mr. Laugenour occurred when answering a question on how the state could meet its obligations to schools, regional transportation and unfunded mandates.

“We need more revenue,” said Mr. Laugenour, who talked about the need to reduce tax expenditures, and took the opportunity to advocate for his tax plan. “I believe in fair progressive taxation, which the legislature can do right now.

People who make more should be paying a higher percentage of their income in taxes and people who make less should be paying a lower percentage of their income in taxes.”

“The progressive tax rate that my opponent keeps talking about is currently against our own constitution,” said Rep. Pignatelli, who went on to say he would prefer to get Massachusetts’ budget in order through reducing spending rather than raising taxes.

Rep. Pignatelli also took the opportunity to highlight the difficulty in getting funding for local schools as a legislator.

“There’s a dose of reality, politically, that we see at the local level from my experience as a selectman and there’s a dose of reality that I don’t think my opponent has any idea of…what happens in the state legislature.”

“What I proposed does not require a constitutional amendment, contrary to what my opponent said earlier,” said Mr. Laugenour, later on in the debate.

Massachusetts has a constitutionally-mandated flat tax, making instituting a graduated progressive income tax illegal.

Mr. Laugenour’s tax reform plan, however, involves raising the income tax while also increasing the amount of income not taxable by the state’s income tax from $4,400 to $46,000, something that is perfectly legal under the Massachusetts Constitution.

Another clash came on the issue of taxing non-profits.

“That’s the platform of my opponent,” said Rep. Pignatelli, bringing up a petition Mr. Laugenour signed that suggested looking into taxing non-profits.

Rep. Pignatelli highlighted the money Tanglewood brings into The Berkshires, as well as the work done by the Railroad Street Youth Project.

“Think of the jobs that are being created just through Tanglewood alone,” he  said.

“That was a gross…mischaracterization,” said Mr. Laugenour, adding the petition, written by Mount Washington lawyer Gail Garrett, stemmed from a desire to look at the tax code more broadly. “There were no proposals there, there weren’t any tax rates.”

He said he didn’t think taxing non-profits assisting poor and low-income people should be considered, but the non-profit sector had morphed into something beyond charity.

“It’s not a final position at all, but it’s the beginning of a needed discussion,” he said.

Differences also arose on the issue of drug policy.

“My opponent wants to legalize drugs,” said Rep. Pignatelli, when answering a question about how to curb drug and alcohol abuse and highlighting the work the Railroad Street Youth Project does in combating substance abuse.

“We need to make sure that the funding is there and the programs are there to treat people and not stigmatize them,” said Mr. Laugenour. “There’s been a 23 percent decrease in funding in public health; I don’t know how much of that has hit programs that help address substance abuse issues.”

When asked his position on drug policy by The Beacon after the debate, Mr. Laugenour said that he supported legalizing marijuana and treating it like alcohol: regulating it, taxing it and making it legal only for those ages 21 and up.

The candidates also differed on medical marijuana.

“I am planning to vote yes on Question 3,” said Mr. Laugenour.

Question 3 would legalize medical marijuana in Massachusetts.

“I have some serious reservations with the way the current language that you will be voting on on Nov. 6 is worded,” said Rep. Pignatelli, indicating there was no age restriction in the referendum.

“I personally believe that it’s a gateway to other drugs, not for everybody…but for some people it is,” he added. “There’s no medical proof that marijuana actually has healing agents. It may provide them [ill patients] some comfort.”

Acknowledging the referendum would probably pass, he said the legislature would probably have to step in to fix holes in the law before it took effect on Jan. 1.

While Rep. Pignatelli was the candidate who was generally on offense most of the night, Mr. Laugenour got in a jab in his closing remarks.

“You will know precisely that I, just like…[Senator] Ben Downing, but unlike Smitty Pignatelli, will not double-dip by taking travel deductions on my federal tax returns that were already reimbursed to me by state tax payers,” said Mr. Laugenour.

Rep. Pignatelli has defended taking these deductions to the press, likening them to deducting the interest on a home mortgage.

Posted by Bera B. Dunau on November 1, 2012. Filed under Community News,News,State News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry