Connecticut state Sen. Cathy Osten (D-19) first became involved in public service when she joined the U.S. Army in 1973. Osten was active duty from 1974 through 1978. “I followed that up with a career in the Department of Corrections,” said Osten. Osten was with the DOC from 1989 through 2010. “My first elected position was in 2005,” she said. Osten served as both the town treasurer and the first selectman for the town of Sprague before being elected to the state Senate in 2012 and again in 2014. “I have always been interested in public service, having a grandfather who also was a state representative in the 1960s,” said Osten. “I was brought up to work hard and to make sure that others were treated with respect and not taken advantage of.”
Osten says that she felt she could make a difference in the lives of people by working on issues that are important to them. “These would include working on improving infrastructure, the environment, and providing necessary services in the areas of mental health, developmental disabilities, and senior issues, to name just a few,” she said.
Osten says she made the decision to move from local to state politics to help provide the policy that is necessary to improve lives. “I have met and talked with many people who were grateful that the services they and their families needed were protected in the recent budget that was passed this last session,” she said. Osten said she was reminded of the importance of budgeting at the state level when she attended a recent Farmer’s Cow event at Cushman Farm, in the town of Franklin. A mom who was facing loss of services for her developmentally-disabled daughter approached Osten to thank her. Loss of services would have required this mom to stay home to care for her daughter. “I was able to have DDS [the Department of Developmental Services] continue services for her daughter; [loss of services] would have devastated this mom and both her daughters,” said Osten.
Osten represents the towns of Columbia, Franklin, Hebron, Lebanon, Ledyard, Lisbon, Marlborough, Montville, Norwich and Sprague. She said the biggest issue that most of her towns face is an over-reliance on property taxes, which are needed to improve education and repair critical infrastructure. “This is the reason I worked so hard this last session to implement property tax reform,” said Osten. “This was an historic change for towns and will provide additional funding to start to change the local tax structure,” she said.
Asked about her biggest frustration, Osten said, “My biggest frustration would be that at times the session feels too short; there is so much more work to get done.”
Osten’s biggest satisfaction regarding her position?”I am most satisfied when I can solve a problem for a resident, making their life better,” she said.
Asked the one issue she would like to solve for her region, Osten said that there are many. “But if I had to pick just one, I would provide the resources to fix critical infrastructure, thus allowing businesses to either move in or expand in the region,” she said. “We have had several businesses choose other regions directly because the necessary infrastructure was not available,” said Osten.
View the original content and more from this author here: http://ift.tt/1hh8Mqi
from critical infrastructure alliance http://ift.tt/1IgHeu9
via IFTTT
No comments:
Post a Comment