Longtime 12th Worcester District state Rep. Meghan Kilcoyne is facing a challenger in Tuesday’s election, with Republican Lisa Mair of Berlin hoping to unseat the incumbent lawmaker.
The district includes the towns of Berlin, Boylston, Clinton, Lancaster, Sterling and part of Northboro.
Kilcoyne
“The biggest thing I’ve been trying to do is focus on issues that people in this district care about,” said Kilcoyne, who has been in the post for six years.
She said the district is made of several rural areas and the small city of Clinton, so she tries “to find a way to balance the needs of each of these communities.”
Access to affordable health care is also another important topic, Kilcoyne said, noting that with the closure of the maternity ward at Leominster Hospital and the closure of Nashoba Valley Medical Center in 2024, “We’ve seen the impact these cuts can have, so trying to get funding for community hospitals like Clinton Hospital has been huge.”
Education is another key area for Kilcoyne. She said, “We want to make sure our students have access to quality education.” She said it’s a push every year to make sure the state funds schools properly.
One issue that keeps cropping up every year is funding transportation costs for regional school districts. There was a promise made by state officials when many towns were urged to regionalize their school districts, that the transportation costs would be fully borne by the state, and that has never quite happened, but Kilcoyne said that each year her and other legislators push to make sure it’s as close to fully funded as possible.
And finding an equitable way to fund out-of-district special education costs is also on her agenda, saying a state commission is needed to look at how special education costs impact local school districts. “How can we begin to address that? … It’s definitely something I hope will be looked at.”
Having gone to Wachusett High School, she said she feels she got a good education and said, “I want to make sure the students today have the same quality of education that I did.”
And part of that would be re-examining the Chapter 70 annual state aid to school formula. “It’s not about I want to take money away from the cities and give it to the towns … if you take the time to study the issue and talk to people … I do think that commission needs to do the research, see what direction we need to take to find real solutions.”
And in health care, she has fought to eliminate the prior authorizations that insurance companies sometimes demand. And she’s fought to force insurers to cover new biomarker tests than can pinpoint specific cancer aspects and help treat them more effectively, but not if the tests aren’t given if the insurers don’t pay for them.
“There’s new advances in the way we treat some of these diseases, but if you have an insurance plan that requires prior authorization,” you may not be able to use the new tools, she said, which is regrettable, being so close to the medical hub of Boston but not being able to tap into the advances developed there.
On the housing crisis, she noted that the recent passage of a law to make it easier to build accessible dwelling units (mother-in-law apartments) in the state has been helpful. “That allows an opportunity to have loved ones live with them. A lot of families see that similar situation.”
She said the state also in recent years has boosted its investment in housing authorities, some of which she said have a six or seven-year wait list to get an apartment there, adding “we have a lack of senior housing.”
She noted one thing she pushed for and got was to have American Rescue Plan Funds used to put a sprinkler system into a senior housing development in Clinton. “That was crucial … without that sprinkler system, it could have been a dangerous situation.”
The assistance to housing authorities and senior housing places “allow people to stay in a place where they love and a home they can afford.”
“I’m laser-focused in the work I’ve done and what I hope to do in the future,” Kilcoyne said. “I’ve worked hard every cycle … to fight to get as much possible (local aid) back to our cities and towns … making sure we partner with the community, not only to get money for the community but make sure we can attain tangible goals.”
Mair
Mair is a nutrition and health coach specializing in functional medicine and serves on the Berlin-Boylston Regional School Committee. She ran for state Senate in 2022 and said she’s just looked at state politics and feels some changes are needed.
“I can’t sit back while this is happening. We all need to get involved and nobody was running for the seat (to oppose the incumbent), so I did.”
“Beacon Hill has become more and more unaccountable and authoritarian. … They didn’t do the audit that 72% voted for two years ago and even changed the laws so that the full audit can’t be done. So I am very concerned (about how) they are spending our money.
“They talk about transparency but even before this we were the least transparent state in the nation and now it’s even getting worse. It’s very disturbing that they’re not being transparent … this is not good governance.”
“The law that they passed on this was named the ‘Transparency Act’ … they are sabotaging voters and they are not trustworthy.”
She mentioned that three previous speakers of the House were convicted of felonies, adding, “What are the chances that’s still happening? I think that’s still high.”
She said there are 80 to 90% Democrats elected to serve as legislators every time, “and they are completely unaccountable and most of them 100% of the time vote with leadership, and if they don’t they’ll lose their committee assignments, and lose their stipends. It’s the perfect set-up for crimes and bad deeds and misuse of our taxpayer dollars,” Mair said.
“So, I believe we need more balance on Beacon Hill … the Democratic super-majority (is a problem). Balance is a good thing. One party controlling everything to that degree is not a good thing.”
On affordability, Mair said “I’ve very concerned that taxes just keep going up and it’s causing young adults to leave and start their lives elsewhere. Businesses are affected and it’s really striking senior citizens, and that’s the most cruel. Now we’re taxing them out of their homes.”
She said she’s seen seniors crying at meetings, saying how they are being taxes and priced out of their homes, saying, “Where are we going to go?”
She said talk of getting rid of Proposition 2 1/2 would just make it worse and allow property taxes to go up unhindered.
Mair said she’s voting no on ballot question 9, which doubles down on recent laws passed to strengthen gun restrictions.
“Our government is really eroding our constitutional rights and once those rights are gone, it’s hard to get back.”
She added that, “We have gun control, we need safety, I want safety too, but criminals don’t follow laws.”
And she cited a case where a man who owned guns in Arizona moved to Massachusetts, and upon getting to the state he was arrested and is still facing charges instead of officials helping him file the proper paperwork to register his guns.
“The slow erosion of the Second Amendment is a concern.”
On the medical front, Mair said, “People’s right to decline medical intervention is also being attacked.”
She cited the example of nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic who were forced to take the experimental mRNA vaccine, which she said was based on a new experimental platform, saying not everyone wanted to be test cases for the new form of vaccine.
“People lost their jobs for not wanting to take a new, experimental drug,” she said.
Mair also said that although she acknowledges housing issues, “Beacon Hill is trying to force high-density housing and zoning changes. … I understand the need to increase housing but communities should be in charge of their zoning. The character of these towns is just so beautiful,” so she doesn’t think it’s right to legislate the zoning changes “without the communities’ consent.”
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