SANFORD — This city has stopped looking in the rearview mirror, and that has to happen statewide. That’s a bit of what independent gubernatorial candidate Eliot Cutler told members of the Sanford Springvale Chamber of Commerce at an informal lunch and chat Tuesday.

Cutler spent much of the day in Sanford, and was scheduled to visit Flemish Master Weavers and Trafton Senior Center later in the day. He had addressed the 12-Town Group, which includes municipal leaders from small, rural towns and Sanford the previous night, at a meeting in Waterboro.

“Over the last 11 years, Maine has fallen behind,” he said to the city’s business leaders. “We’ve got to stop looking in the rearview mirror.”

He spoke about a highway to link Sanford with New Hampshire’s Spaulding Turnpike and I-95, about encouraging young people to move to Maine, technical training and tax reform.

Sanford leaders spoke about a highway, solar power, natural and compressed gas, and communications ”“ a link to the Three Ring Binder that skirted Maine’s newest city.

Cutler is running a distant third to party candidates in the latest Rasmussen Reports’ poll released Tuesday morning. A statewide telephone survey of 830 likely Maine voters conducted April 23-25 finds Michaud and LePage each earning the support of 40 percent of those likely to cast ballots. Cutler is coming in with 14 percent of the vote, according to Rasmussen Reports’ website. The survey has a plus or minus 3 percent margin of error.

If he’d heard the poll results, that wasn’t apparent at the luncheon. Instead, he spoke about his vision for Maine, and asked business and municipal leaders about what was on their minds.

Investment advisor Sean Dumont asked how Cutler would promote jobs and businesses.

Cutler said Maine has been busy chasing big corporations, but should focus instead on recruiting people to Maine. He said young people armed with a two- or four-year degree who move to Maine should get a break and that the state should forgive Maine income tax liability on a dollar-for-dollar basis for payments against student debt, as long as the graduate is living and working in Maine. He said the program would pay for itself as young people start businesses, farms, buy a home, raise families and pay taxes ”“ he called it a modern-day Homestead Act.

He said employers look first to the quality, health and education of the workforce, and secondly to taxes, energy costs and union or right-to-work issues.

Maine has several research facilities like Bigelow Lab and Jackson Lab, he noted, that are asking for help from the state in creating a center for science, technology, engineering and math, commonly called STEM.

He advocated for more apprenticeships in technology fields, and said Sanford’s new high school and technology center would be a boon for the area.

As well, he said a road linking Sanford to the Spaulding Turnpike in New Hampshire and to I-95 in Maine would spur development.

“You have a great airfield, and a great location, but no road,” he said.

City Manager Steve Buck pointed out the need for better broadband to attract business interests from the Route 128 corridor in Massachusetts and beyond. As well, Buck said the city has been talking with Central Maine Power about a 10-megawatt solar project and expressed frustration about the response with that project and in his talks with a natural gas company about extending their existing pipeline from south Sanford downtown.

Cutler has advocated for a public utility authority.

He also talked about tax reform. His proposals would increase the Homestead Exemption to provide property tax relief, give revenue rebates to municipalities, and a host of other initiatives achieved through one of two options: raising the sales tax to 6 percent, generating $180 million in additional revenue, or instituting a 7 percent sales tax rate May through October. That would be coupled with broadening the sales tax base, an increase in the transfer tax and making the 8 percent tax on meals and lodging permanent.

— Senior Staff Writer Tammy Wells can be contacted at 324-4444 (local call in Sanford) or 282-1535, ext. 327 or twells@journaltribune.com.