AUGUSTA — Republican Kim Davis and Democrat Donna Doore, who served on the Augusta City Council together from 2003 to 2005, are both vying to represent Augusta’s District 85 in the state House of Representatives.

While the candidates have the council in common, and also speak highly of each other, they do have different stances on how best to deal with multiple issues, including health care, state revenue sharing and the minimum wage.

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Davis | Doore

NAME: Kim Davis

AGE: 57

PARTY: Republican

PROFESSION: Co-owner of Scrummy Afters Candy Shoppe in Hallowell; part-time office worker for Jack Skehan and Associates tax preparation in Gardiner.

EDUCATION: Graduate of Hall-Dale High School

POLITICAL EXPERIENCE: Represented Augusta’s District 56 in the state House of Representatives from 2004-2006; Augusta City Councilor 2003-2005; past member of Augusta Planning Board

NAME: Donna Doore

AGE: 62

PARTY: Democrat

PROFESSION: Retired. Previously administrative support staff in the state Bureau of Motor Vehicle investigations office

EDUCATION: Graduate, Erskine Academy; courses at the University of Maine at Augusta and Mid-State College

POLITICAL EXPERIENCE: Augusta City Councilor 2001-2009; Augusta Board of Education 1995-2000

Doore believes the state should take federal money, which Gov. Paul LePage declined to take, to expand MaineCare to provide health care to more poor Mainers. She also favors creation of a national health-care system to ensure everyone has access to health care.

“I really think we should do everything we can to make sure every person in Maine is insured,” Doore said. “We need to work with our national government and congressmen and senators in Washington to get some sort of national healthcare. When someone is not insured, and has a health issue, they wait until the last minute and then go to the emergency room, where it costs a lot just to walk through the door.”

Davis said Maine should not accept federal money to expand MaineCare because the state can’t afford to provide care to those receiving it now. She said studies have shown as the state increases spending on Medicaid and social services, it makes it harder for the state to fund education, because so much money is going into social services.

Regarding social service programs such as food stamps and others generally considered to be welfare programs, Davis said the maximum amount of money people can make and still qualify for assistance keeps increasing, to the point it is too easy for people who may not need the help to qualify for the programs.

“We need to look at who we’re really helping and who we’re moving to a lifestyle of dependency,” Davis said. “We’ve made it a little too easy to get on these programs. Society needs productive people, I think that is the answer to many issues we’re facing. If people are busy and productive we’d see less crime, less drug use. It’s okay to help people, but they need to be productive.”

Davis said she does not support increasing the minimum wage. She said small-business owners, including herself, couldn’t afford to pay employees $10 an hour if the minimum wage, which is $7.50 an hour in Maine, were increased that much.

Doore supports increasing the minimum wage, noting she met a woman while campaigning who worked three minimum wage jobs, because just working one job didn’t provide enough income to support her family.

She said some people desperately need state assistance to get by, but others have become stuck in a cycle of reliance on it. She said education programs could help break the cycle of multiple generations of the same family receiving state welfare assistance, by giving them skills in career fields, and could also help provide a skilled workforce to help draw employers to Maine.

She said young Mainers need to be educated in career areas where there are jobs.

“If an entrepreneur is thinking about starting or moving a small business to Maine, we need to make it easy,” Doore said. “We need to have regulations, but we need to make that process as smooth as we can. One of the things we can do is better educate our children.”

She said she’d support classes at vocational and community colleges to help train welders and others so the state has a well-trained workforce.

Davis said Maine needs more jobs, especially jobs in manufacturing. And she said the state can bring more businesses, and thus jobs, to the state by reducing the number of regulations small business owners must deal with and reducing energy costs.

“Energy costs are so high in this state, that’s probably why manufacturing companies don’t want to come here, or why existing companies leave, because of high operating costs,” Davis said.

She said at a recent Kennebec Valley Chamber of Commerce breakfast, a speaker presented data that showed Augusta and Kennebec County’s unemployment rate was lower than the rest of the state and national average, but “only 6.7 percent of those jobs were in manufacturing. The rest were in state and federal services, and retail. That’s not a healthy economy. You have to produce things. Service jobs, those are only passing money around, not really making anything, that’s not a sustainable economy.”

Both candidates said they’d like to see the state restore state revenue sharing to municipalities to previous levels, before they were cut in the last few years. However only Doore believes the state should do so now.

“We need to get revenue sharing at least back to where it was,” Doore said. “Municipalities still have to provide all those services, so when they lost that state revenue sharing, the cost was just rolled back onto property taxes. We’re going to have to do some stepping back, and look how we funded (state revenue sharing) before” the cuts.

Davis said she’d like to see service center municipalities like Augusta get more state revenue sharing than they have since the cuts but, unless there is new tax revenue coming in, the state can’t afford to increase revenue sharing to municipalities.

Doore, 62, who is retired after many years working as administrative support staff in the state Bureau of Motor Vehicles investigations office, said restoring state revenue sharing would allow municipalities to cut property taxes, as would overturning other changes made under the LePage administration.

“I think we have to work to get back some things this administration took away,” Doore said. “Revenue sharing, making sure our natural resources are better protected and hopefully getting (residents) as good or better services through our state agencies. I’m a go-getter and if someone has a problem, I’m going to work on it until we get it fixed.”

Davis, 57, co-owner of a Hallowell candy store, and a part time office worker at a tax preparation business in Gardiner, said LePage has made improvements to the state and she’s the best candidate for District 85 to help continue those improvements.

“I think our economy in our state is going on the right track and I think that is because of our governor,” Davis said. “While I disagree with his delivery (style) on things, I agree with his policy. I think I would be better at continuing our state on that path of economic stability.”

Keith Edwards — 621-5647

kedwards@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @kedwardskj