Toni believes Milford deserves strong advocacy in Hartford to ensure our city receives its share of state resources and investment. Her focus is on bringing funding and support back to Milford to strengthen our schools, ease the cost of living for families and seniors, and protect our shoreline and infrastructure.
As a union member who works in Milford Public Schools, I see every day that strong schools depend on the people doing the work. Supporting students means supporting the teachers, paraprofessionals, secretaries, custodians, counselors, nurses, food-service workers, and other professionals who make public education possible.
Every child deserves a strong public education, regardless of their family’s income or ZIP code. Education is a public good, and our commitment to it should begin before kindergarten and continue through college, career training, or an apprenticeship.
Education Is a Right, Not a Privilege
As State Representative, I will:
•Make childcare and pre-K affordable and accessible to every family by building on Early Start CT and expanding free and low-cost programs, with the goal of universal access.
• Protect and fully fund public schools by fully funding special education, expanding free breakfast into universal school meals, and opposing privatization or charter-school expansion at the expense of neighborhood public schools.
• Stand with education workers by defending collective bargaining and fighting to raise pay, strengthen benefits, improve staffing, and ensure respect for every employee who keeps our schools running.
•Expand mental health and student support in schools by investing in counselors, social workers, psychologists, nurses, interventionists, and school-based behavioral health services.
•Make education after high school more affordable by building on debt-free community college, moving Connecticut toward tuition-free public higher education, and strengthening vocational education and union apprenticeship pathways.
Affordability is not an abstract number.
I will fight to:
• Lower utility bills and reform the system.
• Strengthen independent oversight of Eversource and UI, make utility profits depend on reliability and performance, fund statewide policy costs more fairly instead of loading them disproportionately onto residential bills, and require clean-energy investments to deliver measurable savings for ratepayers.
• Lower healthcare and prescription-drug costs and fight for a Public Healthcare Option
• Raise wages and protect workers. Protect and increase Connecticut’s minimum wage, collective bargaining rights, prevailing wage, paid sick leave, and Paid Leave.
• Crack down on wage theft and misclassification, and defend workers who organize.
• Create a Connecticut Child Tax Credit. Establish a fully refundable state Child Tax Credit of up to $600 per child, building on Connecticut’s existing Earned Income Tax Credit and other family tax relief to put money directly back into the pockets of working families and help cover everyday costs like groceries, rent, utilities, childcare, and clothing.
• Fight for a Connecticut public healthcare option, protect insurance affordability programs, strengthen rate review and price transparency, use the state’s purchasing power to negotiate lower prices, and hold hospital systems, insurers, drug manufacturers, and pharmacy benefit managers accountable for excessive costs.
• Keep essential public services public by opposing privatization schemes that weaken accountability, lower labor standards, or turn taxpayer-funded schools, transportation, social services, and other essential services into private profit
• Lower transportation and other everyday costs. Make Metro-North and local bus service affordable, reliable, and useful, invest in safer sidewalks, crosswalks, and bike routes, and expand free school meals, food assistance, and other programs that directly reduce household expenses.
It is whether working people can afford to live in the communities they love, raise a family, and retire with security. Housing, electricity, healthcare, groceries, childcare, and property taxes take too much out of family budgets. I will build on what is working and fight to lower the essential costs families cannot avoid.
Milford’s families, small businesses, and neighborhoods should not be left to face flooding and severe storms alone. Preparing for climate change is a public responsibility, not a luxury reserved for those who can afford it.
Climate Resilience Is a Public Responsibility
As State Representative, I will:
• Bring more state resilience funding home to Milford by expanding the Climate Resilience Fund and securing investments in flood mitigation, drainage and stormwater systems, roads, bridges, wastewater infrastructure, and other vulnerable public facilities.
• Help homeowners and small businesses protect their property by expanding need-based grants, improving access to existing low-interest financing, and helping residents secure federal funding for elevation, flood proofing, drainage improvements, storm protection, and backup power.
• Treat nature as essential infrastructure by restoring wetlands, dunes, beaches, and living shorelines that absorb floodwater, reduce erosion, and protect coastal neighborhoods.
• Strengthen emergency preparedness and lower long-term costs by investing in warning systems, resilient shelters, backup power, updated flood planning, and efforts that help Milford qualify for greater flood-insurance discounts.
• Hold utilities accountable and create good-paying jobs by requiring stronger storm preparedness, investing in a more reliable electric grid, upholding prevailing-wage standards, and expanding union apprenticeship opportunities through publicly funded resilience projects.
Milford’s shoreline is part of who we are. Protecting it means investing before disaster strikes, not simply paying to rebuild afterward, and making sure no family or neighborhood is left to bear the cost alone.
Milford deserves a representative who is accessible, accountable, and willing to stand up for our community. I will work to protect access to the ballot, strengthen ethics and transparency laws, and ensure residents can see how decisions are made and who is influencing them. I will bring state government closer to home through regular community forums, responsive constituent services, and meaningful public input on major decisions.
