Republicans battle it out for 6th Hampden District

Date: 8/10/2010

Aug. 11, 2010

By Katelyn Gendron

Reminder Assistant Editor

WEST SPRINGFIELD -- The 6th Hampden District's seat in the House is up for grabs with sitting Rep. James Welch running for the senate. Republicans Gregory Neffinger and Dean Vogel are each convinced they're the right candidate to stand for the party and the district.

Neffinger and Vogel will have to jump over a few hurdles first, including the West Springfield Republican Town Committee's debate on Aug. 24 and the primary election next month.

"We're down to have five weeks [until the primary] and everyday counts," Vogel said last week.

When asked why he is the best man for the job, Vogel replied, "From the beginning, I have been specific on offering solutions to a number of the issues that we're facing and that's what it's going to take if we are going to have a chance at winning in the general election. I don't think you can be vague. That's just not good enough.

"My primary concern are the taxpayers and they are my number one special interest group," he added.

Vogel noted the district's most pressing issues are overspending, casinos, lowering the sales tax, duplication of state agencies, rising costs of healthcare, unemployment and the homeless housed in hotels and motels per the state's policy.

"Casinos are not the answer," he said of the Legislature's push for casino gaming to stimulate economic recovery. "I know it's very enticing when your economy is in the tank but it's not the magic bullet. There's about 320,000 people laid off in Massachusetts but the 15,000 jobs it will bring is not enough. Most of those are temporary construction jobs.

"Casinos weren't built on winners," Vogel continued. "You have to lose money for the casinos to benefit and people don't have money to lose."

He said, if elected, he would lobby to decrease sales tax to 5 percent, help lower healthcare costs and downsize state agencies to reduce overspending.

Vogel added housing the homeless in hotels and motels in the district is also an issue that "warrants attention."

"It's costing taxpayers millions of dollars," he said. "At least 10 percent of those in the program are not even from the state and that's just poor policy. Times are pretty lean for everybody and every penny counts."

Neffinger called the hotel-motel issue as "something that was given to us by the Democratic leadership."

"They have mismanaged the whole system of how to manage homeless people," he said. "I'm an architect so I've worked on low-income and homeless housing and we need to take that mismanaged program and breathe new life into it."

Neffinger explained that while campaigning door-to-door constituents have voiced many concerns, including high taxes, bloated state and municipal budgets, the hazards of proposed biomass plants in the region and joblessness.

"Most people are giving up. It's very sad and they think there's no hope of lowering taxes," he said.

The wrong approach is to give up because change for the better is possible, Neffinger added.

He said the state sales tax must be lowered to 5 percent and spending must decrease in order to better the lives of those in the district and the Commonwealth.

"I've been a small business owner for 20 years. When my income goes down, my spending goes down. It's 20 percent head knowledge and 80 percent behavior. They [legislators] have a spending behavior and can't change it," Neffinger said.

When asked why he's the right candidate to represent 6th Hampden District, he replied, "I've been serving my community for 20 years. I feel like those experiences of raising a family, being on town's the Board of Appeals [and] a small business owner really gives me the life experiences I [need in] Boston.

"We're going out and we're working hard for the seat and not taking anything for granted," Neffinger continued. "We're working hard for the seat because we're going to work hard on behalf of our constituents in Boston."

The debate between Vogel and Neffinger will take place Aug. 24 at 7 p.m. at Town Hall, 26 Central St.