Alachua Voter Guide

Last year’s contested Mayoral election, that ended up in court but was not overturned, may be the impetus for this story coming out of Tallahassee:

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) – A bill that would overhaul Florida’s elections law has cleared a House subcommittee.

The Government Operations Subcommittee cleared the bill (PCS for HB 1355) on Friday by a party-line vote of nine-to-four.

The bill is sponsored by state Representative Dennis Baxley. The Ocala Republican says the proposed changes include requiring county election supervisors to take direction from the Department of State.

The bill also would prevent a voter from changing his or her address at the polling place. And it would tighten oversight of third-party voter registration groups like the League of Women Voters.

The League and a group representing county elections supervisors oppose the bill. Leon County Elections Supervisor Ion Sancho says the changes are unneeded and calls the bill “partisan shenanigans.”

Last year, there were reports that people came from Tampa to vote for Craig Lowe, which led to local plaintiffs demanding to see the “blue sheets”. These are the records of people who came in to vote on election day, claiming to have moved to Gainesville and changing their official residence that day. According to a controversial Florida law, any voter living in Florida can change their address right up until and on election day anywhere else in Florida without having to present evidence other than signing an oath.

Although the law suit failed to overturn the election, evidence was brought to light that there were many residency discrepancies; enough to have possibly affected the election outcome. In court, Alachua County Supervisor of Elections Pam Carpenter said that her office was, “an administrative office, not an enforcement office,” absolving herself of any responsibility to make sure voters are really qualified.

This from a concerned citizen:

“While cleaning ashes from his fireplace two years ago, Stewart A. Farber mused that if trees filter and store airborne pollutants, they might also harbor fallout from the nuclear weapons tests of the 1950s and 1960s. On a whim, he brought some of his fireplace ash to Yankee Atomic Electric Companies’ environmental lab in Boston, Mass., where he manages environmental monitoring. Farber says he was amazed to discover that his sample showed the distinctive cesium and strontium ‘signatures’ of nuclear fallout-and that the concentration of radioactivity “was easily 100 times greater than anything (our Lab) had ever seen in an environmental sample.”

Since then, he has obtained wood-ash radioactivity assays from 16 other scientists across the nation. These 47 data sets, representing trees in 14 states, suggest that fallout in wood ash “is a major source of radioactivity released into the environment,” Farber says.

With the exception of some very low California readings, all measurements of ash with fallout-cesium exceeded – some by 100 times or more – the levels of radioactive cesium that may be released from nuclear plants (about 100 picocuries per kilogram of sludge). Ash-cesium levels were especially high in the Northeast – probably because naturally high levels of nonradioactive cesium in the soil discourage trees from releasing fallout-derived cesium through their roots, he says.

Industrial wood burning in the United States generates and estimated 900,000 tons of ash each year: residential and utility wood burning generates another 543,000 tons. Already, many companies are recycling this unregulated ash in fertilizers. The irony, Farber says, is that federal regulations require releases from nuclear plants to be disposed of as radioactive waste if they contain even 1 percent of the cesium and strontium levels detected in the ash samples from New England. If ash were subject to the same regulations, he says, its disposal would cost U.A. wood burners more than $30 billion annually.”
http://burningissues.org/car-www/science/radwaste1.html

Reprinted from DonaldMarsh.com

I have just read the Gainesville Sun article this morning that announces the end of the legal appeals to stop the biomass plant. This valiant effort by seven citizens to stop a financial and ecological hardship from landing upon our community starkly demonstrates why it is so important that we choose carefully which seven citizens are granted the authority to do these things as city commissioners. The commissioners have the authority to make bad decisions like Ironwood, the One-stop Homeless Center, narrowing a major road for bike paths, expansion of Bus Rapid mass Transit. The seven citizens who don’t have authority must collect money and signatures and go begging for relief from judges.

I am just learning about this now, so I don’t know what next steps there are for us to take against the biomass plant. I have been campaigning on a variety of issues as well as working at my job and trying to make a living. But I do know this: we must stop future bad decisions by throwing off our apathy and FIRING EVERY INCUMBENT. And that goes for their apparent apprentice, Susan Bottcher.

I want to thank the plaintiffs who have been hauling our water these many months-former Mayor Tom Bussing, Michael Canney, Dian Deevy, David and December McSherry, Karen Orr, and Paula Stahmer-and I want to say that I hold them harmless for their decision. They have done all they can do, and they have done us a great service. It must be very disappointing to them, and I share their grief.

If you have been reading this blog lately, you can probably tell that the biomass plant is highly controversial. Those who favor it are quite adamant that they are right and have a lot of data to throw at you, in between attacks on your character. There were 40 public meetings which, if you know anything about public meetings around here, were all about advancing the plan to build the plant rather than actually informing the public. Maybe, just maybe, that is why the public is stirring and stepping up to oppose it at long last.

The public, which pays for all of this, does have a roll to play. They must sign off on it, and that is done through their elected officials on a few levels. That is why this is a political issue, and not simply a scientific one.

It is also a financial issue. This plant is projected to cost $500  million. My opponent says this is not being paid for by the taxpayers, but by a private company. This is such an obvious deception! The private company will be getting back its investment, plus interest, from US! The RATEPAYERS! On top of that, during last year’s campaign, the Mayor admitted that rates for electricity would go up.

I have been listening to people on both sides of this for the past year. Biomass enthusiasts tell me that waste wood does not have enough carbon to be good fuel. Older trees are better. That’s why I would not be surprised if there is a great show of using waste wood in the beginning, only to see whole trees logged in the future. When the situation changes, they will change their story.

So, if you are a voter in Gainesville, and you just don’t want it, vote for me, Don Marsh, on March 15th.

"Who do you believe, me or your lyin' eyes!"

Since the tree-burners have decided to go after me, I will start pounding on this issue more regularly. Here’s a story about the biomass industry’s inability to tell the truth about how they are only burning “waste wood”.

Life would be so much easier for biomass industry executives if they didn’t have to worry about their own words.

It was hardly a surprise when the head of the Biomass Power Association, Bob Cleaves, went on the attack last week (June 16) in response to Environmental Working Group’s (EWG) report that projects a massive increase in forest cutting to provide fuel for biomass-fueled power plants being built around the country. Read more…

Just as our proposed tree-burning power plant depends heavily on government subsidies through cap and trade legislation, here’s another fiasco that now blames its demise on the death of cap and trade. Actually, it was a dud all along. The importance of this article is to demonstrate that neither political party is immune to the lure of politically correct science.

President Obama’s budget next week is expected to include even more subsidies for renewable energy. Before Congress bellies up to that bar one more time, it ought to dissect the fate of Range Fuels and the wood chips fad.

As taxpayer tragedies go, Broomfield, Colorado-based Range Fuels has all the plot elements—splashy headlines, subsidies and opportunistic venture capitalists. Range got its start in 2006 when George W. Bush used a State of the Union address to extol wood chips as a source for cellulosic ethanol that would break America’s “addiction to oil.” Mr. Bush pledged that with government funding cellulosic ethanol would be “practical and competitive within six years.” Read on

Wood, as a fuel source, is so alluring. It’s grown here in Florida, and it provides local jobs. But it’s dirtier than coal, and is unsustainably expensive. And the city commissioners expect us to believe that there is enough “wastewood” lying about to fuel a 100 megawatt power plant 365 days a year. I don’t believe them.

This just in from FloridaEnvironments.com:

Florida’s electric utilities are continuing to lose customers and are delaying construction of new electric plants as less electricity is being used, according to a report approved Wednesday by the Florida Public Service Commission.

more

It appears that conservation really does pay off, so much so that Progress Energy has canceled two biomass plants last year and is reconsidering that nuclear plant in Levy County. And this begs the question of just how much we really need the new $500 million biomass plant the city has been rushing through? Didn’t they tell us just a couple of months ago that our water rates were going to have to go up because our usage had gone down?

I believe this biomass technology is a big step backwards. In the coming era of virtual stores, telecommuting, nanotechnology and low power devices, supersizing our power generating capacity is barking up the wrong tree. But this is a pattern of behavior that our city commissioners exhibit when they buy more and more buses where there is little demand, and encourage more apartments buildings when we already have a glut of units. They are the Lehman Brothers of city governments. They have overreached, and have bailed themselves out with the fire services fee.

It has been brought to my attention that there is a meeting of the Siting Board of the state’s Department of Environmental Protection, and that they are among the last road blocks to the city’s Tree-burning Biomass Plant. I have tracked down the case manager’s phone number and email. Her name is Jessica Dalton. Please contact her before the hearing this Tuesday!

Below is my letter to her:

I recently went to a showing of “Waiting for Superman”, a documentary about failing public schools and the children who are trapped in them. This showing was accompanied by a reception afterward at the Outback Steakhouse, which was sponsored by the Leadership Gainesville Alumni Association, Gainesville Area Chamber of Commerce, and Innovation Gainesville. This was to be a public discussion about the movie and the problems depicted in the film, and what can be done about it.

The community discussion came in the form of a long series of people taking a turn at the microphone and telling their stories as well as giving their critiques of the film. Most prominent among the latter were Gunnar Paulsen, newly elected school board member and past president of the local teachers’ union, and Karen McCann, the current president. Ms. McCann came prepared with hard copies of an article called “The Ultimate Superpower”. I got a copy and found it online as well. Both Paulsen and McCann made the case that the movie does not portray our local schools accurately.

I personally found the movie to be overall damning of the public school system and the teachers’ unions, while giving parents a free pass. When I was growing up, parents prepared their kids for school by teaching them to read and instilling good discipline. As far as I can tell, this is seldom the case any more, and that is not fair to the teachers or the students who have been made ready. I found the article,  “The Ultimate Superpower”, to also be unfair to charter schools and the people who promote them. Parents who want the best for their children are desperate for a solution that happens in the lifetime of their children, and they will work with whoever gets it done instead of making excuses.

New City Commissioner Randy Wells was there, and he was also passing out fliers that promoted making Metcalf Elementary an International Baccalaureate school that would give all the kids in that school special enrichment. I don’t really understand what that is all about, so contact Commissioner Wells about that. At any rate, people are seeking solutions. Feel free to comment.

by Chris Smiley Candidate for School Board District 5

After the business coalition forum was over I was disappointed that I didn’t get a chance to bring up the issue of school uniforms especially after I witnessed the passion against new taxes from commission candidates and guests.  The school board recently mandated a uniform policy for all k-12 schools.  This policy is far worse than a tax though because not only is it putting an undue financial burden on families, it restricts freedom of speech and expression.

The policy was founded on misconceptions and false premises. The research (including studies from the Journal of Educational Research and a 4 year tracking study by the Miami-Dade school district) shows that uniforms do not lessen dress code violations, nor do they have a positive affect on attendance, behavior, performance, or substance use.  The main ‘issue’ as claimed by board members really comes down to enforcement of dress code standards already in place.

Some people say that uniforms aren’t that bad but for a public policy to be enacted that takes away rights, there has to be an overwhelming good to justify it.  In the case of uniforms there is none.  In fact there is no rational reason to have uniforms (and a million reasons against them but I’ll keep this post short).

In tough economic times parents will now have to buy a new wardrobe for their kids.  (Don’t believe the farce that uniforms save money, no student wears uniforms outside of school.  That means that the cost of uniforms is in addition to whatever regular clothes they buy.)

I couldn’t believe that the new policy was passed or that it was even brought up when there are pressing fundamental issues with education that actually affect performance in schools. (see my website)

There has been significant opposition to uniforms.  All 7 high school principals wrote a letter to the board urging them to not pass the policy and to let them continue to enforce the dress code already in place.  There have been a couple of protests already and a number of groups have been formed; legal action is anticipated.  Whether you have children or not we all need to fight injustice and I urge all of you to email the board, to join one of the groups via facebook, or to connect with parents and dissenters (you can email me at chris.smiley@gmx.com).

Elected or not I will continue to work to reverse this policy.

My website- Fleducationreform.com

Letter from principals-  http://notopolos.wordpress.com/2010/06/14/copy-of-the-letter-sent-to-school-board-from-alachua-county-school-principals/