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Roxbury Democrat Greg Cava, a Region 12 Board of Education member, is running for the 32nd District state Senate seat recently vacated by Republican Sen. Rob Kane.

Roxbury Democrat Greg Cava, a Region 12 Board of Education member, is running for the 32nd District state Senate seat recently vacated by Republican Sen. Rob Kane.

Roxbury Democrat Greg Cava, a Region 12 Board of Education member, is running for the 32nd District state Senate seat recently vacated by Republican Sen. Rob Kane.

Roxbury Democrat Greg Cava, a Region 12 Board of Education member, is running for the 32nd District state Senate seat recently vacated by Republican Sen. Rob Kane.

Roxbury Democrat Greg Cava, a Region 12 Board of Education member, is running for the 32nd District state Senate seat recently vacated by Republican Sen. Rob Kane.

Roxbury Democrat Greg Cava, a Region 12 Board of Education member, is running for the 32nd District state Senate seat recently vacated by Republican Sen. Rob Kane.

Democrat Greg Cava tries again in race for open 32nd state Senate seat

ROXBURY - Greg Cava says the best way to find out what the voters of the 32nd state Senate District are thinking is to get out of your bubble of friends and meet them door to door.

He visited countless homes in the 10 classic New England villages last fall, and now in chilly winter hes doing it again.

Cava, a Democrat from Roxbury who serves on the Region 12 Board of Education, lost to incumbent Sen. Rob Kane (R-Watertown) by a more than two-to-one margin last November in the Republican-leaning district, which stretches from Bethlehem to Oxford and includes such metro Danbury towns as Southbury, Washington, Roxbury and Bridgewater. Kane resigned last month and was approved by the General Assembly recently to become one of the two state auditors of public accounts.

Much is at stake in the special election. The state Senate is deadlocked with an even number of Republicans and Democrats, and a Cava victory would tip it back into Democratic control.

Cava, an attorney specializing in land development, last month defeated Robert Van Egghen at the Democratic convention in Woodbury. He now faces Republican state Rep. Eric Berthel of Watertown and petitioning candidate Dan Lynch of Southbury in the Feb. 28 special election.

Cava said he has raised enough money to qualify for a $72,000 grant from the Citizens Election Program. Berthel also recently qualified.

Republicans reportedly have held the seat for more than 100 years, even though such notable Democrats as Bethlehems Ken Curran, who managed three campaigns for U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, and Woodburys John McCarthy, a former ambassador, ran against Kane, who served for nine years.

Cava said he agrees with Murphy that if you dont tour neighborhoods you get a skewed perception of the electorate.

He said the prime topic has been better-paying jobs in a mostly suburban state that lacks a brain hub such as the Route 128 corridor near Boston which has attracted a large number of millennials who are less inclined to being tied down to buying a home in the suburbs.

Connecticut has a lot of small municipalities and people in most municipalities in the state want a lot of control over what happens in their town, Cava said. They want them to stay the same. We have some regional planning, but each town decides what it will accept. Its not a planning agency that decides where the airport or the waste facilities will be. To some extent it stymies the growth of large industry.

With economic development, we need to think long term, he said.

Cava said Gov. Dannel Malloys First Five/Next Five program is a step in the right direction, since it has provided financial incentives to such corporate giants as ESPN, Bridgewater Associates and Cigna in Connecticut for a commitment to add jobs over the coming years.

But what happens when those incentives end? Cava said.

He said the state needs to develop small business incubators, leverage its premier fiber-optic network and establish more private/public partnerships.

Cava said in the district some of the 1,400 acres at the state-operated Southbury Training School, which is expected to close most of its operations and be ceded to the town, might be ideal for a partnership between a research and development firm and the University of Connecticut.

He said he wants the roughly 100 residents at the facility to be able to continue living there for the rest of their lives.

Cava said he is not thrilled with Malloys performance, but I realize it was a difficult climb entering office six years ago, facing a $3.7 billion budget deficit over a two-year cycle. He spread the pain around and in the process a lot of people have become unhappy.

UConn economist Fred Carstensen recently told CT Mirror that in the face of a projected $1.5 billion deficit for the next fiscal year and pension obligations that are only 35.5 percent funded, taxes will have to be increased.

I dont want to have to raise the income tax, Cava said. But were going to have to look at it being more graduated so that we increase it gradually over a series of years so that we dont have this repeat cycle of deficits. We have to find a balance.

On another topic, he said he supports a Democratic plan to gradually raise the states minimum wage from the current $10.10 to $15 an hour over the next five years.

$15 an hour is barely at a level to sustain people, Cava said.

He said he also supports legislation to make incentives for municipalities to establish tax deferral for elderly residents, which make up a considerable segment of the population in the district.

Under the proposal, Cava said they could keep their taxes level for years and then pay the balance when they sell their homes.

He said, Towns have the ability to do it, but not every town does it.

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Democrat Greg Cava tries again in race for open 32nd state Senate seat - Danbury News Times