State House District 45 race: Stoughton cites business experience

Anthony “Tony” Stoughton lives in Castle Rock and has lived in House District 45 for eight years. He is married to a breast cancer survivor and the couple has a daughter who graduated from the Douglas County School District who is attending school at Colorado Mesa University.

Stoughton, a Democrat, has a bachelor of science degree from San Jose State University with a minor in business management and associate arts degrees in general education with an emphasis in industrial technology welding from Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill, Calif.

His accomplishments include certification as a project manager with distinction from UC Berkeley, Project Management Professional, PMI, Denver, 2011 and real estate licenses in Colorado and California. Stoughton has worked as a general manager of Red Oak Development LLC, a small product development and consulting company. He has worked for or consulted for Fortune 500 companies as a project management professional or senior project management. This is his first run for public office and his first experience in the public sector.

Colorado Community Media asked the following questions of the candidates in House District 45. Below are Stoughton's answers.

What makes you the best candidate for this office?

I have the most business experience of any of the current candidates and incumbent. I have completed legal agreements for Red Oak, managed technical and non-technical staff in and out of corporate America and believe that good ideas can come from both sides of the aisle.

My education, credentials and real life experience makes me the most qualified for your state representative in House District 45. I am the only candidate that is going door to door introducing myself and asking what is important to our residents. Going door to door is very time consuming but hopefully I can get to your neighborhood before the election.

What do you see as the biggest challenge facing the district and what would you do to meet that challenge?

The best way to answer is to ask people to visit my website at StoughtonForColorado.com. We face several challenges, education which I will highlight below, energy production policy that will create jobs in our district and a broadband technology that makes sense.

With energy, we need to look at all while being very cautious about fracking. We have one wind energy company in Castle Rock and there is an opportunity to grow and support more jobs in this energy sector. Wind is clean, creates good manufacturing jobs and will last for decades. Building windmills puts engineers, machinists, welders, assemblers and many others to work.

What should be done to improve Colorado's K-12 educational system?

We currently are in a critical time regarding education in our great state, Douglas County and in our House District 45. For years local school boards directed their teachers, curriculum, and administration staff. Now there is a big push by a minority of citizens to implement vouchers, slash teachers' salaries and focus on test scores.

Good test scores are good, but at what cost? Teachers are degreed professional who love to teach and most give their all, so why attack them? Vouchers were surveyed and received a falling grade for support by us the local voters. By the way, vouchers are a violation of Colorado Constitution and are stuck in a legal court battle.