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Kenny Ciancette- Segment 5 · Newsradio WGAN

• 0:00
  Thank you, Jeremy, and welcome back to Inside Main.
• 0:02
  I'm your host today, Sean Moody's beautiful Saturday in
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  Maine. What are the old expression?
• 0:07
  You know, if you don't like the weather in Maine, just wait a
• 0:08
  minute. I was at almost 90 there last
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  week and now we're down to 60 and some frost advisories up
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  north. So you just never know.
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  It's that's the beauty of living here.
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  It's the it's just you never know.
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  I'm joined in studio with Kenny Chiquet and Kenny is the founder
• 0:25
  and owner of Eric's Church on Three O 2 as a restaurant, a bar
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  and been in business for some time, enough to know how tough
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  it is to to make a living, especially in the hospitality
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  restaurant and bar business for sure.
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  But Kenny's running for the Senate.
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  What district is it, Kenny? So it's District 26, so it's all
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  of Wyndham, Fry, Fry Island, Raymond and Casco, and then
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  basically the north half of Westbrook.
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  I see. And that's the that's a tough
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  area right there. And and for a Republican to run
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  in Westbrook, it's been a. Yeah.
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  I mean, yeah, we ran two years ago or I ran two years ago, I
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  should say. And yeah, it's a it's AD plus
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  seven district in total. So yeah, we we did, we did
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  decent in Westbrook two years ago.
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  Obviously with the presidential election, you know, it spurred
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  out a lot of anti Trump vote. So we were able to split the
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  ticket quite well. We actually outperformed every
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  single Republican on the ballots that we were on.
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  But just the way that the gerrymandered district is, it
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  was just a little too far, yeah. Gorham's the same boat.
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  I think the registered Democrats of 4400 to 3600 or whatever, and
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  Republicans. But Kenny, I'm going to just say
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  this, I want you to let listeners know about yourself.
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  And, but I just want to say to the listeners out there, and
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  Kenny and I, we've had this conversation when people run and
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  lose, we've seen that time and time and time again.
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  They just don't see or hear from them again.
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  It's like they get, you know, and again, nobody likes losing.
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  It's tough. I lost, believe me, it's, it's a
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  tough, it's a tough, it's a gut punch, but you know, you got to
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  stay active, you got to stay with it.
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  And I give Kenny Chinkat so much credit for coming back, you
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  know, staying in the fray, not backing off, you know, went back
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  to work, staying productive, staying, you know, he's, he's
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  done a lot for his, his local community in, in addition to the
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  political ambition or whatever. So I, I just think that's
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  notable because that, that's the only way that we're going to win
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  is, is reputable candidates that go at it again and again to
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  build that trust and build that respect from the voters to say,
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  hey, this guy wants it. And I'm, I'm going to, I, I
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  believe in him. And this time I'm going to go
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  with him. Yeah, no, I appreciate it.
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  It's a, you know, I'm a football coach.
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  You know, I actually learned under for 12 years, the most
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  legendary football coach in the state of Maine, John Wolfgram.
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  And, you know, we always learned a lot more in a loss than I win
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  and we won state championships. But but you always learn more,
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  lose, learn more in a loss. And you know, I just found after
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  that last election, I learned a lot of I, upon reflection, I
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  learned a lot of lessons of things that I should have done,
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  could have done, would have done, who I should have trusted
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  this, that and the other thing, you know, at the end of the day,
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  I don't know if we could have necessarily got it done because
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  there was such an anti Trump vote in my district last time,
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  which we don't face this time. And I have a lot more support in
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  public endorsements this time, which is critical to win this
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  seat, A seat that's really designed to be a blue seat.
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  It's not designed, it's not a swing seat.
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  It's a blue seat that we're trying to make red.
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  But but, you know, I learned a lot of those lessons and I kind
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  of internalized them to myself and I was like, everybody's
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  like, are you going to do it again?
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  And I kind of kept them at Bay for over a year.
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  One of them was common sense for Maine.
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  They they tried to pry me out of my shell.
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  I'm like, I appreciate, you know, the boat of confidence,
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  but you know, I need to wait until I figure this stuff out
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  for myself if I really want to do this again or not.
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  And if I've got all my ducks in a row, so got all the ducks in a
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  row, I know what it takes to win now.
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  I learned lessons. I'm not going to, I'm not going
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  to harm anybody's reputation here.
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  But there's certain people now I'm listening to and there's
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  certain people that I'm tuning out.
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  This time we'll put it that way, no?
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  That's, and again, we come from similar backgrounds, kind of
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  you've, you've been around the dad, you know, business your
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  whole life, you know, and so you understand how businesses run,
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  organizations run you've, you can build them, you can, can run
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  them. And when you get into the
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  political, you know, it's, it's not our wheelhouse.
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  We don't know. You don't know, you know, when
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  you have to kind of you're a faithful person like I am.
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  You just kind of trust people. You're a trusting person.
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  And whenever when you get burned, it's like, holy smokes,
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  didn't see that coming. Well, that's makes you a Manor,
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  right? That's what manners are, you
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  know. We trust you until you give us a
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  reason to not trust you. Basically, that's what every
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  Manor feels like. Any real Manor.
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  You know, I've been very fortunate in my life.
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  You know, my mentors, you know, as far as business are concerned
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  was my grandfather and his brothers building Chimbro.
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  And then my parents are doing what they and my grandfather on
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  the other side of Michigan, he was very successful.
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  As far as football's concerned, it's John Wolfgram and as far as
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  politics concerned, it's been Bill Diamond in Windham.
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  I mean, me and Bill worked actively on the campaign last
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  time he was, he was staying neutral technically, publicly,
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  but he was helping me behind the scenes because he me and him are
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  good friends. And, and even though maybe we
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  didn't agree 100% on policies, he knew the character of me.
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  And that's why I unfortunately we lost him last year.
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  He was going to endorse me if I decided to run, but I, I, I sat
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  on the fence long enough. But having Jane Diamond's
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  endorsement and Karen Diamond as my treasurer, it sends a
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  message. And so, you know, having the
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  great mentors in my life, I am the most well equipped
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  candidate. I'm not just going to say for
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  this race, but probably for state Senate.
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  I'm going to, I'm, I'm going to go ahead and say that.
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  And it's not because because I'm the greatest person, it's
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  because I've had the greatest people in my life.
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  That's what it's been about. Sean.
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  Yeah. Well, I said insightful or as a
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  wisdom from a fairly young young.
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  Man, likely you're saying I'm young, 38.
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  That's pretty good. It's absolutely true.
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  It is you you become a lot like the the six or eight closest
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  people to you. And that's just the studies to
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  prove that Birds of a feather, Kenny, if you could and you've
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  been out what what are the what's the biggest concerns that
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  voters are are, you know, venting to you what what's the
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  top two or three? Issues, well, I mean, every
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  voters got different problems, but probably the biggest issue
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  right now obviously is the affordability in this state.
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  The fact that our energy costs are unnecessarily high.
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  That has nothing to do with Washington, has everything to do
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  with Augusta. Our energy costs are way too
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  high, higher than anybody else in the Northeast.
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  We have our tax burden, we're the number one tax burden in the
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  entire country, which is and when we talk about burden, it's
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  not necessarily that with they levy the most taxes against us.
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  It's based off of our income and we don't have the income to
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  support the taxes that we have. I mean, we have the education
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  problems in this state. You know, my, the biggest thing
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  that pushed me over the limit on running this time was, was is to
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  go get the job done that that bill worked his tirelessly on,
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  which is the child abuse problem in this state.
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  And when I went up to Augusta and Tim Nangle's chair was empty
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  at LD555 at the public hearing for it.
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  And I sat beside Jaden Diamond, she, I grabbed her on the leg I,
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  I, I, I didn't grab her on the leg.
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  I touched her leg and you could just feel her just melt in in
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  that. And, you know, at that point, I
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  said somebody needs to go defend these children.
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  We got so many problems in the state, Sean.
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  Yeah, I mean. That's why I said, what do you
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  think I talk two or three hours. Well, like I told you, I'm like,
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  I'm a bar owner. I'm a restaurant owner, right?
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  So the way I look at it, like we were talking about in the break,
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  it's like the Republicans want to buy this bar and the bar that
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  we're walking into. The glasses are broken, The bar
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  is a mess, The stools are flipped over, the toilet's full
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  of things. Like we're buying the most
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  broken possible thing you can. Like the Republicans want it.
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  I want it. The only thing that's going to
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  happen is we're going to go in there and start fixing things as
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  quickly as possible. If we've got a Republican
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  governor, a Republican Senate and a Republican House, we've
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  got to go in there and fix it as fast as possible.
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  Because what's going to wind up happening is we're going to get
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  it all done. And the Democrats are going to
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  say, well, look at that little piece of lint up in the corner
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  that you didn't get. That's what they're going to try
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  to do. So we've got to set the tone.
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  We've got one shot right now. This is the most amazing
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  opportunity in my lifetime for this state to turn our state
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  around in a big way and it needs it.
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  And if it doesn't do it, I'm afraid we will continue to to
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  not just fall back, but it will now escalate because the
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  millionaires are fleeing the state.
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  And so that means that tax burden has to be put on to
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  somebody and the only people left are the non millionaires.
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  That means it's the working class people of this state that
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  all this tax burden is going to fall on.
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  Kenny, I'll tell you that's well, well scripted and well,
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  passionate, passionate appeal. No passionate play really.
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  No, I, I think it, it's, you know, being in being in, in
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  business and, and understanding economics and, and budgets and
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  all these things, it's almost a disadvantage in some way.
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  It's a blessing. It's a curse because like you
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  said, the state is on the preface of failure.
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  I mean, you look at the Medicaid expansion and rural hospital,
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  you know, just just collapsing under its own weight and the
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  extension of the supplemental budgets, adding hundreds of
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  millions of dollars onto an already bloated budget.
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  It's just a recipe for failure. And we all see it.
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  You see it. And the fact if you stepping in
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  and say we're going to we're going to do something about it
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  is, yeah. I just, I just wish that voters
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  somehow, some way we could recognize, but, you know,
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  they're not a business owners. They don't know.
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  And and they just kind of listen and they get the Flyers and they
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  watch the ads and they talk to the neighbor and say, oh, who's
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  this guy or that person, whoever running just not, not really
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  understanding that the as you described is what's at stake
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  here. Yeah.
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  Well, I mean, you know, I graduated the University of
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  Maine 2010 with an economics degree.
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  And so I understand a little bit of it about this stuff.
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  And I was at lunch the other day with Jonathan Bush.
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  And Jonathan Bush has some real ideas to, you know, solve the
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  healthcare problems in the state.
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  You look at it, we're, yeah, we're losing hospitals because
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  we're not paying our hospital bills, which is, you know, the
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  the dams can hate Paul Page all they want, but he paid the
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  hospitals. He made sure they always got the
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  payment. We've lost, we lost another
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  school yesterday in this state. We lost down in Arundel.
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  We lost that the, the maritime school down there where things
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  are falling apart around here. And we've got good candidates on
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  our side. I, I like Bush, I like Midgley.
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  I, I'm, I'm not endorsing anybody, but I think we've got
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  some real competent potential CE OS of this state that do what
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  they can do legally by executive action to fix this state and
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  then rely on the legislature to finish the job for what we've
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  got to fix in this state. We're, we're just in such a bad
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  way right now. And you know, I, I just see so
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  many of these issues that can be rectified.
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  We don't need any more government programs.
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  That's the problem. Every solution by the Democrats
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  is another program they have not proposed.
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  Programs cost money. That's what it costs.
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  It costs money. And so we've got and most of
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  these programs are harebrained, half done ideas, half baked
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  right free Community College. Office of Innovation or
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  whatever. Office of new immigrants, Yeah,
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  New Mainers. It's.
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  Just like it's crazy. It's insane.
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  I mean, you look at. These, you know, the climate
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  committee, it's just, yeah, just they, they run into a crisis on
• 11:05
  whatever the issue may be or the program might be, and they can
• 11:09
  do it with a straight face. It's like, oh, we, you know, we
• 11:11
  need to study this, you know, we're going to like Child
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  Protective Services, for example.
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  You know, we we've. They don't even.
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  Admit that's probably a poor example that there is a.
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  Problem that one. Yeah, that's the problem.
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  They don't admit and they don't care.
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  I mean, they had the votes to get the thing done that need
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  that bill wanted done. They had the votes to do it, and
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  those cowards in Augusta didn't want it to happen.
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  So they played parliamentary directs, whether you want the
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  Republicans or Democrat. We should agree that if the
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  majority of the legislators want a bill passed that should be
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  passed. There shouldn't be up to two
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  people or three people to decide the fate of those bills.
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  It is disgusting what happened. Yeah, look at Mattie Daughtry.
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  We need a task force to figure out why property taxes are so
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  high. It's because of your spending.
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  I can do the entire task force. You're spending too much.
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  We have teachers that are underpaid because we have
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  administrators that are overpaid and we've got too many of them.
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  This state has gone to the wayside.
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  What we need to do is restructure it.
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  What we've got to look at is the top five states in this country
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  that put on their education and find common themes.
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  That's what you want to do. Let's imitations most sincere
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  form form of flattery. Let's do what the best states in
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  this country are doing. Let's not just do stupid things
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  that that these guys are these harebrained people that have
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  never done anything in their lives come up with.
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  It's ridiculous. I'll tell you, the MEA, the main
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  education associate has an absolute stranglehold on
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  education. And if you don't believe me, you
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  look at, you just look at their campaign contributions because
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  they're, they're public. They have to file them and, and
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  they, they'll contribute millions of dollars to
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  Democratic candidates. I think they gave 100,000 of
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  Matt Pouliot one year or whatever that they don't.
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  It's so obvious that it's our way or the highway.
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  And it's unfortunate because it's, it's really taking the
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  spirit. It's taking the, the, the if we
• 12:53
  had any hope for reform, it's the system can't reform itself.
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  It's going to be done from outside.
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  It just has to because if they were going to, they would have
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  done it before now. Yeah.
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  Well, in competition's a good thing, right?
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  But at the end of the day, we've got to understand, in order to
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  fix a problem, you have to recognize that you have a
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  problem. And we have a problem with
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  education in the state. Our problem is not our educators
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  per SE. It is the structure that they
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  that they work under. And so we've got to fix the
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  structure. There are great educators in the
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  state that are basically suppressed from being able to do
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  what they've got to do as a result of all this government
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  bloat and policies and mandates and mandates and, you know.
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  Unfunded mandates. Yeah, yeah.
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  You can't. You can't, you know, discipline
• 13:36
  a child or tell a child that they're got a lion, but you can
• 13:39
  enjoy their, you know, sexual preferences and all that stuff.
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  I mean, it's just, it's gross what's gone.
• 13:45
  What we need to do is get back to the basics.
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  It's as simple as that. And pretty much every
• 13:49
  gubernatorial candidate agrees with that.
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  We need to strip down everything we don't need.
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  We got to follow John Featherston around the state of
• 13:57
  Maine and find the more fraud that he finds and eliminate all
• 13:59
  those people, get everybody re license recertified in this
• 14:03
  state that shouldn't. That should be a pretty
• 14:04
  streamlined thing when they know that they don't have a willing
• 14:07
  partner in Augusta. If they're a fraud person right
• 14:10
  now, people in fraud, they don't care.
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  They apply because they know they're not going to get in
• 14:13
  trouble right now. That's the problem, Governor
• 14:15
  Mills said. Oh, we're going to.
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  We got to get some money in that budget just in case a business
• 14:18
  is harmed that that is, it's actually convicted of fraud
• 14:22
  that. Is insane.
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  That is insane. I mean.
• 14:25
  No, no, they just don't know the extent of of the cover up and
• 14:29
  corruption that's going on. I can understand why people
• 14:31
  might like or not like Donald Trump, and even if they do it
• 14:34
  vehemently so. But ultimately, Donald Trump is
• 14:37
  not the enemy of the state of Maine.
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  That is not the case. So these gubernatorial
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  candidates say that I'm going to stand up with Trump.
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  That's not what Mainers want. What Mainers want is a more
• 14:46
  affordable Maine. What Mainers want is the
• 14:47
  opportunity that if they want to work in this state, they can get
• 14:51
  ahead in this state, that they can buy their camps up north,
• 14:54
  that they can do those things, but they can't do they can't
• 14:55
  even own their first homes. And now the state government,
• 14:59
  Rick Bennett proposes that the government owns a piece of your
• 15:01
  house. That's part of his solutions.
• 15:03
  Yeah, that's a good idea. I mean, why don't we just give
• 15:05
  them part of your car too, Rick, and part of your 4-O1K.
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  You know, these other ones are come up with an unconstitutional
• 15:10
  ideas. Why?
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  Let's tax the the out of state is more right?
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  It's crazy. And these are.
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  Supposedly, you know, educated, some of them attorneys, the
• 15:21
  industrial bells. It's just you say, say that,
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  say, jeez, you know, that's such a great idea.
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  What didn't somebody think of that?
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  20 years. Ago, 10 years ago.
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  Oh, probably because it's not legal.
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  Well, and The thing is, Sean, why are we not conforming to the
• 15:34
  federal policy on the taxes, right?
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  I mean, if you look at it during the last presidential campaign,
• 15:38
  Donald Trump, what did he say? No tax on tips, no tax on the
• 15:41
  overtime. What did Kamala say?
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  Sounds like a good idea. No tax on tips, no tax.
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  So why is it a good idea for Kamala, but it's not a good idea
• 15:47
  for Maine? It is so disingenuous.
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  What's going on in there? And Gus, and they just keep
• 15:52
  saying it's Donald Trump's fault.
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  We need more money. We need more of your money.
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  They're driving the millionaires away.
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  The burdens going to be left on the people here.
• 15:58
  What we need to do is restructure our tax policy.
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  We have to take care of the basics, but we need to
• 16:03
  restructure our tax policy so we create economic growth.
• 16:06
  Right now we're at 0.0%. That's not that's not very much.
• 16:08
  I don't think 0.0 is not a lot. We need economic growth in this
• 16:12
  state. So in order to do that, we need
• 16:13
  to create tax policy that incentivizes businesses to be
• 16:16
  here, that activity happens here and that we attract workers to
• 16:19
  here that those are the three things we need to do.
• 16:21
  So with the right tax policy, we got to start there.
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  Once we figure out what the right tax policy is, we need to
• 16:26
  figure out how much money we're expected in revenue.
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  And then we need to prioritize. We need to be like a business.
• 16:31
  I can't run my bar and say here are all my expenses.
• 16:34
  Guess what? Now I'm going to charge you 42
• 16:36
  bucks for a Bud Light because those are my expenses.
• 16:38
  No, I have to say my Bud Light has to be 5 bucks and I've got
• 16:41
  to do enough volume to pay for these expenses.
• 16:43
  That's how it's got to work. We need a business person in
• 16:45
  Augusta at the at the helm. And I understand how that
• 16:49
  mentality works and I understand what we really need, which is
• 16:52
  growth. I want more tax revenue by
• 16:54
  cutting taxes. We want volume, we want sales.
• 16:56
  I don't want to make 30 bucks on a Bud Light and only sell 100
• 16:59
  Bud Lights. I want to make 5 bucks on a Bud
• 17:01
  Light and send 10,000 of them. That's what I want.
• 17:03
  I want it's the widget model. Like we want to talk about
• 17:05
  widgets and economics and accounting and all that stuff.
• 17:07
  I want to produce a lot of widgets.
• 17:09
  I want a lot of people paying taxes, low taxes and we'll we'll
• 17:13
  grow our tax revenue in this grow.
• 17:14
  Our way out of it. Yeah, yeah.
• 17:16
  No, I I any. That's right, it's.
• 17:19
  No, it's the right answer. Well, when you think about the,
• 17:21
  the simple economics, I didn't go to economic school, but I, I
• 17:24
  look at, if you get more outgoing than ingoing, then
• 17:27
  you're going, you know, And so I look at, OK, if we raise revenue
• 17:30
  as you described through tax increase, increase of GDP and
• 17:35
  grow our economy, OK, now we've grown the tax revenue coming in
• 17:38
  and then we reduce our overhead or expenses, if you will.
• 17:41
  And what's in between that is now you got some money to do
• 17:44
  something with, right? You can say, OK, we do want to
• 17:46
  lower the overall taxes from 7.15 down to 5%, whatever.
• 17:50
  Then you get options when you, when you're spending more than
• 17:52
  you got and the economy is not growing, that's a recipe for
• 17:57
  failure. And here's the difference, if
• 17:59
  you're in small business, OK, more outgoing and ingoing, then
• 18:03
  you're going when government, more outgoing and ingoing.
• 18:05
  We're paying, yeah, yeah. And they double down.
• 18:07
  They say we just send us back in office, we're going to keep
• 18:10
  working on the problem. And this is, this is done when
• 18:13
  COVID was a terrible thing. It was a horrible, horrible
• 18:16
  thing. Make no mistake.
• 18:17
  The one thing about COVID though, it made me re envision
• 18:21
  my business. I had to create a business model
• 18:23
  with a much lower sales volume because I would have lower
• 18:26
  sales. So I needed to eliminate the,
• 18:28
  the unnecessary expenses in my business, just like every other,
• 18:31
  and especially in the hospitality business, because we
• 18:33
  are really, we're, we're dependent on people coming into
• 18:36
  the house and, and to the building.
• 18:38
  And Janet Mills had that only 50 people can be in there until
• 18:40
  9:00 because COVID comes out and nine, it was crazy.
• 18:43
  But you know, we, we need to do, we need to have the similar
• 18:46
  mindset in, in Augusta. What we need to do is say, what
• 18:49
  don't we need? What, what do we need?
• 18:51
  And let's get rid of everything else and let's build a budget
• 18:53
  according so we can have the growth that we need.
• 18:56
  It's not about profitability. It's not about profitability.
• 18:58
  What it's about is making sure that we have the, about the,
• 19:02
  have the have the sustainability for our, for our state,
• 19:06
  basically. So no, I, I, I feel very, I feel
• 19:09
  I'm very energized this time. And I'm hopefully everybody
• 19:11
  will, you know, support me and, and vote Kenny Freseni on June
• 19:14
  9th. Yeah, Kenny, I just want to say
• 19:16
  we're going to run up against the clock the break here.
• 19:18
  But I just will say you definitely have my endorsement.
• 19:22
  I think there's a lot of other, I'm not in your district,
• 19:24
  unfortunately, you know, to be able to cast a vote for you.
• 19:27
  But I think it's a lot of friends and people that move to
• 19:30
  Wyndham that used to live in Gorham.
• 19:32
  And we have a look, we used to have our shop up there on River
• 19:34
  Rd. there with the Varneys. So we have connections up that
• 19:37
  way and and I so much appreciate that you as a model to be able
• 19:42
  to run again the second time going based on what you've
• 19:45
  learned and applying these things and hopefully the timing
• 19:47
  is right for you to be successful.
• 19:49
  Kenny, thanks for coming on Inside Maine.
• 19:51
  Thank you, John. Appreciate it.
• 19:53
  We'll be right back after the break.