PANAMA CITY — The eight-candidate pool for the District 6 state House seat was narrowed down to seven Tuesday night during a forum at the Gulf Coast State College Advanced Technology Center, where candidates discussed issues of economic growth and business development in the region.
During the forum, hosted by the Business Innovation Center and the Small Business Development Center, the panel of four Republicans, three Democrats and one Green Party candidate answered questions submitted by area businesses. Topics ranged from Medicare funding to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education.
For 24-year-old Democrat Ryan Jack Singleton, the event served as an exit from the crowded race for the seat currently occupied by term-limited Jimmy Patronis.
“I just don’t have the resources and the networking that the other candidates have,” said Singleton, who simply answered “no comment” to his first question, and opted out after the second.
For the rest of the candidates, the event kick-started the election season fresh off the candidate qualifying period, which wrapped up Friday.
For the Republicans, the competition will be heavy leading up to the Aug. 26 primary.
Although questions for the candidates were varied, similar themes echoed in their 90-second responses, with many of them speaking out against overregulation for small businesses.
Republican Melissa Hagan said her focus is to make Florida a better place to do business by focusing on education as it relates to economic development. Hagan also said she disagreed with a government-mandated minimum wage.
“I feel like we’re basically outlawing those entry-level jobs,” she said.
Former Bay County School Board member Thelma Rohan, also a Republican, said her top changes to help small business would be to stop petty regulations and fees.
“There are so many regulations that small businesses really have a hard time,” Rohan said.
Republicans Tho Bishop and Jay Trumbull also cited a need for fewer regulations to help business growth.
Trumbull outlined objectives to support a free market system, refocus the area’s workforce and support infrastructure improvements, including better access to high-speed Internet.
Bishop, a 2007 graduate of Arnold High School, said he would support the private sector and reduce regulations, but said the free market should be left to answer the demand for infrastructure, not the government.
The argument for less regulation also was heard on the Democratic side.
“I would hope in an ideal world that businesses would regulate themselves,” said Democratic candidate Jamie Shepard. “I’d rather not have government regulation … but at some point you do have to have regulations.”
When posed with the question of how to attract new businesses, Shepard said the area should focus on creating a better workforce and STEM education.
Green Party candidate Henry Lawrence, however, said STEM has been crippling other programs such as the arts.
“We’re killing a lot of good programs in our schools because of the STEM programs, and that’s something I don’t like at all,” said Lawrence, who owns a small landscaping business.
During the forum, Lawrence also stressed a need to shift the focus away from big box stores and toward small businesses.
Write-in candidate Jerry Wyche, who will run as a Democrat, said he believed he was the best candidate to represent small businesses because he started a small business alongside his father.
“I come from small business,” Wyche said. “I’m for small business and I was born and bred that way.”