"Democrat Sue Hecht served in the House of Delegates for eight years before challenging Mooney four years ago for his Senate seat. Her priorities include health care availability; education, environment and economic development; child safety; housing affordability; and transportation solutions. She says Frederick County is the ideal place for high-tech development. Voters should back Hecht."

You can read all of the Gazette's endorsements at www.gazette.net/editorials/#1.

I want to be your representative in Annapolis because I believe we must work harder to protect Frederick County’s quality of life. When I served as Delegate to the Maryland General Assembly from 1995 to 2003, I worked very hard to bring the right people together to identify, fund, and provide the best solutions to our quality-of-life issues. So many of the initiatives and projects that we started have languished since then, and I want to go back to Annapolis to finish what we started. Here is what I think needs to get done:

• Health care availability: It is imperative that all Maryland citizens have access to decent medical care. Our State leads the country in medical research, yet 14.2% of our citizens were without adequate health care insurance in 2004 according to the U.S. Census Bureau. We also can and must deliver better, more consistent care for our elderly at lower costs for them. And we must protect women’s and mental health programs and initiatives from continuing challenges.
• Education, Environment, Economic Development: The single most important contribution to our future is our children, we must work harder to alleviate the woeful overcrowding of Frederick County schools. We can also do much more to ensure that our children will inherit a clean and safe environment. I believe we can work harder to bring more jobs to the State.
• Child/Senior Safety: Child/Senior Safety and Domestic Violence have been my passion for years. As the former director of the Heartly House in Frederick, and as the author and sponsor of Christopher’s and Vera’s Laws, I am recognized nationally as a leader in the fields of child sexual predators, senior abuse and of family violence. We have achieved a great deal so far, but we have so much more to accomplish in these areas.
• Housing Affordability: I am completely committed to the idea that people who work in Frederick County should be able to live here, as well. We can do so much more to develop affordable housing, to help people find their way to financial security by owning their own home.
• Transportation: Our roads are choking and we cannot pave our way out of this problem. Of course we must continue to improve existing infrastructure. But we also owe it to our children and grandchildren to look in earnest for more creative solutions including mass transit and telecommuting.

I am fiscally conservative and socially responsible and my best assets are my ability to listen and to find and bring together the right people to get things done. I want to “fight like Hecht” in Annapolis for all of us. Please send me back so we can finish what we started.