Blaine House 2010 | News

Candidate: Students deserve more from university system

Posted on May 04, 2010, at 11:52 a.m.

Democrats voting in the June 8 primary for the 2010 gubernatorial election in November will not see Donna Dion’s name on the ballot.

She didn’t accumulate the 2,000 signatures of fellow Democrats she needed by 5 p.m. March 15 to make the primary election. She found a new way to run.

“I am now an official declared Democratic write-in candidate for governor for the primary election in June,” Dion wrote in a March 19 e-mail. ”My campaign continues.”

The candidate believes the University of Maine System and the Maine community college system “should be classified as different levels within the same system.”

“Community colleges allow a different presence, which has been a very positive presence for the business industry,” Dion said. “I think it’s an enhancement to the university and I think they should be working together as brother and sister.”

Dion thinks those who oversee each of the seven University of Maine System campuses sometimes become “territorial” and “competitive” with one another.

Dion said the university system must lower the costs of tuition for students to increase the amount of educated students in Maine.

“We need to be able to afford to go to the university,” Dion said. “I believe in getting involved with the people that are on the front line because they already know some areas that would make things better. We need to put more money into the university, but the university has to evaluate where they’re putting money also.”

According to Dion, students paying for a University of Maine System education could be getting “more for their money.”

“Could we enhance it and make the quality even better? Yes, and we have to be aggressive in that,” Dion said. “I think we need to look at where the money is being dispersed.”

Dion was the mayor of Biddeford, the largest city in York County, from 1997 to 2003. She said Biddeford is the only community in Maine where the mayor is also the chair of the school committee, giving her unique experience in both areas.

“I found that being a local politician in a very active political arena actually provides me hands-on [experience.] And that’s just doing that on a local basis. My background of all the things I have participated in just enhanced that,” Dion said.

For five years, Dion was a member of the Coastal Counties Workforce Board, an entity established with federal government money in order to improve employment, training and rehabilitation programs of workers in Knox, Lincoln, Waldo, Sagadahoc, Cumberland and York counties.

This experience, she said, showed her what Maine businesses need to succeed.

“You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. You can sometimes take things that other individuals have done successfully, look at how it impacts your own community and fine-tune it,” Dion said.

In 1999, Dion worked with a consortium of eight businesses and York County Community College to train prospective workers in the metal trades industry, leading to new jobs for more than 300 people.

The candidate said she supports assistance of existing Maine businesses before the attraction of outside companies. She says new big business may often undermine Maine businesses and lead to the loss of manufacturing jobs.

“It takes longer to groom other businesses to come into our community,” Dion said. “We have to look at what’s here.” Dion said.

Dion works full-time as the financial director of Port Resources, a nonprofit group that does residential care for developmentally disabled individuals. She decided to run for governor about three years ago after being asked by the group’s executive director the year before if she would get back into politics.

Dion said Gov. John Baldacci “isolated himself” from the Maine people, although she believes he had good intentions.

“I don’t think he had a lot of the sound advice coming from other people,” Dion said. “Some things were good and some things didn’t work out as well.”

She said she does not have a campaign team, but has people who work for a living and do campaigning in the evenings and on weekends. Her campaign, she said, has mostly taken place south of Bangor, because of time, although she said she has made contact with people in Aroostook and Washington counties.

“I’m a blue-collar person in a white-collar job,” Dion said. “I personally can’t afford to not work. I have to work 40 hours a week.”

Dion said she is “a Democrat without a party.” She sees the lack of experience in party politics as a positive influence on her campaign.

“I chose to be a Democrat only in 1996,” Dion said. “Because I’m not politically connected with all of the individuals or big business or any specialty groups, it has allowed me to say, ‘I don’t care how hard it is to address some hot issues. We have to address them.’”

Campus Currents: Blaine House 2010