MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Republican Delegate in the 78th House of Delegates District Geno Chiarelli is running for another term to continue his work that he believes is improving the quality of life.
On WAJR’s “Talk of the Town,” Chiarelli said he is eager to continue the work he started by passing bills to make changes to harm reduction programs and make it easier for first responders to receive payments through disability insurance when they are hurt on the job.
“The entire point of my campaign since the very beginning has been to make my community and county a better place to live and I feel like I’ve passed some bills to do that, but the work isn’t done” Chiarelli said. “I think there is still a lot we need to do and I’m very much looking forward to being part of the continued progress.”
Chiarelli referred to House Bill 4667 that now makes it illegal for harm reduction programs to include smoking devices. He said providing an alternate method to use drugs goes completely against all the efforts to get people off drugs. Also passed during his first term, House Bill 5188 allowing partial disability benefits, changing a long policy by the West Virginia Municipal Police Officers and Firefighters Retirement System that only provided benefits if a member was totally disabled. The partial disability benefit is 45-percent of the average full monthly compensation for the 12-month period the member contributed to the plan prior to the disability.
“Both of those things I think directly or indirectly impact our municipality, Morgantown as a whole,” Chiarelli said. “I think the more we can do to support our firefighters and police officers, emergency services and anything we can do to attack the drug issue from the legislative perspective I think will result in a better quality of life.”
According to Chiarelli, 20-percent of the babies born in the state have some opioid-related problem making treatment and prosecution priorities for him. First, the state needs viable treatment options that can provide real help to addicts and eliminate programs that allow people to stay on the fringes of recovery that don’t have a component to push people into treatment. Chiarelli said an important item of unfinished business is a bill to order fentanyl dealers to serve life in prison.
“The third one is that there has to be a criminal justice element,” Chiarelli said. “I think if you’re coming into this state and you’re dealing poison and profiting off of our residents’ sickness I think you need to go to prison immediately and for a long time.”
On the special session Chiarelli said he is open to considering the governor’s proposal for child care, but he said that proposal has been vague up to this point. On the cut to the personal income tax, Chiarelli said he is cautious but not ready to go beyond the just about 25-percent cut over the last 18 months.
” This is what the other side of fiscal responsibility looks like,” Chiarelli said. “We have to make sure we are able to pay our obligations and we have to hopefully be able to make the investments we need to in the state because I do think there are things we need to spend money on.”