Laura Manriquez: “I Can Lead Our Community
Forward”
Laura
Manriquez, a nurse with years of community involvement, is making a second
attempt at this seat. Manriquez said she’s running because “I know I can lead
our community forward.”
Her top
priorities are economic growth, education and health care. She said she’d press
for local economic development such as light rail and the emergence of Milwaukee as a freshwater
hub. She also supports transitioning local industries into the green economy.
To spur the
local economy, Manriquez said she would work to establish more economic talks
with governments abroad that are willing to purchase products made in Wisconsin. She also
supports tax breaks for small businesses that hire more workers.
On
education, Manriquez said she’d work to establish an equitable funding formula.
“The school funding formula statewide must be reformed,” she told the Shepherd. “Our system of education at
MPS must get past the idea of ‘Viagra-demics’ and focus on academics or lose
the total trust and confidence of the taxpayers.”
Manriquez
said she does not support lifting the cap on the voucher school program but
would not oppose small increases in the program “as long as parents demand it
for their children.”
She said she
would address the state’s health care problems by maximizing federal health
care resources to reach the state’s most needy residents.
She said a
good way to reduce the state’s budget deficit is to “decrease funding the
incarceration of nonviolent criminals by establishing more cost-effective and
less costly means of accountability for nonviolent offenders.” On this topic,
Manriquez is an expert. She was chair of MICAH/WISDOM’s Treatment Instead of
Prison (TIP) program for nonviolent offenders with substance abuse problems.
Another
revenue-generator could come from multinational corporations, Manriquez said,
by making them pay long-term royalty fees for research and development products
that originated in the state’s public universities.
In addition
to MICAH/WISDOM, Manriquez has been involved with the Good Jobs and Livable Neighborhoods
Coalition, the Democratic Party and Esperanza Unida.
For more
information about Laura Manriquez, go to www.facebook.com/VoteManriquez.
Angel Sanchez: America Needs to Get Back to Work
Angel
Sanchez represented the city’s South Side in the Milwaukee Common Council from
2000 to 2004. He owns a home-improvement business and rental properties and has
worked as a substitute teacher in the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS).
Sanchez said
his three signature issues are education, jobs and health care. He said his
experience in MPS has helped him to understand the struggles of teachers and
families. To curb classroom disruptions and ease teachers’ workloads, Sanchez
would like to change the school day so that it starts at 7:30 a.m. and ends at
noon.
“Then, all
the kids who don’t want to be there, they can leave,” Sanchez said. “All the
kids who do want to be there can stay after and go to the library or get
involved in sports. It gives faculty time to run errands. The only way we’re
going to keep our faculty alive, fresh and energetic is by them being well
rested and physically fit.”
He said
local businesses should be more connected to students by employing them after
school or mentoring them. Sanchez would like to see more job training for
students.
“There’s a
huge gap right now between the students and the business community,” Sanchez
said.
He said that
it’s hard to do business in Milwaukee,
and he’d like to utilize the economic development background he gained while
serving as alderman to help entrepreneurs launch new businesses.
“We need to
hold some big type of conference where we get feedback from the businesses
themselves as far as proposals they have,” Sanchez said. “I think all
businesses should contact their local elected officials or at the state [level]
and say, ‘This is what I want to do.’ The business community, they create jobs.
America
needs to get back to work.”
Sanchez said
he’s angry about high health care costs and supports more preventative health
programs.
“We need to
solve this issue with health care,” Sanchez said. “It’s the runaway train
that’s taking everyone to the cleaners.”
For more
information about Angel Sanchez, go to sanchezforstaterepresentative.com.
JoCasta Zamarripa: Fighting for the
District’s Fair Share
JoCasta
Zamarripa is a community outreach coordinator for Planned Parenthood of
Wisconsin, and has worked for Equality Wisconsin,
9to5, the Southside Organizing Committee and Fair Wisconsin. Zamarripa said she is letting the
voters define her signature issues.
Topping the
list is property taxes, which are set by local units of government. Zamarripa
said she’d work to lower them by increasing the amount of state shared revenue
sent to Milwaukee,
which has been flat for years.
“I want to
go [to Madison]
and see who I can work with to fight for our fair share of shared revenue,”
Zamarripa said. “When I say our fair share—of course in the 8th Assembly
District, but also Milwaukee
as a whole. Why are we not getting that amount that we used to get a decade
ago, 15 years ago?”
Zamarripa
said she would fight for more funding for police and fire departments and work
proactively with the community to prevent crime through better education and
job training opportunities.
“It’s tough
out there,” Zamarripa said. “Youth and adults should be enhancing their
knowledge and skills all the time. Job training programs have to exist if we
truly want to make a commitment to crime prevention. We need to give our youth
alternatives to crime.”
Zamarripa
said she supports “public dollars for public schools,” but also respects the
parents who send their kids to taxpayer-funded voucher schools.
“Voucher
schools are not going anywhere,” Zamarripa said. “What I’m asking for is more
transparency, more accountability. Just like our public schools need to be
accountable, the same thing has to happen with voucher schools.”
Zamarripa
said she’d work to balance the state budget by ensuring that the state collects
delinquent tax money and also requiring big businesses to pay their fair share
of taxes.
“There cannot
be any tax shortcuts for big businesses,” Zamarripa said. “They have to pay
their fair share like the regular working people in this district.”
For more information about JoCasta Zamarripa, go to forwardwithjocasta.com.
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