Candidate Q&A: Eric Borregard, State Representative for the 48th District

Note to readers: The Sun Times News has made its media outlet available to candidates running for public office. Articles published do not reflect an endorsement by the STN. Submissions are from candidates who responded within our guidelines. In order to be as fair and equitable as possible, candidates can submit their responses to four basic questions.

1. Who are you?
2. Why are you running?
3. What issues do you think are important?
4. Why should we vote for you?

Candidate’s responses are printed as submitted.

Hi, my name is Eric Borregard and I’m the Green Party’s candidate for State Representative in 48th District.

I’m a retired small business owner in the automotive technical publications field. I have also been a K-12 guest teacher part-time in the Ann Arbor, Whitmer Lake and Pickney public schools for the last 11 years. So I have seen the changes going in our public schools. As parent I know firsthand what it’s like to have a child trapped in a mediocre, low quality and under achieving public school. But I have also work on school improvement committees and push for the mileages and tax increases necessary in very powerful grassroot ways that improve our public schools.

I’ve written and lecturer on educational issues and debated them publicly many times on TV and in the press over the last 25 years. As a television producer I have produce a variety of public interest broadcasts that included this topic, in a cable show call In The Green.

l was the Reform Party’s candidate for the State Board of Education and ran for UofM Board of Regents in 2010. So, I have experience in the state level public education debate. As a recent college graduate myself, I’ve seen firsthand the hopelessness young people face in Michigan’s university system and indentured servitude and debtor’s prison they and their families must live with.

I oppose the wars for oil the two major parties support and have squander untold trillions on. These wars are fundamentally a waste in human lives and serve to make our society and the world more a violent place. This at a critical time of environmental stress for all life on this planet.

And this is principally why I’m running:

I would like to see a Green Party’s Green New Deal enacted in Michigan. The Green Party’s Green New Deal is an emergency measure that turns the tide on climate change. It would mobilization the state to halt climate change, the greatest threat to humanity in our history. It would create incentives to electric vehicle, not just used car rebates nobody can use. It would also developing electrified mass transit type infrastructure.

I would like to see more state incentives for spending on low-income housing for the homeless. Have a social worker and a community mental health care approach to crime. Gender equality in policing, 51 precent of the Michigan State Police Force should be women. We need more consumer protections, much better public health care and universal healthcare for all.

I’m for enacting a state ban on tree cutting and banning gas powered mowing to stop this senseless wasting of fossil fuels in the state. There would be the added benefit of a more natural look landscape and an improved natural wildlife habitat. The State should lower the speed limit to 55 mph to saves gas and lower fuel costs and inflation. We need to freeze all oil and gas extraction in the state and enforce a real shut down of the Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline.

I’m prochoice and support the ballot initiative on Nov 8th to restore a women’s rights to choose. I’m for funding public school and oppose all diversions of state tax dollars to private school. We also need to enact Rank Choice Voting in Michigan for freer fairer elections. There are solutions to the serious problems we are facing, but people need to be voting Greener to ever achieve them.

Eric Borregard

Green Party Candidate for State Representative 48th District

Map of State Representative Districts. From Michigan.gov