Post election, Sen. Mattie Daughtry said she plans to address housing affordability and PFAS contamination for her next term.
Daughtry, who was recently reelected as a state senator and chosen to be Maine Senate president, plans to continue work on addressing the rising cost of living in Maine as well as the outfall from the Brunswick toxic foam spill that occurred in August.
“For me, my biggest, top priority is just working to make sure that Maine government is delivering for Maine people,” Daughtry said. “And the most important thing we can do is to listen and learn. Things are hard right now, and we need to be sure all Maine working families are able to afford to live here.”
Daughtry cited housing as high on the list of things to tackle in Augusta, having seen first hand how hard it is to live in her district. The average cost of a home in District 23, she said, is “catastrophically high” and out of reach for average Mainers.
With the cost of living so high in Maine, she said that the state needs to address things like housing stock and ensuring the state has a suite of policies that support working families.
”I think we really need to take a deep dive in everything from energy prices to just the average cost of living,” she said. “Property tax is something that I heard about at every single door not only in my own district, but across the state, and we need to make sure that people can afford to stay in their homes and communities.”
At the local level, Daughtry said she plans to continue monitoring things happening at Brunswick Landing, where an airport hangar fire suppression system malfunctioned and released 1,450 gallons of a PFAS-containing, aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF) concentrate mixed with 50,000 gallons of water in August.
Daughtry said she wants to ensure the neighborhood is thriving and safe for the residents that work there and that impacted communities at Brunswick Landing, a former Naval Air Station, are able to get their water tested.
For now, Daughtry said she is looking to have a few more meetings with the Department of Environmental Protection and the Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority (MRRA), a quasi-state entity that leased the Navy-owned hangar that spilled and is on the hook for cleanup costs. The Authority is also seeking funding to overhaul its fire suppression systems that require use of the toxic foam.
”I think the biggest thing is going to be where the cost comes from and how that’s allocated, because I am steadfast in ensuring that my constituents are not held fiscally responsible for mismanagement of something they did not put there. And that includes not only looking on the state level, also looking at liability and also pressing the Navy and the Federal Delegation to make sure that they know that they are part of this, too.”