Alachua Voter Guide

For a Gainesville city election that did not coincide with a presidential primary, it was a euphoric 26.9% voter turnout. But for all the heat generated by the two warring sides in a battle between public safety advocates and transgender rights, it was a pathetic level of real concern.

The final result was 8,375 FOR the Amendment and 11,717 against according to the Supervisor of Elections Unofficial Final Results, posted at 8:50 PM. If you want the financial breakdown, according to the latest financial reports available, Equality is Gainesville’s Business spent about $130,000 to bring in the final vote total AGAINST the amendment, and CitizensFor Good Public Policy spent about $63,000. That makes for about $11.25 per vote to defeat it, and $7.50 per vote in the failed attempt to pass it.

The lesser known Amendment 2, which prevents future city commissions from selling lands acquired for conservation, recreation, or cultural purposes without a referendum being put before the voters, got 15,226 FOR (41.68) and 3,643 AGAINST (58.32%.

In the city commission races, in the At-large 1 contest it was a first round knock out for the incumbent. Jeanna Mastrodicasa was re-elected with 10,281, or 58.13%. Her closest challenger was newcomer Robert Krames with 4,435 (25.08%), followed by Tom Cunilio with 1,108 (6.27%), Richard Selwach with 1,094 (6.19%), and James Schlachta with 767 (4.34%).

The single District 1 race was also a big win for the incumbent, Sherwin Henry, with 1,940 (68.21), and his opponent, Marcia Wimberly with 904 (31.79).

So, there will be no runoff election next month, but there will be more analysis later.

During the Sadie Darnell versus Lonnie Scott slugfest last summer, the Gainesville Sun printed not a word in its news reports about the aggressive charges Scott made against the incumbent sheriff. It was newsworthy. But the Sun was AWOL. I asked a Sun reporter about this strange absence from a real new story (when the headlines were reading that John Edwards’ mistress was an Ocala native), and I was told that they did not have the manpower to cover it.

Whenever I hear that there have been actual incidents in Gainesville in which a man uses a public women’s room at will, flaunting the immunity that the Transgender Bathroom Ordinance affords him, I also hear that the supporters of Charter Amendment One are, “just making that up”. And it’s easy for them to say so if the Sun or TV 20, or any other news outlet declines to do any investigative reporting. But what happens when there is an actual police report and surveillance camera video? The answer will still be, “they are just making that up” …if no one reports it.

Well, here is a start. I have a police report with the victim’s name and contact information blacked out. I don’t have the video…yet. But I am sure that someone with “legitimate” journalistic creds could get a look. But will they? And what else are we not hearing? Or seeing?

So far, we are getting a very selective view of this whole public safety issue. The Gainesville Chamber of Commerce has been cowed into taking a stand against Charter One because they have drunk the Kool-Aid. They are parroting the line that this is about discrimination. They are agreeing with the ideologically driven letters to the Sun that call Charter One supporters bigots. Meanwhile, when a local supermarket manager calls the police because women complain that a man just walks into the ladies room while they are in there, the police can only tell him that they are in “uncharted waters”.

We cannot depend on our institutions to protect us. They are selling out to politically driven policy makers who can make their lives miserable if they want to. Business people are worried about taking a stand because they feel threatened by the specter of being labeled “intolerant” in a University town. And I feel their pain. I know what it is like to have a customer drop my service because they disapprove of my stand on a moral issue. So much for tolerance.

In the secret place of the voting booth, no one will be able to watch what you are doing. No one will be able to exact revenge. But if you want to organize and work together with others who want to get the word out about Charter One, you may find yourself being defamed and intimidated. And it will probably go unreported.

In other food for the rumor mill: The ACLU has a full time staffer working with the Charter One opponents, Equality is Gainesville’s Business. And EIGB has hired a full time campaign manager. And the out of town money continues to roll in. EIGB has a $50K war chest as of the last financial report, and it’s coming from all over the US. Gainesville is a battleground city. Will you opt out of this struggle?

Rememeber, on election day they will count the votes, not the money.

Comments, please.

My first opportunity to see the candidates was on North Florida Journal. Find the video here to see all the candidates and see where they weigh in on charter amendment one.

Find the video here.

The Supervisor of Elections has produced a web page with the sample ballots for the voters who live in District one, who will be choosing between Commissioner Sherwin Henry and challenger Marcia Wimberly, and the ballot that the rest of the city will be voting on, which will not include them.

Find those sample ballots here, which will include an audio version.

Next week we will have what is the only candidate forum that I am aware of so far. The League of Women Voters of Alachua County will be the hosts and the venue will be the Downtown Library meeting room. The forum will run from 7pm until 8:30pm next Tuesday night.

All the city candidates for District one and at-large district 1 have been invited to participate. It is also likely that there will be representatives both for and against Charter Amendments 1 &2.

Although I have been busy trying to make a living, your intrepid blogger has stayed on the trail of this mysterious $5,000 donation to “Equality is Gainesville’s Business” (EGB). I finally got some answers.

The donor was another political action committee (PAC) called “Basic Rights Gainesville” (BRG). This PAC was created by Gainesville City Commissioner Craig Lowe. He also created the recipient of the donation, EGB. He created EGB in June of 2008. The first donation was recorded on 6/24/08.

On October 3, 2008, Craig Lowe filed papers with the Supervisor of Elections registering the creation of Basic Rights Gainesville (BRG). The first donation, recorded the same day, was a $5,000 check from another PAC, Basic Rights Montgomery of Silver Spring, Maryland. This money was then recorded as an expenditure, in the form of a donation from BRG to EGB. EGB recorded that donation on December 24, 2008. Then, last month, Craig Lowe notified the Supervisor of Elections on January 9th that the last quarter report from BRG was its last. BRG was disbanded. It had served its purpose as a conduit for the donation from Basic Rights Montgomery.

What most of us want to know is, is this illegal? No, I don’t think so. The next question is, why the subterfuge? Why not just take a donation directly from Basic Rights Montgomery instead of creating a Gainesville entity to pass it through? It looks deceptive.

The very purpose of all this reporting and making things a public record, and putting them online is to make campaigns more transparent. The people who championed these laws and practices did so because they thought that the people of a community should know when big donors from out of the area are trying to influence their elections. In the spirit of those laws, I will try to keep these issues out in the Sunshine. I’m sure our city commissioners will agree that this is the right thing to do.

I welcome Craig Lowe or anyone else in EGB to take all the space they need in this blog to respond.

There is a local website called The Buyers Guide, which keeps track of who gives to local political campaigns, and provides a breakdown of what percentage of money comes from sources outside of our community. That is a good idea. I want to know if people who don’t even live here have a vested interest in our elections. I went to the site, and saw that they are not yet caught up with Gainesville’s March election. So, I decided to get the information myself by going to the Alachua County Supervisor of Elections website and finding it myself. Here is what I discovered about the highly controversial Transgender Bathroom item. Keep in mind that this is publicly available information that anyone who cared to look could have discovered.

Of the $24,333.30 donated to Citizens for Good Public Policy, $3,300 came from businesses, and the rest was given by individuals. There was also a $500 contribution made by the Rock of Gainesville, a church. It was returned. I can only presume that is because a church is somehow prohibited from endorsing one side in an election. If you include that donation, which came from within Alachua County, a total of $925 came from outside Alachua County, or 3.8% of the money donated to this cause. If you don’t include the Rock’s contribution, it is 3.9%

On the other side of this fight is a group calling itself Equality is Gainesville’s Business, a political action committee (PAC) registered with the Supervisor of Elections. Thus far, they have collected $23,456.57. At first, it appears that $9,831.85, or 41.9%, came from out of town. However, a closer look reveals that one of our “local” donations of $5,000 came from a local entity that has only one donor, another entity that is located in Maryland. Basic Rights Gainesville is the next biggest donor beside the National Gay and Lesbian Talk Force. That takes the out of town number to 63%.

Yes, someone started a PAC in Alachua County, ostensibly to hide the fact that the money comes from out of state. I know that sounds like I’m saying that someone is up to no good, but when I went to the SOE website to find out who set up this local entity, there is no name and address on the form. So, there is some pretty sloppy work being done here if we are trying to achieve some sort of transparency in our system. I have also gone to the State Division of Elections and their database returns error messagges when I search for Basic Rights Gainesville. I have emailed them about it this morning.

What we do know is that their single $5,000 donation came from another organization called Basic Rights Montgomery. This group is much more visible. The Nationall Gay and Lesbian Task Force was instrumental in starting this group to fight another transgender bathroom ballot initiative in Montgomery County, Maryland. The NGLTF was the biggest donor to Equality is Gainesville’s Business.  It looks like they are the recipients of some leftover donations from Maryland.

And how did that battle go? It depends on who you ask. The short version is this: a local group started collecting signatures to get a measure on the ballot to overturn a transgender bathroom ordinance similar to Gainesville’s. They needed 25,000 signatures. They got them. Then their opponenets petitioned the court to change the number that was needed after the time to get them had expired. The court changed the number to 27,000, and the game was over. Read about it here.

So, who started Basic Rights Montgomery? Well, it’s a another group called Equality Maryland. And one of their donors is the Unitarian Universalist Church. I had to get around to that because it is very instructive to the rest of us that if you use enough paper entities to funnel your money to a political campaign, it is perfectly legal. I suppose.

This story is developing…

Last night, by a 7-0 vote, the Gainesville City Commission approved alternative ballot language that will be seen by the voters on March 24 of next year.The change was not a big one, but Mayor Pegeen Hanrahan wanted to make sure the voters knew that they were voting to prevent the city from providing certain civil rights on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. The Mayor was quite unhappy with this item being put on the ballot, and continued to avoid discussions about the main sticking points in what has become known as the Transgender Bathroom Ordinance.

The ordinance, which was passed last January in a firestorm of opposition from religious leaders, business owners, concerned parents and African-Americans in conspicuous numbers, allows anyone to self-identify as “transgendered” on the basis of how he or she feels at any moment. The ordinance has been castigated as a loophole for bathroom peredators, who could even sue a business owner for attempting to keep unsavory men from lurking in the ladies room. At least, that was the assessment of the city’s own attorney when pressed for an answer by former City Commissioner Rick Bryant. In spite of this apparent legal nightmare for the businesses in the city limits that would be forced to comply with the ordinance, City Commissioners Jack Donovan, Jeanna Mastrodicasa, and Craig Lowe joined the Mayor in her insistence that this ordinance was a needed remedy for transgendered persons.

The Mayor says she believes that the City of Gainesville will step up and deny this charter amendment, which would effectively undue the offending Gender Identity provisions.

Below is an excerpt from and email I got from Cain Davis. He wants to make sure that we know that the City Commission will be deciding whether or not to accept the ballot language, that has been prepared by their own attorney, of the City of Gainesville Charter Amendment that city residents will decide this March 24, 2009. The Amendment prohibits the city from providing civil rights, protections, and preferences that are NOT already provided for by the Florida Civil Rights Act. Passing this amendment would be the deal killer for the City’s controversial Transgender Bathroom amendment to its own civil rights ordinance that, in practice,  allows any man to self-identify as a protected “trangendered” person when caught lurking in the lady’s room at any private business. Schools and all government buildings were exempt.

The City Commission will be meeting this Thursday, December 4, to make the decision. It will be a great opportunity to see how they work, and how willing they are to let the citizens decide on this issue. A lot of people worked very hard to get this on the ballot. More people signed the petitions to get this on the ballot than normally vote in City of Gainesville Elections.

************************

“During their discussion on November 6, 2008, the Commissioners specifically asked for citizen input regarding the ballot language because several individuals who support their side were in the audience and presented what the commissioners thought were good ideas.  Let’s provide them the citizen comments they requested.  Below is the website you can go to and listen to the entire discussion, about 50 minutes:

http://gainesville.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=450

“Once you get to the site, if you only want to listen to the part of the meeting which pertains to the gender identity issue please follow these instructions:

1. Look to left-hand side of screen, under the picture
2. Click on the up/down cursor which is located to the right of the words “jump to”
3. Once the listing appears,scroll down to the line which reads: 080410 “Proposed city charter amendment”

“The video will start playing at the beginning of the gender identity discussion.

“The following is the website which contains the agenda item for December 4, 2008, the item is on page 35 of the agenda:

http://legistar.cityofgainesville.org/meetings/2008/12/8654_A_City_Commission_08-12-04_Meeting_Agenda_(Long).pdf

“The following are the email addresses for our city officials, please send your email to all emails and blind copy citizensforgoodpublicpolicy.org.  The reason we are requesting for you to blind copy citizensforgoodpublicpolicy.org is so that we can have an accurate count of those who oppose what the city commission is attempting to do:

HanrahanP@cityofgainesville.org
hawkinswt@cityofgainesville.org
mastrodij@cityofgainesville.org
henrysl@cityofgainesville.org
poel@cityofgainesville.org
DonovanJF@cityofgainesville.org
LoweSC@cityofgainesville.org
legal@cityofgainesville.org
hauck@cityofgainesville.org

“Sorry for the long email, but I wanted to provide enough information for you to understand what and why we are requesting your support at this time.  If you have any questions please email to citizensforgoodpublicpolicy.com.

“Thanks in advance.

“Cain Davis
Chairperson, CGPP”
www.citizensforgoodpublicpolicy.org

Early voting was so busy here in Alachua County that I was certain that the turnout would be around 90%. So much for that starry-eyed optimism. It was actually 78.1%, down from 78.3% during the last Presidential election. However, that is still pretty good, and Barack Obama won this county predictably, 60-39%. And the coattail effect did its work. All three incumbent county commissioners won handily. Byerly beat Riordan 57-42%; Delaney beat Bailey 59-41%; and Long beat Scott 54-46%. I expected the Delaney/Bailey race to be the closest, but it was actually the widest margin, though not by very much.

In multi-county action, Cliff Stearns lost Alachua County 52-48% due to the Obama Effect, but the big McCain support in Marion County was enough to overcome it and help him finish 61-39% over Cunha. Chuck Chestnut crushed Bernie DeCastro 70-30% in the State House District 23 race, and Debbie Boyd squeaked out a 42 vote win in District 11 over the Republican challenger Elizabeth Porter. With such a tiny margin, it will likely be the subject of a recount, but it will also likely stand.

In non-partisan action, in which voters could not just look for a D to know how to vote, the race for Alachua County Judge was won handily by Denise Ferrero, 60-40%, despite the last month television onslaught by her challenger, Lorrain Sherman, who claimed that Ferrero’s campaign was deceptive. In the race for Soil and Water Conservation District seats 2 and 4, I only got these wrong. David Gildart lost to Todd Martin 61-39%, and Mary Ann Gosa beat Rob Brinkman 53-47%. I had presumed that name recognition would work for Gildart and Brinkman; Gildart because he used this site a great deal since July 1, and Brinkman because he has run for other offices. The best I can explain it is that what people learned about David Gildart on this site and his linked MySpace page actually turned voters off. And in Rob Brinkman’s case, it might be that his tendency to lose all his elections might mean that people just don’t like him.

In ballot initiative action, on the local level, the big wave of Obama voters seems to have liked new taxes. They approved both the One Mill for Education 64-36%, and the sales tax for Wild Places/Public Spaces 52-48%, and they overwhelmingly chose to limit the county government from selling off lands preserved for Conservation, Recreation or Cultural Purposes 75-25%.