Board member Michael Calcagno runs for District 50 representative seat

Illustration by Prisma Flores.

MHCC District board member Michael Calcagno is running as an Independent Party candidate for the Oregon House District 50 seat currently held by Rep. Carla Piluso, D-Gresham, finishing her first term in office.

Calcagno, 28, is focusing his campaign on education reform.

“Oregon has some of the shortest school days, and school years, in the country. Oregon also has the fourth-lowest graduation rate,” he said. “Oregon has chronically de-funded K-12 education, as well as community colleges, over the past decade,” he said.

Partisan politics in Oregon haven’t helped, Calcagno said. “Kids are suffering, and are not going to see a robust economy and quality of life until that (problem) is addressed,” he said.

For more immediate solutions to Oregon’s future, Calcagno said he wants to focus on “the bridge between K-12 and the workforce.” He said funding needs to be bolstered to help local schools, including MHCC. He said priorities need to be re-evaluated so programs such as Barney’s Pantry and housing vouchers get the funding they need. “We need to do more to level the playing field so that all people from all walks of life can earn a living wage, and that only comes through skills training,” he said.

Calcagno said that “the incumbent (Piluso) represents a status quo. We are beginning, as a state, to realize that one-in-five (Oregonians) are living on food stamps. We’ve got to do more to address economic ability, and the status quo hasn’t helped that and in some respects have created the situation(s) we need to resolve.”

“We need new ideas in Salem. For a lot of lawmakers in Salem, that is becoming less and less important,”

Calcagno said he has a sincere desire to help his generation in succeeding to its full potential. He likened himself to the students here at MHCC, saying, “I’ve experienced six-figure student loan debt and the pressure to not be able to find good paying work coming out of college and (the) pressure to find a home with my wife, Katie.”

Now, the Calcagnos are expecting a baby girl, and he is concerned his daughter will grow up in a school district with almost 40 children in a classroom that’s underfunded and understaffed – if reforms aren’t made.

Advocate Staff