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Stamas, Allor give reactions to Snyder’s address

ALPENA — Gov. Rick Snyder gave his eighth and final State of the State address on Tuesday and State Sen. Jim Stamas, R-Midland, and State Rep. Sue Allor, R- Wolverine, had positive reactions to the governor’s address.

Snyder focused on looking back at the past decade and how the state has improved during that time, calling it the “Michigan Comeback.”

“The one thing I appreciate the most is him doing the reflection on the past decade,” Stamas said. “He has always focused on the Michigan people and to his last day in office, he will always focus on the people. He focused on education, infrastructure, and jobs in his address, which I also really appreciate.”

Allor said Snyder speaking about the comeback was amazing.

“He talked about how tourism has increased, how the agriculture industry has increased, and spoke about the per capita income as well because that has increased,” Allor said.

Allor said Northeast Michigan is a tourism-based economy with all the hotels and trails for snowmobiles and biking, so the state seeing an increase in tourism has positively affected Northeast Michigan.

Snyder said one of his top priorities during his term has been to reunite families and with that, the state has seen a population growth for the sixth consecutive year.

“It’s exciting to see a growth in population,” Stamas said. “Population has grown in both rural and urban areas and he talked about Detroit has grown over the past few years, which is exciting for everybody.”

Snyder said that over 540,000 private sector jobs have been created and Stamas said the state has made great strides in creating a positive business environment that has helped create the jobs.

“We replaced the job-killing Michigan Business Tax, cut hundreds of unnecessary regulations, reduced our debt and repeatedly increased education spending to record levels,” Stamas said.

Snyder talked about education and how the Great Start Readiness Program has doubled in openings since 2010 from 28,000 to 64,000 and also the number of college classes completed in high school went from 23,000 in 2010 to 85,000 in 2016.

“For the past seven years, it’s been awesome to see what has happened with education,” Stamas said. “To be able to work with kids and help them get career ready and college ready is extremely helpful when it comes to helping kids figuring out their career paths.”

Allor said Snyder’s focus has been on education and how every student should know how to read.

“Reading is essential and if a student knows how to read, they can go anywhere in life,” she said. “I was happy to hear the governor talk about the GSRP program and how it has helped students.”

Snyder said he is going to propose the largest increase in per pupil allowance in over 15 years in his upcoming budget proposal. Allor said she is looking forward to that because it will be a huge boost to students in Michigan.

“I’m anxious to see what that will be like in a few weeks and moving forward,” Stamas said.

Snyder also is focused on the state’s balanced budget and economic growth and how the state must commit to enhancing and expanding the state’s talent base to help attract new jobs and business investment.

“For seven consecutive years, we have passed a fiscally responsible budget that pays down debt, protects our communities, and helps prepare our students for success,” Stamas said. “Education is critical to our future and today’s students are tomorrow’s economic innovators and job creators, and access to talent is vital in attracting new businesses to Michigan.”

Stamas said as the state works to continue helping businesses thrive and create jobs, the challenge ahead is to help connect Michigan workers to available new jobs.

Snyder discusssed the opioid crisis and how legislators are working to solve the epidemic. Stamas said the opioid crisis has been a top priority for everybody.

“The city police departments and sheriff’s departments have been investing a lot of time and money to solve the crisis,” he said. “There are so many people looking at it. We all know that it’s an epidemic and we need to figure out how to look at the epidemic and solve it.”

Stamas said it’s a team effort to solve the opioid epidemic and that everyone can learn and help one another.

“It’s grabbing a hold of people and we are learning the hard way about what caused the epidemic and the impact it is having on people,” Allor said. “We need to across the board have education to make people be aware of what is going on. We have to do something about the epidemic.”

Stamas is looking forward to the last year of Snyder’s term as governor.

“He’s full steam ahead,” Stamas said. “He’s focused on education, infrastructure, and the environment. I’m proud to serve with him.”

Allor said over the past seven years, Snyder has been capable of many accomplishments and said Snyder won’t stop working his last year in office.

“The past seven years have been fantastic,” she said. “His desire to focus on many programs has helped many people. He has always been focused on the trades and I believe he will continue to focus on them. It’s going to be an exciting last year.”

Julie Goldberg can be reached via email at jgoldberg@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5688.

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