When you head to the polls on November 6 may you consider my experience with Owen Casas. I don’t view Owen as a distant political figure who has a feel-good message and is nowhere to be found. Owen is very involved in the community, from T-Ball to town meetings and community fundraising events such as the Islesboro Crossing for Lifeflight. He also has a great deal of compassion and is always willing to help and listen to concerns.  I would like to share a couple of examples where Owen’s knowledge and persistence backs this up.  

About a year ago, my wife and I were in a bind looking, unsuccessfully, for nursing care for our special needs daughter. We contacted multiple agencies and got the same answer every time; “we just don’t have the staff available.” This is a common problem for special needs families like ours across the state, so we turned to Owen for help. He immediately started brainstorming ideas with us and, to my surprise, we were collectively able to solve this issue rather quickly! We were able to secure a standby nurse though the school district and were it not for the advocacy Owen showed us we likely would have been stuck at square one. 

Owen is a huge believer in inclusion. Like most families in Rockport, my wife and I enjoy taking our kids to Walker Park! Our daughter, as mentioned above, is immobile so we would always have her sit with us on the swing. We had been to couple of parks down south where they had a JennSwing, which is designed for children who have special needs. I reached out to Owen to see if it would be possible to get something like this installed at Walker Park and he loved the idea. He immediately went to work with town departments and within a month the swing was installed. To my knowledge, Rockport is now the first park in Knox County to have an accessible swing for special needs children!

I hope everyone reading this considers my experiences with Owen and comes to the same conclusion that I have: Owen is best candidate for our community! His words are backed up by action and his openness to listen is exactly what we need in Augusta.

Dana Jackson lives in Rockport