GREENFIELD — The Democratic candidates running to represent the 1st Franklin District in the House of Representatives shared their thoughts on the audit of the state Legislature, healthcare in the face of federal cuts, support for farmers, rural education and community building at Thursday night’s forum.
The two candidates vying for the Democratic nomination in the Sept. 1 primary — Corinne Coryat, Rep. Natalie Blais’ former aide, and Greenfield City Council President Lora Wondolowski — agreed on several points, but had different stances on others. Whately Town Clerk Amy Lavallee is also running for the empty seat formerly held by Blais as an Independent candidate and advances to the Nov. 3 general election, but she was not part of the forum co-hosted by the League of Women Voters of Franklin County, the Greenfield Recorder, Greenfield Community College and Greenfield Community Television.
In the November 2024 election, voters approved Question 1, asking them if they favor allowing State Auditor Diana DiZoglio to audit the Legislature. The question passed overwhelmingly, with 72% in favor. Almost two years since voters demanded the audit, however, Massachusetts residents have not seen the request come to fruition.
Wondolowski said she voted in support of the state audit in 2024 and would push for its release as a state representative, adding that it would reveal the “inner workings” of the Legislature. She called on the forum’s roughly 50 attendees and viewers tuning in online to continue demanding the audit “because it’s only going to be when legislators are hearing over and over again that we want this that things will change.”
“When I ran the Massachusetts League of Environmental Voters, I saw the level of lack of transparency that was at the State House, and it still continues today,” Wondolowski said.
She referenced unrecorded, “opaque” Senate and House votes.
“Being on the City Council of Greenfield, we’re subject to more Open Meeting Laws than our Legislature,” Wondolowski continued. “In order to change this, it’s going to take a lot of coalition-building, because there is a lot of leadership that doesn’t want this to change.”
Although Coryat said she is “all for transparency,” she did not explicitly say whether she is in support of the state audit. As a state representative, she said she would strive for the same transparency demonstrated by Blais’ office, where anyone who wanted to reach Blais could count on a phone call.
“Government works best when people are working in our government with us,” Coryat said. “At the legislative level, [the state audit] has been highly politicized. As a staffer, it was frustrating, honestly, because I just want to pass the bills. I just want to get the work done — that’s the most important part.”
Coryat also referenced how the House and Senate passed transparency and accountability packages that are in negotiations.
In late May, the Senate, 33-6, approved resolutions, sponsored by Sens. Cindy Friedman, D-Arlington, and Paul Feeney, D-Foxborough, requiring that the Senate provide some financial information that DiZoglio has long requested.
The resolutions laid out the history of its dispute with the auditor and made it clear that senators are limiting the records they will provide to those discussed in recent litigation. According to GBH, the records include four years of the Senate’s official budgets, copies of audits of the Senate, a list of financial settlements with former employees and senators, and a list of specific financial transactions.
“As we are in a national constitutional crisis, it’s something we’re thinking about in Massachusetts as well,” Coryat said. “There are legislative functions that cannot be overseen by the Executive Branch because of the design of our government. We are meant to be having checks on one another. That doesn’t mean that somebody is going to be able to go into the legislative process. … I’m completely open to feedback about more transparency measures, but we’re getting there together.”
“I know we’re getting there, but we’re still not there. We’ve got a lot more to do,” Wondolowski said in her rebuttal.
Panelist and League of Women Voters President Marie Gauthier asked about the candidates’ plans to pass the FARM Bill, or “An Act Fostering Agriculture Resilience in Massachusetts,” which the Senate passed and is currently before the House Committee on Ways and Means. The bill proposes several investments in farming, including codifying the Food Security Infrastructure Grant, which funds equipment and infrastructure purchases for farmers, and prohibiting local zoning bylaws from blocking agritourism.
Coryat and Wondolowski both said they would push to pass the FARM Bill in the State House.
“I’m ready for us to start over and to champion right now our next FARM Bill, [and] bring together the coalition that can get it passed,” Wondolowski said, adding that she has the relationships throughout the district to create this key coalition, including with Rep. Susannah Whipps, who has endorsed Wondolowski. “We need a bigger voice to get this across the finish line, and I’m committed to doing it.”
Coryat mentioned her endorsements from Ben Clark of Clarkdale Fruit Farms in Deerfield and David Wissemann of Warner Farm in Sunderland. She also highlighted her work crafting the FARM Bill.
“Farms are a huge part of our economy, of our culture,” Coryat said. “I wrote the FARM Bill, my background is agricultural policy, it’s what I studied in college.”
“I’m surprised to hear that one staffer wrote a FARM Bill, knowing how these bills come together, and usually you’re working with farmers and CISA — Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture — other legislators, Sen. [Jo] Comerford,” Wondolowski rebutted. “I believe in collaboration and bringing people together. It’s not just about one person, but it’s about us all working together, so that’s how I would legislate.”
Coryat asked to rebut Wondolowski’s rebuttal, which the forum’s moderator, Ashfield’s longtime Town Moderator Stewart “Buz” Eisenberg said was not allowed.
Gauthier read a question from the audience about the “loneliness epidemic” and the candidates’ ideas for “creating and nurturing community” in the district as legislators.
“This is a part of the state that is uniquely welcoming, where people really help their neighbors, talk to their neighbors,” Coryat said, adding that she would bring a community-building model into her work as state representative.
Coryat said regional transit authorities (RTAs) help connect communities.
“I was really proud to work with Rep. Blais and the RTA Caucus, because, of course, nothing gets done in a vacuum, and someone does have to type the letters for the legislation,” Coryat said.
While Coryat said she plans to build community through housing in downtown areas with “walkable connections” to communities, Wondolowski plans to organize forums across the district for residents to discuss issues.
Both candidates agreed on the importance of fostering “third spaces” to curb the “loneliness epidemic,” like Wicked Good Café and Double Edge Theatre in Ashfield, as Coryat mentioned.
“We are losing our community connections. We’ve lost the public square where we connect with our neighbors over shared ideas,” Wondolowski said. “People are so afraid that you’re going to offend somebody or somebody is going to be across the political spectrum that you don’t even say anything anymore.”
The pair also addressed education. With talks of regionalization and the Oct. 6 district-wide vote for the proposed $236.6 million new Franklin County Technical School building on the horizon, Coryat and Wondolowski outlined their ideas for assisting area schools.
Coryat mentioned her work as Blais’ aide on the Chapter 70 formula, including the Special Commission on Rural School Districts’ report from 2022 that highlights the specific challenges rural schools face and recommends solutions. She called for the state to fully reimburse schools’ operational costs and address the high cost of special education impacting local schools.
Like Coryat, Wondolowski mentioned the recent revival of the Foundation Budget Review Commission to examine the K-12 funding formula.
“We’ve got to make sure that rural equity is enshrined in the formula, that it looks at the scarcity of our area,” Wondolowski said.
Wondolowski and Coryat shared similar ideas for supporting district residents with disabilities, such as retrofitting residents’ homes to make them more accessible and building more accessible housing.
When asked how they would help district residents obtain health insurance after losing it from federal cuts, both Coryat and Wondolowski described the Trump administration’s healthcare cuts as “cruel” and said they would support Medicare For All.
For the final question, the pair reflected on the county they would represent and listed aspects of Franklin County they believe make it shine.
Wondolowski highlighted the region’s “natural beauty,” and easy access to the Deerfield and Connecticut rivers, and Coryat focused on the area’s farms and arts.
“It’s the most magical thing to walk down the streets in Shelburne Falls and admire all the beautiful art and pottery that’s being created in this region,” Coryat said. “The top thing is the people. The people in Franklin County are steadfast fighters for everyone — we just have this sense of community that is really quite unique.”
To share the area’s character and concerns with colleagues from the eastern side of the state, the candidates said they would take them on trips to Franklin County.
“It’s not just all this bucolic, like, ‘Oh there’s cows, everything’s fine,'” Wondolowski said. “They don’t see the poverty that we’re facing, they don’t see the infrastructure challenges or our aging and declining population, so we’ve got to get people down here, so that we can get the rural equation in everything that happens and gets brought down by the state.”
“I don’t think Franklin County wants to be anything else,” Coryat said. “I want to lift up Franklin County for exactly what it is, because we have something really special.”
