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Debate centers on roads, schools Jill Palermo
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Northern Virginia Media Services
emocrat Josh King and Republican Mark Dudenhefer disagree on the top issue facing residents in House District 2, which straddles north Stafford and eastern Prince William along the U.S. 1 corridor. Dudenhefer, who is running to reclaim the seat he lost to Del. Michael Futrell in 2013, said the No. 1 issue is definitely traffic. He said he hears daily complaints from constituents about 40-minute commutes on local roads, just to get to Interstate 95, and that tolls that are too high on the new Interstate 95 Express lanes. King, a 34-year-old father of three, said he’s most concerned about the quality of local schools. King said he decided to run after his 12-year-old daughter, who has autism, spent the entire last school year without a teacher. King said his daughter’s Prince William County school, which he did not name, lost his daughter’s special education teacher when she got a better paying job in another school district. They were never able to replace her, leaving the classroom in the hands of two aides for an entire year. King called the situation “a tragedy.” “Nobody asked about my daughter; nobody cared that she didn’t have a teacher,” he said. “That’s unacceptable in the Commonwealth. I want to make sure this never happens to another child.” During a debate sponsored by the Stafford County Chapter of the NAACP Wednesday, Dudenhefer and King answered questions submitted by the audience of about 50 gathered at the Stafford County Board of Supervisors chambers. Topics included the candidates’ top concerns – education and transportation – as well as mental health, heroin abuse and whether the state collects enough revenue to deal with all its needs. Dudenhefer, 63, is a retired U.S. Marine Corps colonel who lives in Stafford County. He was first elected to the 2nd District delegate’s seat in 2011 after serving on the Stafford Board of Supervisors for six years. In 2013, he lost his re-election bid to
OctOber 23, 2015
insidenova.com
Candidates’ forum addresses Medicaid, education, drugs Jill Palermo
Northern Virginia Media Services
Republican candidate for the House of Delegates 2nd District Mark Dudenhefer, right, makes a point while his opponent, Democrat Josh King, left, looks on during a Stafford County NAACP-sponsored candidates’ forum Wednesday at the Stafford Government Center. Aleks Dolzenko| Stafford County Sun
Del. Michael Futrell, who lives in Woodbridge. Futrell decided not to seek re-election last spring while running in the three-way Democratic primary to replace retiring state Sen. Charles J. Colgan in the 29th District, which he lost. King is a U.S. Army vet who completed two tours in Iraq before leaving the service in 2006. He works as a sheriff ’s deputy in Fairfax County. King and his family live in Woodbridge. Dudenhefer said he can relate to King feeling driven to run on one particular issue. For him, it has always been transportation. Improving area roadways has been a mission since the Dudenhefers lost a daughter in an accident on Mountain View Road in 2004. Dudenhefer said he still stands by his support for the 2013 state transportation bill, which many Republicans fought because it raised sales and other taxes to fund road projects in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads. Dudenhefer said he believes more revenue is sometimes
needed to solve the state’s most vexing issues. Dudenhefer says he’s encouraged by news this week that the Virginia Department of Transportation and Transurban, the Australian company that operates the I-95 Express lanes, have pledged to extend the express lanes more than two miles south of their current ending point to help alleviate the daily traffic snarl in north Stafford created by the new lanes. Calling himself “the conscience of the highly neglected Fredericksburg,” Dudenhefer promised to keep the pressure on state officials if elected next month. King agreed that traffic is an important issue and vowed to work across party and county lines to find solutions. “There’s no Democratic 95 or Republican 95,” King said. “We all share the roads and we need to work together.” Both candidates agreed that more awareness and education is needed to help combat heroin FoRUM page 14 addiction, which has become
According to Kandy Hilliard, the Stafford Democrat challenging the Commonwealth’s most powerful delegate in the upcoming Nov. 3 election, accepting more federal health-care dollars could treat everything from traffic congestion to the growing and deadly problem of heroin addiction among Virginia’s young adults. In a candidates’ forum sponsored by the Stafford County Chapter of the NAACP on Wednesday, the first question posed to Hilliard and Republican incumbent House Speaker Bill Howell was about how to fix Stafford’s traffic congestion and how to pay for it. Hilliard immediately turned to Medicaid. “When we talk about traffic, it brings us back to where we need to start, and that’s that we need to expand Medicaid,” she said. “We need to increase our budget right from the start. The $1.7 billion we’ve left on the table [is] a piece of this puzzle.” During the 25-minute discussion, when Howell and Hilliard answered submitted questions, Hilliard went on to emphasize the benefits of extending the federal health care program to the 400,000 Virginians thought to be eligible under the Affordable Care Act, including millions for mental health care, drug-addiction treatment and hospitalization costs for inmates of local jails, the last of which is paid by local governments. “I’d rather see that money go to our schools,” Hilliard added. “The hospitals in our community are begging for us to expand Medicaid in Virginia. I think they have a pretty good idea of what our health needs are in our community.” But Howell, who is seeking his 15th term in Richmond, said the unexpectedly high costs recently reported by some states that have agreed to expand Medicaid — including Ohio, Illinois and Kentucky — suggest Virginia MeDiCaiD page 9 lawmakers were correct to