Two democrats are hoping to be the voter nominee to move onto the general election.
Amanda Fontana and Angie Hall are running for the 51st District House of Representative seat in Tuesday’s primary election.
Fontana says she has intimate knowledge of what it’s like growing up poor and the barriers involved in government assistance programs. She says she will take that knowledge to the state level, but also focus on several other issues she’s heard firsthand from spending time in the community and attending several council meetings.
“Number one issue across the board is affordability. Property taxes, the cost of living, school, and healthcare. We have to make sure that we are providing legislation that supports people, supports communities, and legislation that actually affects people in their everyday lives.”
Hall says she has a large family and has a background of working in the surveillance and governance of financial institutions to ensure consumer and employee rights. Hall’s decision to run for office was after the 2025 budget was passed.
“I can see the damage it was going to cause to infrastructure, schools, and our grant programs for fire, EMS, police, and first responders. We’re still not addressing the lack of affordable housing. We’re decreasing the availability of healthcare.”
Both concurred that property taxes cannot be completely abolished.
Hall says this would be devastating to working and lower-class families.
“We cannot afford to be paying 20-percent sales tax. That is just going to lower the resources and food in every home. What we could do is start rolling them back to pre-pandemic levels and come up with a good plan so that we are not hitting our residents with higher taxes, but we maintain our industrial taxes.”
Fontana says property taxes are what fund social services, emergency services, and schools, but agreed there needs to be reform.
“There are bills currently sitting in our state legislature that would provide real property taxes relief across the board and not harm local services, however, because it would require the top wealthy to actually pay their fair share they refuse to remove those bills out of committee. We need property tax reform and we need people to get serious. There’s a way to make sure people aren’t being taxed to death and still keep our public goods.”
Fontana says she is the best fit because she has first-hand experience struggling with government assistance programs, she knows what it takes to go from being a high school drop out to a college professor, and believes investments need to be made in communities and people.
Hall says she will fight for the communities, be a visible leader, will continue to have conversations with district constituents, and will be transparent.
The democrat getting the majority of votes will move onto the November general election to face incumbent Jodi Salvo.
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