Walker vs Grucz

Oct. 18, 2006

The race for the State Rep 104th District
Rep. Howard Walker vs. Roman Grucz
By Anne Stanton
A little about the candidates …

Rep. Howard Walker’s favorite TV show is “Survivor.” His challenger Roman Grucz hasn’t had time to watch much of anything but the evening news. Okay, that’s the lighter side of the interviews below where Walker and Grucz comment on issues ranging from trash to windmills.
For the next few weeks, Northern Express will email interviews to candidates running for office in northwest Michigan. This week Walker and Grucz face off for the 104th district, which covers Grand Traverse and Kalkaska counties.
Walker, 52, is known in the area as a gas and oil man. He co-founded Terra Energy, an oil and gas development company, and founded Walker Land Surveying, both since sold and both very successful. He was elected in 2002.
Walker served on the Traverse City school board, coached soccer, and was active with Involved Citizen Enterprises and the Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy. An Upper Peninsula native, he holds a degree in forestry with a focus on land surveying. He and his wife have an adopted daughter, Shen, and he has two grown stepsons.
Grucz, 59, grew up in the small town of Fraser, earned a B.A. in business, and worked as a marketing consultant with the auto industry. He earned his law degree in 1981, and worked as a corporate attorney and a general practice trial attorney. For the past five years, Grucz has served as a child custody referee for Friend of the Court for Wexford and Missaukee counties.
He has served on the Traverse City Human Rights Commission, the Wexford-Missaukee Human Services Leadership Council, and Wexford County’s budget advisory committee. A resident of Traverse City for the last 14 years, he coached soccer and hockey. Grucz and his wife have four grown daughters and three grandkids, all TC school alumnae.
Here’s the interview:

NE: What’s the key issue that keeps you awake at night?

Walker: There are not any issues that literally keep me awake; however, there are a couple on which I spend a great deal of my time, trying to think of ways to resolve. School funding equity is one of them. I have spent a lot of time and energy on this because we need to insure that all students in Michigan receive a fair shake. It is frustrating that we have not made more progress, though, I am happy to see my work has started to pay off as evidenced by the recent School Aid budget which contains additional funding for the lowest funded school districts. This is the first such payment since I started working in the Legislature. Another issue that concerns me greatly is that of attracting and keeping jobs in Michigan. Along those same lines, how can we bring some of those jobs to Northern Michigan?
Grucz: The economic future of Michigan. I am very concerned with the direction we are taking our government and our society. I believe that we must take a long-term look at where we are and where we want to be as a state, particularly in light of the disastrous trade policies of our federal government. Everyone knows that we need to develop a more diversified economy; the big challenge is to do so in a rational and sustainable manner without sacrificing our environment, our quality of life or our freedoms.

NE: What is your opponent’s greatest weakness?

Walker: I am not really qualified to answer this because I do not know him very well. I know he works in Cadillac so I have not had much of a chance to get to know him. Also, I would prefer to dwell on the positive aspects of my campaign rather than the negatives of my opponent.
Grucz: The lack of consistency between his rhetoric and his actions. He claims to be pro environment, yet his most recent environmental group ratings place him among the worst legislators. His most recent ratings? The Sierra Club rates him a 25%, Clean Water Action Michigan a 40%, and The Michigan League of Conservation Voters give him a 38%. In 2002 his Clean Water Action rating actually was zero. He talks the talk, but does not walk the walk. He refused to support legislation that would have effectively ended Canadian trash, he supported allowing “out of area septage” to be dumped in our landfills. This pattern is evident in other areas as well. He claims to be a friend of education, but his record is primarily one of inaction. He claims to work hard to represent our area, but we continue to receive less funding for many of our local programs than do many other areas of the state. His actions do not match his promises.

NE: This one is for Rep. Walker. What are your most significant achievements?

Walker: First, I spent one-and-a-half years crafting an agriculture preservation bill that lowers agriculture taxes to $5/acre in exchange for a 20-year commitment to keep the land in agriculture. The bill gained statewide attention and a broad base of support. Two: I held statewide hearings to address the problem of cormorants, birds that are devastating our fish populations. We succeeded in creating a new line item in the budget for cormorant control. Three: I led the fight for school funding equity and am considered the loudest voice in Lansing on this issue.

NE: It seemed that Democrats and Republicans have spent more time blaming each other for Michigan’s bad economy than actually working together and with the governor to solve the problems. Do you sense that, or is this completely off base?

Grucz: I agree. The economic situation in this state is the result of a number of factors, not the least of which is over 100 years of history. Our economy has for far too long been focused and dependent on the automobile industry. The failure by both parties on the national level to enforce trade agreements and to support US manufacturing has contributed to the problem. We must elect officials who will start putting our citizens and state first. The problems facing our state are great but not insurmountable. We must stop the political posturing and start truly representing the best interests of our citizens.
Walker: The Legislature is a political environment and politics sometimes get in the way of good policy. That happens because of both parties. However at the end of the day, compromise and level heads usually prevail and the job gets done for the citizens of Michigan.

NE: Over the years, some companies in Michigan have received huge sums of money in one form or another to get them to move here or to expand operations. Is this fair to small businesses that get no such breaks?

Walker: There may be some inequities, but we have to remember, we are competing with other states that offer the same incentives and in many cases have more attractive tax structures. Each proposal needs to be evaluated on an individual basis to ensure we are really making a good investment in creating jobs.
Grucz: There is no question that we must support business and job creation at all levels in Michigan. That includes incentives, including incentives for small business where appropriate. We do have to consider that every time we give business a tax break we are transferring that tax burden onto the individual taxpayers. Small businesses as a group employ a significant percentage of our workers and must be supported by rational and fair programs and incentives.

NE: What do you think of cutting the single business tax without first figuring out how to replace the $2 billion in lost revenues?

Walker: Existing law was going to repeal the SBT at the end of 2009. The citizens of Michigan and the Legislature moved the date up to the end of 2007. It is important to send the message to job creators that we are serious about creating jobs in Michigan and doing it sooner, rather than later, is a good idea. We will just be replacing it two years earlier than we would have under the previous law, with a more fair tax.
Grucz: Voting to cut the Single Business Tax without including a replacement is not only irresponsible, it is yet another example of politics at its worst in Michigan. For this fiasco I hold the Republican majority responsible. They wrongly continue to refuse to tell the public what they will do until after the November elections. Michigan cannot afford an almost two billion dollar cut in revenues. There is little that can be done to reduce costs without cutting essential services. I have proposed a solution. My opponent has not.

NE: Why don’t Canadians dump trash in their own country? What do you think of Senator Stabenow’s solution?

Walker: They do dump some trash in their country and they also accept some of Michigan’s most toxin waste. With that being said, I do believe there is too much out-of-state trash coming into our State. And that is why the Michigan Legislature has taken steps (within the boundaries afforded us by the past U.S. Supreme Court which has ruled that trash is a form of commerce and can only be regulated by the U.S. Congress and NAFTA) to curb its’ importation. Specifically, we have banned tires, beverage containers, waste that could be a public health threat, and waste that does not meet our landfill standards. We also added new fines and penalties for violations. We have also passed legislation that will ban all out-of-state waste if the U.S. Congress grants us that authority. In terms of Senator Stabenow’s “solution,” it seems good at first blush, but it is my understanding it is a non-binding agreement between the City of Toronto, and a few sitting senators. I would much rather see federal legislation that authorizes Michigan to have control over out-of-state trash.
Grucz: The whole Canadian trash issue is an economic one. The reason that trash comes to Michigan is because it is cheap to do so. Surrounding states charge anywhere from $4 per ton to $7.50 per ton to dump trash in their landfills. Michigan charges 21 cents. The only people who benefit from this disparity are the landfill owners who evidentially have a lot of influence with some of our legislators.
The solution is simple. All we have to do is increase the dumping charge to $7.50 per ton. The Canadian trash and all out of state trash will stop because it will be less expensive to send it elsewhere. The cost to Michigan residents? No more than 25 cents per month per household.
In this past year there was a vote on a proposal to increase the dumping fee to $7.50 per ton, a law that would have effectively ended the flow of trash into Michigan. Mr. Walker voted against the increase and in favor of the wealthy landfill operators.

NE: Rep. Walker has introduced two bills to override local zoning when it comes to electricity-generating windmills. His bills would set uniform standards for setbacks and noise, but prevent communities from determining where in their city or township they’d like the windmills to go. The same was done—a ban on local zoning—for confined animal factories. Is this a trend—to give regulation authority to the state and ban local governments from having control?

Walker: I do not know if it is a trend. There are however, industries or operations that are best regulated by the State, and I think that the wind energy industry is one of them. Everyone thinks it is a good clean source of energy and should be used - until they are proposed near them. I think we need to find the proper balance in state regulations that can provide some certainty for the industry (or for property owners), and protections for our communities. As an aside, not just animal feed lots, but all farming operations in agricultural zones are exempt by virtue of the Right to Farm Act.
Grucz: This does appear to be a trend and a dangerous one. The recent water legislation turning our most precious resource, water, into nothing more than another corporate profit opportunity also eliminates local control. Local governments cannot control the location and operations of water bottlers under recent legislation also supported by my opponent. I cannot believe that this loss of local control is good for or supported by voters in our area. I am not willing to trust Lansing to decide these important matters for our communities.
As for the subject of windmills, I find it interesting that the company that purchased my opponent’s gas and oil company apparently also owns the windmill energy company that my opponent is assisting with his legislation. I would hope that Mr. Walker’s interest in windmills is for the benefit of the public and not to promote his friends or business associate’s corporate desires.

NE: The whacked out school funding system gives the rich Bloomfield Hills school district $31 million more in school funding than Traverse City when it has 4,000 fewer students. Can you give teachers hope that school funding can become more equitable?

Walker: First of all, this is not just a teacher issue. It is a student, janitor, secretary, bus driver, teacher, administrator and parent issue. I have fought hard on closing the gap and finally this year (the first since I have been in office); we received an increase for the lower funded school districts. The fight is not over, however. This issue needs to be brought to the forefront each year until we have closed the gap.
Grucz: School funding is one of the issues that motivated me to become involved in this race in the first place. I have grandchildren in the local school system and I am not willing to allow them to be shortchanged by the system. Currently some wealthy downstate districts receive as much as $6,000 per student per year more than we receive. It can and must be fixed. I would freeze payments to over funded districts and allocate all increases to under funded districts until equality is achieved.

NE: What’s your opinion on how well state government works and how it could be improved?

Walker: It works fairly well but I think with term limits, the bureaucrats and lobbyists have developed too much influence. Legislators are the citizens’ connection with their government and the ones who can hold government accountable. I think we could make it better by extending term limits slightly. With regards to the Legislature, as frustrating and slow as it seems to work; it always needs it to move cautiously and deliberately.
Grucz: Our state government has worked well in the past. We must address two issues that I believe have caused it to become ineffective and unresponsive to our citizens.
First, we must have meaningful campaign finance reform so that we can end the extreme influence special interest groups currently enjoy. Secondly, we must eliminate term limits so that we develop real expertise within the government, attract more quality individuals for whom public service can be a career, and diminish the influence that lobbyists currently have on the legislative process.

NE: There is now the possibility that the U.S. Supreme Court could hand the issue of legalized abortion back to the states. Would you seek to ban abortions or do you think it’s more important to reduce the number of abortions. Have you worked to do either?

Walker: I would work to ban abortions and have voted accordingly.
Grucz: Given the current state of the law, I believe that the best way to reduce and eliminate abortion is to insure that every pregnancy is intended. Education, readily available birth control (including male birth control), and alternatives to abortion in cases of unwanted pregnancy should be pursued. We need to encourage personal responsibility on the part of both men and women for birth control. We need to work together to end unwanted pregnancies before they occur. Any ban on abortion must include exceptions for cases of rape, incest, or danger to the mother’s health.

NE: Your favorite TV show?

Walker: Survivor!
Grucz: Since deciding to run for office, TV has become a luxury that I do not seem to have time for. I do manage to catch the evening news.

NE: Your favorite saying?

Walker: “It is amazing what can be accomplished, when no one cares who gets the credit”.
Grucz: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead.