ISSUES

EDUCATION : This is not just an issue to me, but a lifelong, generations deep passion. In addition to serving nine years on my local school board, I helped start a foundation and endow two scholarships for the students of the district to encourage their ongoing education. I have served on the Foundation Board for South Puget Sound Community College, the President's Council for Olympic College and the South Sound Reading Foundation. All of these organizations help assist our youth in obtaining a quality education.

Education - from preschool to grad school - is of the utmost importance to our community and state. We must fully fund basic education, increase our trade and tech schools and provide more opportunities for college and continuing education.

I believe in accountability and standardized testing, but not in labeling our students, or trying to fit them all into the same mold. Therefore, I believe the WASL should not be a graduation requirement. The high-stakes nature of WASL has unfairly harmed students, educators and our schools. It has resulted in a de-emphasis of other important elements of knowledge and growth, from music and art, to geography and history.

We need less reliance on local property taxes, shifting responsibility to the state as set out in 1889 in the Washington State Constitution: "It is the paramount duty of the state to make ample provision for the education of all children." As your legislator, I will work toward these goals.

ENVIRONMENT: We live in one of the most spectacular places in the world, yet our own Hood Canal, along with the rest of Puget Sound, is suffering, partially from a lack of careful stewardship over years, and the impact of our own lives. This trend must be reversed. While supporting the Puget Sound Partnership, I will hold the feet of this group to the fire and ensure that Hood Canal issues are given important priority. I will also seek creative funding mechanisms to expand assistance for needed septic and sewer upgrades.

I've put my lifestyle, money and my muscles into this issue. I am an angel-level member of the Washington Conservation Voters, and have done some hands-on volunteer work locally, including planting trees along stream banks and pulling up old plastic pipe from the tide flats of Hood Canal. I've been recycling for years, as well as driving a Prius, both habits of mine before either was popular. I look forward to working on environmental issues in the state legislature.

ECONOMY: Infrastructure is needed to attract businesses that offer family-wage jobs, and workers must have access to affordable housing nearby. We need proper sewage-treatment, transportation (including ferry boats in Kitsap), clean water, electricity, and more. I am a strong supporter of the rights of the laborer. In Olympia, I will support the workers in our state, that they, in turn, might support their families through their work.

We can remain economically vibrant only if we continue to create living-wage jobs so our families can thrive. Education - and re-education for those whose occupations are disappearing - is key to maintaining a quality workforce. There will be new jobs created with the arrival of alternative energy companies. I will seek to improve opportunities within the 35th LD, encouraging beneficial public-private partnerships, such as the SEED project in Kitsap and the Biofuels project in Grays Harbor.

TRANSPORTATION: Our transportation infrastructure is important for establishing more opportunities for jobs and keeping those jobs within the 35th LD. Much of our district is ferry-dependent and we must fund our waterways as we do our roadways. Transportation is a vital component of our district's economic reality, and I will work to make the 35th LD a place in which to live and work - not one or the other.

HEALTH CARE: This is an issue I have incorporated into my life, including my active membership on the Mason General Hospital Foundation Board. I helped sponsor an event this past year that raised funds to purchase for the hospital two labor-and-delivery beds, and light tables to treat little premature infants. I also actively support Turning Pointe in Shelton and Safe House in Thurston County that provide safe harbor to women and children from abusive environments.

Our nation spends nearly twice as much on health care as any other nation. Yet our health care system ranks poorly on critical issues from infant mortality to life expectancy. If this issue is not solved nationally, Washington State must find a way to provide all citizens access to affordable, health insurance. Quality health care must be considered a right, not a privilege for the well-to-do only. If elected, I will work to address this important issue.

     –Fred Finn

Fred and Washington State Speaker of the House
Frank Chopp

CONTACT
Telephone: 360-866-2000
Email: Fred

Committee to Elect Fred Finn
P.O. Box 458
Belfair, WA 98528