MHCC Board member seeks statewide improvement

MHCC Board of directors member Michael Calcagno has decided to throw his hat into the ring for the Oregon House of Representatives District 50 seat.

Calcagno, who runs his own marketing and video company, will run as an independent in the May 17 primary.

He hopes to unseat the incumbent, first-term Rep. Carla Piluso, a Democrat who also serves as chair of the Gresham-Barlow School District.

In an interview with the Advocate, Calcagno said he strongly believes that special interests are controlling politics and government, something that must stop. “We need to have a legislature that represents the people and what the people need, rather than what the lobbyists and donors need,” he said.

Personally and politically, Calcagno calls himself a pro-business fiscal conservative: “I believe in managing money in a way that I can see a higher return on our dollar, to support better jobs through the support of business.”

He plans to run on the theme that Oregon residents need better jobs, smaller government, and stronger schools.

“We need more teachers in the classrooms, we need smaller class sizes,” he said. “We need more DHS workers – so, more people, caseworkers on the streets helping out struggling families.”

One pressing reason Calcagno gave for running is the job crisis Oregonians are enduring. He blames destructive anti-commerce legislation he said he believes will destroy job opportunities, possibly affecting entire cities and towns by sending Oregon companies out of state or out of the country, and increasing poverty rates.

The first-year board member is displeased with all of the “easy-fix” solutions the Oregon Legislature has been passing recently. For instance, legislators aren’t taking into consideration the repercussions of setting a $15 minimum hourly wage for all workers. He said he thinks the result is going to be more automation, as in more automated services. Businesses he talks to are already planning on just reducing the hours of their employees, he said.

“I’m much more interested in policies that support minimum-wage workers, in a way that actually makes sense to grow jobs, but also raise wages,” said Calcagno.

Calcagno said he worries about other ripple effects emanating from Salem. Mt. Hood is experiencing some of these firsthand, he said: Head Start officials told the MHCC board this week their organization would have a 15 percent labor cost increase that would force a staff reduction, thanks to the new wage law.

He said he strongly promotes government transparency.

“I sincerely believe that we have way too much corruption in the government. There is cronyism, there are corrupt and crooked politicians, there are back-room deals, and there are sweetheart deals that need to be put forth in front of the people,” he said.

This could not be more clear with the past year’s scandals involving former Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber and his partner, Cylvia Hayes, he said. He said the political incompetency torch was passed to the new governor, Kate Brown: “When she came into office, she said that she was going to create a real difference in government. She was going to be transparent and allow public records requests so that the news media could look into these things,” he said, adding that she failed to follow through.

Calcagno summed up his platform for voters.

“I am going to Salem as an independent, and I’m going to advocate really strongly for measures that will increase transparency and will also grow jobs and help schools, but at the end of the day will create a stronger, smaller, more efficient government,” he said.

Calcagno also said he stands for “protecting our freedoms and our rights, as well as increasing our economy.” He said he believes “so many legislators nowadays forget the fact that they are there to serve the people, the people are not there to serve them. They are there to listen and respond to what the people need, and you don’t see that nowadays.”