Higgins and Crossman compete for House District 120

By Mike Lange
Staff Writer

    With incumbent State Rep. Paul Davis running for the Maine Senate this year, two well-known Piscataquis County candidates are trying to succeed the Sangerville Republican next month.

Higgins

Crossman

    Republican Norman Higgins of Dover-Foxcroft, a retired educator, is running against Donald Crossman of Milo, the chairman of the School Administrative District 41 Board of Directors.
    While this is Higgins’ first try for state office, he served on the Dover-Foxcroft Board of Selectmen for nine years, on the Hospital Administrative Board of Trustees for four years and is currently a member of the Foxcroft Academy Board of Trustees.
    He was a high school social studies teacher, principal of Piscataquis Community High School in Guilford and concluded his 32 years in SAD 4 as superintendent of schools.
    Crossman has served as chairman of the Milo-area school board for the past nine years. He recently retired from Dorothea Dix Psychiatric Center in Bangor after serving for 24 years, most recently as the clinical nurse manager. He and his wife, Joni, own Crossman Rentals in Milo and Brownville and have reopened the former Four Corners Variety in LaGrange. Crossman is also retired from Maine Army National Guard and served on active duty in the Army from 1969-72.
    The Piscataquis Observer asked the candidates to discuss four issues: MaineCare, the East-West Highway, the state’s school funding formula and the local economy.
    Higgins said that since he started campaigning, he’s “knocked on 1,200 to 1,400 doors in the district, and there’s very little support to expand MaineCare. People I’ve talked to say that with scant resources, any health care assistance needs to be targeted to those who really need it like seniors and children at-risk.”
    Crossman said that as a registered nurse, “I think the time has come to provide health care to all of our citizens. But we have to find a way to pay for it, and that’s the problem. We just can’t keep starting programs without a revenue source.”
    Crossman added that he’d even support increasing taxes on cigarettes if the money was targeted toward health care. “And I smoked until six years ago,” he added.
    Both candidates expressed skepticism about the East-West Highway.
    Higgins said he has met with the coalition opposed to the corridor and with Peter Vigue and Darryl Brown of Cianbro. “There are two questions that need to be answered: Where is the route and what are the economic and tax benefits for the citizens of Piscataquis County?” Higgins said. “So I cannot support it because I don’t have the answer of those questions.”
    Higgins also said that he’s pleased that the Dover-Foxcroft Board of Selectmen is “moving forward on the comprehensive plan. I think we need people with various points of view on the committee and they’re heading in the right direction.”
    Crossman said that the East-West Highway should be renamed “the Canadian shortcut. That’s really what it’s all about. For the life of me, I can’t figure out how Maine communities will benefit from it.”
    Crossman said that he remembers when the town of Haynesville was a thriving community. “Then I-95 came along and the whole town is almost gone,” he said. “No matter what the state government says, land can be taken by eminent domain for something like this (the E-W Highway). Cianbro has the clout and lobbying power to move it forward.”
    The school funding formula is a problem for Piscataquis County, Higgins said, “because of the decline in student enrollment. But just allocating money based on numbers is flawed. You have the same amount of expenses on buildings, transportation and other factors.”
    Higgins said that low-income communities often have low test scores in their schools “but there’s no money to help them fix the problem. When you look at a community like Milo where 80 percent of the students are on a free or reduced lunch program, the need is obvious but the resources aren’t there. We need to reprioritize where our dollars are being sent.”
    Crossman agreed that rural schools are suffering in a greater proportion than those in more affluent districts. “If I’m elected, I’m going to push for legislation that would bring back more local control. If we want to solve our problems, we should simply stop sending funds to Augusta in the first place.”
    Crossman added that he considers himself a conservative “which means I don’t necessarily agree with some of the Democratic Party’s platform. Whenever you give the government money, they’ll spend it – and not necessarily in the best interest of the taxpayers.”
    Regarding the local economy, Higgins said that he’d like to see “all the energy we’re expending on the East-West Highway channeled toward economic development in the county. There are a lot of positive things going on here. I’m pleased with the work the Chamber of Commerce is going. Many major businesses have been created by local people and we need to find that ‘next wave’ of new entrepreneurs.”
    Crossman said that as a landlord and retail store owner, he’s in a good position to see “a broad spectrum of the economic picture. The store (in LaGrange) was closed for quite a long time and we’re slowly but surely building up the business. But we still see people struggling and we can’t count on a lot of outside help. So let’s look at our resources we already have and how we can make them work for us.”
    House District 120 consists of Atkinson, Brownville, Brownville Junction, Dover-Foxcroft, Lake View and Medford.