Alachua Voter Guide

In today’s G’ville Sun there was an interesting article about our current cold temperatures. Essentially it said that we’re breaking records that were set back in ‘99 for cold. It is also interesting to note that global temperature increases began to level off in ‘98 and have decended since then. Which, of course, is why the Al Gore disciples (and ALL members of our City Commission) dropped the phrase global warming and embraced the term climate change. But………we’re still going to get a tree burning power plan in G’ville.

I read with interest the ideas in the G’ville Sun For a better community in 2010 and will bet the ‘ideas’ have either been written by an elected official or by a writer at the G’ville Sun who has probably been at that ‘job’ for life. Let’s take a look at the ideas and, while we’re at it, I’ll add a few:
G’ville Sun – Reduce the district’s unacceptably low dropout rate: Will require the School Board to form better working partnerships with the city, county, and community nonprofit organizations.
Me – Would be nice but it is doubtful this strategy will work. What must happen (and will not, I might add) is that one must create disincentives for teenagers having children and babies born out of wedlock. In years past our parents and the society provided the ‘disincentives’ for out of wedlock births by, at the very least, disapproving of this behavior. Unfortunately and sadly, some now applaud this behavior. If elected officials don’t have the guts to do this (and they don’t), at least don’t offer incentives for out of wedlock births. Remember what Pavlov taught us. You do that and you’ll decrease the dropout rate. If you don’t do that, you will be spinning your wheels as you have been for 4 decades.

G’ville Sun - Renewed emphasis on early childhood development-education: The entire community should rally around the United Way’s “Success by Six” initiative.
Me: See #1.

G’ville Sun - Make progress on homeless services: Build the long-promised “One-Stop” service center.
Me: “Build it and they will come.” Absurd idea. Let them live with the Commissioners who are pushing this idea (Jack Donovan, Rodney Long, and Craig Lowe).

Gville Sun - Unify vital public services: Separate city-county police and fire departments are wasteful, inefficient and unnecessary.
Me: Another bad idea. Cities are responsible for police and fire protection and for protecting their citizens; not counties. Besides, all you’re really advocating is absorption of GPD with ASO. You really think Waldo, High Springs, or Alachua are remotely interested in giving up protecting their residents. Get real.

G’ville Sun - Improve transit: Advance a bus rapid transit initiative for west Gainesville. Get legislative approval for RTS transit fee for Santa Fe College students.
Me: Not a bad idea but be careful about dedicating rapid transit lanes because the city, by ordinance, cannot expand a road beyond 4 lanes, therefore, if you dedicate a lane to bus rapid transit on a 4 lane facility, you’re going to have one less lane for cars. Be careful what you ask for.

G’ville Sun - Insist on a meaningful clean-up of Koppers Superfund site: The remediation plan recommended by the EPA is totally inadequate.
Me: Totally agree for many reasons but mostly because it threatens out city’s water supply.  I thought Senator Nelson was going to help on this but he was clearly just blowing hot air several years ago.

G’ville Sun - County charter reform: We urge vigorous citizen participation in this once-in-a-decade opportunity to make county government more accountable to the taxpayers.
Me: Yes but that’s like barking up a tree. History is the best predictor of the future so I’d suggest looking at our history. Additionally, I’d suggest having the G’ville Sun release the figures, once again, on reader responses to this question and compare it to the recommendations of the Charter group when published.

G’ville Sun - Strengthen the town-gown partnership: Collaborate on the future of the old Shands at AGH site. Support development of the eastside UF campus.
Me: I’ve been suggesting that for years and, in fact, it is happening.

G’ville Sun - Protect our water: Clean-up southeast Alachua County’s impaired water bodies and Gainesville’s stressed urban creeks.
Me: Duh. Goodness, that suggestion took a great deal of thought.

G’ville Sun - Economic development: Time to write a new strategic plan for sustainable job creation.
Me: No, no, and no! If the writer had a clue about the psyche of an entrepreneur they would know that government does NOT have to write a strategic ‘plan’ to help business. That is, unless the ‘plan’ is to reduce government influence in economic development. The word is REDUCE not EXPAND government’s role. Please, please, please understand that people who either own their own businesses or want to start their own business have a fire burning in their belly to do just that. In other words, the desire is ALREADY there! By far the best thing government can do is create an environment in which the fire can be stoked. There is very, very little government does, plans, or enacts that does that. In fact, what government typically does is throw a large bucket of water on the fire.
As an entrepreneur who has started two successful businesses and a former City Commissioner, I promise you, I know what I’m talking about. I have even offered, as a Commissioner, solutions to this endemic problem but they have been ignore which, I suppose is not surprising since none of them have any experience in the private sector. Look at it this way, if you want to know about starting, sustaining, or building a business, you’re probably going to be more successful if you talk to someone who has actually done it.  Have any of your local elected officials done that?  The answer is a resounding, NO! It would be the high of insanity to ask these folks.

Here are a few of my suggestions for improving the community in 2010:

1. STOP THE TREE BURNING POWER PLANT IMMEDIATELY. It is WAY to expensive and will result in continued massive increases in utility rates.

2. Offer (the operative word here is ‘offer’ not mandate) solar electric power generation for ALL residences and office buildings in Alachua County right now. If the owner agrees, attach cost of units to the property. This way if the property sells the remaining cost of the PV Array will transfer to the new owner.

3. Cut GRU’s transfer to the city by $5 million dollars and reduce the electric rates to all city residents by a commensurate amount. At least have the discussion.  Offer the same to residents living outside the city IF they wish to annex into the city.

4. Change the City Charter and return to 5 Commissioners instead of 7. We can’t afford 7 for many reasons.

5. Cut the pay for Commissioners in half. No retirement and no healthcare (I can hear the squeals already).

6. Move the City elections to November. No elections in the Spring. This will save money as well as increase the paltry turnout (10.78% of registered voters in the last Mayoral election).

7. Eliminate the $500,000.00 dollar per year City Communications office…it didn’t exist when I was on the City Commission. I can think of a few more but this is likely too long already.

I’d say that would be a good start for 2010 and I didn’t have to go to 10.   I guarentee you my 7 will provide more improvement in our community than the Sun’s 10.  Somehow, someway, we’ve got to stop this nonsense.

I was recently asked about Charter Amendment 2. I was like everyone else, completely overwhelmed by the debate about Amentment 1, that I didn’t have an opinion. Now I have looked it up, and now I have one.

CITY OF GAINESVILLE CHARTER AMENDMENT 2 
Protection of City-owned Lands Acquired or Used
for Conservation, Recreation, or Cultural Purposes 

SHALL THE CITY OF GAINESVILLE CHARTER BE
AMENDED TO REQUIRE THAT THE SALE OR
CONVERSION TO ANOTHER USE OF CITY-OWNED
LANDS ACQUIRED OR USED FOR
CONSERVATION, RECREATION, OR CULTURAL
PURPOSES BE EFFECTIVE ONLY IF APPROVED BY
A MAJORITY OF THE ELECTORS IN THE CITY IN A
CITY-WIDE REFERENDUM ELECTION?

Ok, so it looks like a carbon copy of the ballot initiative we saw back in November, except that it was COUNTY-OWNED lands, like the ones be bought with Alachua Forever money. I voted yes for that. We voted by referendum to spend that money to begin with. HOWEVER, what city owned lands have we voted to purchase by referendum? None that I can think of. So, what lands could they be keeping a future city commission from selling? Well, it could stop them from selling Ironwood Golf Course, that recent recipient of over a million dollars. At this present time, there is no danger of Ironwood being sold. But the recent vote to spend the money has made it a lightning rod for criticism.

Our two charter amendments that are on this March 24 ballot are object lessons on distrust. The first one came about because a large number of citizens cannot trust their city commissioners’ judgment when it comes to public safety. The second one is there because this city commission does not trust future city commissions to protect public lands.

Comments, anyone?

I thought I’d take a navel-gazing moment here to let you know about the State of the Website. I check my hosting company’s stats once in awhile, and it was gratifying to see that he had hit 500+ visitors per day on both October 20 and 21. Before that, we hit 360 on the 19th, and we’d been consistently over 200 unique visitors for the previous six days. Thank you, visitors!

We are doing a little bit better a little bit earlier than usual, but it’s been surprising to see what search terms have been bringing in the traffic: David Gildart. We have had over 2,000 visitors this month who came as a result of Google searches, and almost 600 of our visitors used the Soil and Water Conservation Board’s Seat number 2 candidate. I can only presume that people are getting their sample ballots from the Supervisor of Elections and head directly to the Internet for the candidates they know the least about. Once they get here, they can find the rest of them.

I think it’s important to note that Mr. Gildart is the only candidate in ANY race to interact with the voters on this site! He has left comments in response to voter comments. I wish this were happening in every race. After all, this IS a blog, and interactivity is one of the most attractive features of blogging. This is NOT a newspaper in which I talk down to you, and you are stuck with whatever I say. Candidates can post their own articles whenever they want with no limits. This blog could turn into The David Gildart Show if he ever decided to; as could any other candidate who wants to distinguish him or her self.

The next most searched for candidates, who are then found here, are Denise Ferrero, Kevin Riordan, Mary Ann Gosa, and Lorraine Sherman. All have numbers below 50, making Mr. Gildart the virtual winner of “Candidate Idol”. And for what it is worth, the domain name candidateidol.com is already taken. It’s not an actual website, but someone has bought it and is holding it.

You may have noticed there is now a link to articles for Alachua Together on the right sidebar. Alachua Together is a blog in the tradition of Alachua Voter Guide: free exposure for local business people, tradesmen, artists, and holders of garage sales. The difference is that any one can register as a user and I will grant them Author permissions within 24 hours. Then they can promote whatever they do or sell or want to trade. I want it to become a major go-to destination for all people who try to buy locally.

I have noticed that we no longer get those pesky error messages about the website not connecting to the database. I wish I could take credit for fixing that, but I can’t. I am just grateful it’s stopped happening.

Thanks,
Don Marsh

The Savannah Grande on North Main Street was the place, and the turnout was weak, compared to past League events. Of course, it was competing with a Florida Gators home game, which could not have helped. And, for the purposes of this website, it also didn’t help that I forgot to charge my voice recorder. This leaves us all at the mercy of my rather terse notes and their further debilitating handwriting. However, I will do my best in reporting back to you about this event.

First, there was a very civil debate between Lorraine Sherman and Denise Ferrero about their qualifications for being an Alachua County Judge. It set Ferrero’s rather mountainous legal experience against Sherman’s life experience. Sherman has frequently said she had “a life before the law” which included raising four children. It all depends on what the electorate’s criteria for a good judge is: expertise, or empathy. Both are good candidates, as far as I can tell, but they do bring something different. Listen here for the complete audio.

The next two races were for the State House, Districts 11 and 23. In District 11, first termer Debbie Boyd, a Democrat, had to go on without her challenger, Republican Elizabeth Porter. Porter’s campaign had told the League of Women Voters that she would be there, but she never came. Boyd talked about her work in the Florida Legislature and made sure that her audience knew that she was a fiscal conservative.

In District 23, Democratic incumbent Chuck Chestnut went on without his opponent, Republican Bernie DeCastro, whose campaign had begged off, saying they had somewhere else to be. Chestnut blamed all the state’s woes on the current Republican majority in the Florida House and Senate.

In the Alachua County Commission races we had some actual candidate comparisons to make. In District 1, Democratic incumbent Mike Byerly squared off against newcomer Kevin Riordan, a Republican. In their opening statements, Byerly stated that his chief concerns were environmental and growth management issues and the local government’s greatest challenges are rising energy costs and decreasing tax revenues. Riordan believes the most important tasks are boosting economic development, taxes and how they are spent, and improving education.

Both candidates expanded on their positions as questions were put to them. Riordan believes we must combine solving traffic problems with economic growth by pursuing the construction of a local beltway. This road system would decrease congestion in the city while creating enterprise zones along the route. He also thinks the county’s comprehensive plan should be business friendly in its creation, as opposed to having to get exemptions all the time. Byerly thinks the comp plan should be rigid and hard to amend, so that business has to play by the rules of the people who made it. He also points out that growth leads to higher taxes to pay for more services. That is why his vision for the future includes less change.

In District 5, Repubican challenger Ward Scott came armed with lots of research and a copy of the county’s budget to challenge Rodney Long, a Democrat who has been on the county commission since he was elected in 2000. Long said that he believes that serving as an elected official is his calling.

When asked how to ballance the budget, Scott pointed out that property taxes have increased 100% from 1998 to 2007, while the population has increased by only 16%. Commissioner Long said that it is our first priority to take care of those who are the least among us, and that the problem is that our criminal justice system accounts for 42% of the budget. I didn’t catch an answer to the question from either of them.

When asked if the candidates favored county/city government unification, they stayed on the topic of unifying fire service. Long is for it, has fought for it for years, and plans on putting a binding referendum on the ballot in 2010. Scott says that the small municipalities have tired of waiting for it to get done and created a workaround agreement. But, according to Scott, the county has refused to recognize it. He says the county government is actually paying out-of-county fire services to serve Alachua County’s unincorporated area rather than honor the local agreement.

In the ever-popular realm of traffic and congestion, both candidates are miles apart. Long favors creating park and ride situations for out of county commuters, and better traffic flow management. He opposes wider roads. Scott believes we need to get rid of the Metropolitan Transportation Planning Orgnaization (MTPO).

This is all for now. I will return later with information about ballot initiatives that were presented by Joe Little.

You can now cast your ballot for the August 26th election; that is if you have your mind made up already! This information comes directly from the Supervisor of Elections website:

Any registered voter may vote early.  Florida Law requires that you present picture and signature identification in order to vote, or vote a provisional ballot.

Early Voting Hours

Weekdays

Monday, August 11th through Friday, August 15th – (9 AM to 5 PM)
Monday, August 18th through Friday, August 22nd – (9 AM to 5 PM)

Saturdays

August 16th – (9 AM to 1 PM)
August 23rd – (9 AM to 5 PM) Early Voting Ends

Sundays

August 17th – (1 PM to 5 PM)

Early Voting Sites

Supervisor of Elections Office
County Administration Building Location
12 SE 1st Street, Gainesville

Millhopper Branch Library
3145 NW 43rd Street, Gainesville

Tower Road Branch Library
3020 SW 75th Street, Gainesville

I love social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. They allow me to keep up with friends and family members, as well as people I just like to follow. It’s fun, and convenient if you do it right. But is there a handy use for your business or for a candidate running for office? Barak Obama thinks so. He has had a Twitter page for his entire campaign, and he has over 34,000 followers who get his microblog messages.

Here’s how Twitter works: You get an account for free, and you can send a quick message of up to 140 characters to all of your followers. And who would follow YOU? Someone who wants to know what you are up to, and would like to be informed via the web or via their mobile phone with a text message.

Is this useful? I think it can be. For instance, I saw that County Commission candidate Rick Bryant has a Twitter account for his campaign. Well, I chose to be a Rick Bryant “follower”, and then I opted to receive his updates on my cell phone. As a result, when he got an endorsement from the Fire Rescue Professionals of Alachua County, Local 3852 on May 16, all of his followers were notified in the manner they chose. And at 9:39 PM on Memorial Day evening, I got a text message from Rick honoring the men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

So far, I am only 1 of 3 followers. But if Rick Bryant wants more followers, he will have to start posting more often, and with relevant information, like where he will be speaking next. I know that I would just love to get any kind of information about where any candidate would be making an appearance! And he could send Twitter messages from his mobile phone like, Need sign wavers at 13th and University! And all his followers would get the message.

Facebook is a lot more involved, but it is just as free. Rick Bryant also has a Facebook account for his campaign. It’s like a home base for campaign photos and information, and it could be useful. But Rick will have to go about “friending” a lot of people in the Gainesville Network of Facebook users (over 33,000 last time I looked) if he wants to get his message out to those voters. Right now his Facebook only has 6 supporters, and it could run up to over 6,000 with a little effort. Would that help his campaign? Well, every time he posts a message on his page, his friends and supporters would get notified on their Facebook pages.

Now, I know it sounds like I am just pushing Rick Bryant, but I am not. It’s just that he is using the web and social networking, albeit in a very limited way, the way I wish all candidates would. I don’t want to have to wait until the week before the election and get all my information from a bunch of campaign postcards that tell me next to nothing. I’d like to be engaged early and often by the people who want my vote.

Don Marsh

In a three-way race that had no runoff, Bill Coughlin was elected with 49% of the 550 votes that were cast on Tuesday. He was followed by Dick Williams, with 31%, and Gene Levine, with 20%.

Voting begins at the Civic Center in High Springs at 7:00AM, and concludes at 7:00PM tonight. There is only one voting precinct. I will get the results up here as soon as I am made aware of them.

I want to thank the Gadfly Journal for having the most recent announcement of the voting times and place. I went looking online to double check. The Sun had nothing; likewise the High Springs Herald website, nor even the City’s website. If there is voter apathy, I have to say I should not be surprised…