Alachua Voter Guide

I gripe about low voter turnout every year, so I am not doing it this year because I lost a runoff that went to a mandatory recount. On March 16th, in this University town, only 14% of voters cared enough to vote for their next mayor. In District 4, made up of the precincts that encompass parts downtown and much of the University, the turnout was only 11.8%. That means that 86% of Gainesville residents could not care less who governs them locally.

I was well aware of the low turnout, and for that reason I focused on our electric bills, which have been astronomical lately. I believe that 100% of Gainesville voters get their electric sewer and water from GRU, so it was reasonable to think this would get people to care enough to come out. I made sure that they knew that the city OWNS GRU, and that my opponent actually voted for the increases. This was never disputed in the various candidate forums nor in the press.

Of course, the press never really covered the issues. They  spent a lot of time looking into the flyers someone made that warned about my opponent becoming Gainesville’s first gay mayor. Although it appears (if the voter turnout means anything) that this meant almost nothing on election day, this was the Maypole that the Sun and the Alligator continued to dance around throughout the campaigns. So, either the voting public was distracted by an irrelevant issue or people actually LIKE rapacious electric bills.

Unfortunately, there is probably something true about that last point. Each year, as the City of Gainesville continues to elect big spenders with huge appetites for your money, I tell other members of the Loyal Opposition that, “The people of this town like high taxes, gridlock, and less economic opportunity.” I actually met some of these people while knocking on doors throughout the city. I stumbled upon a dinner party at which I was invited to come in and pitch my candidacy. I started with our high electric bills and the millions that the city depends on getting from GRU to pay for their spending. The hostess told me we deserved to pay more because other people in the world were suffering. She could make no correlation between my high bills and the suffering of Darfur, but that didn’t matter. The argument seems to have more to do with Karma than logic.

I was going to post the results here, but I thought I would just send you to the Supervisor of Elections site for the complete results of both the March 16th general election and the April 13th Runoff. It includes a precincts by precinct breakdown so you can see what are the most apathetic (Precinct 31, Reitz Union, 1.95%) and most civic minded (Precinct 64, Westminster Presbyterian Church, 31.65%)  parts of town are. That was in March. It April, it was the same precincts, only they improved to 2.45% and 42.51% respectively. The runoff actually had an improved turnout of 16.75%. Very sad indeed.

Ozzy Angulo, a Mayoral candidate who was eliminated on March 16, has returned as an audio journalist. He conducted these interviews with candidates Don Marsh and Craig Lowe, and each is almost an hour long. Please forward this around!

Craig Lowe in MP3

Don Marsh in MP3

Our own toxic time bomb!

What kind of city official would claim to have saved a toxic waste disaster for just before an election? Craig Lowe is your man of action. He has been a city commissioner for 7 years, and now he wants to be your Mayor, Gainesville. Cabot/Koppers has been an EPA Superfund site since 1983. And it has still been allowed to stay in business since that time!

Koppers has been a wood treatment plant in Gainesville since 1916. For many years they maintained lagoons full of creosote. This industrial coal tar product has been sinking deeper and closer to the Florida Aquifer. This will eventually pollute our drinking water.

The EPA could have started cleaning this up in the 1980s, but for some strange reason, Koppers has been allowed to stay in business. No one has had the backbone to close them down so a clean-up could begin. Solid majorities of the city commissioners have persisted in letting these poisons run their course rather than shut down a documented polluter…IN GAINESVILLE!

Koppers has also been cited for air-born pollutants, which have been scattered up to a ten mile radius around the plant, which is located behind the Big Lots store at Main St. and NW 39th Ave. Dioxin has been found in the dirt around the Stephen Foster neighborhood and beyond.

Craig Lowe says that only he has the experience to clean up this mess. I guess he has been waiting until he has been on the city commission for 7 years to feel confident enough to know what should have been done 27 years ago. No thanks, commissioner! Your time is up!

Don Marsh, candidate for Mayor

VOTE APRIL 13th!

Although Gainesville Mayoral candidates  Craig Lowe and Monica Leadon Cooper disagree about biomass, they have this in common: they are the candidates of scarcity!

When Craig Lowe decided to give up the cheapest fuel source for biomass, he sentenced our city to a future of higher utility bills, more people moving out of Gainesville, more businesses struggling, fewer jobs, and less tax revenue. As utility bills climb higher, we will lose more homeowners, have more foreclosures, and more blight. It will be the beginning of the end. And if you think UF will save us from this, they are already looking at budget cuts and high tuition that will eventually cause students to go elsewhere…even online for an education.

Monica Cooper does not promise us anything better. She wants us to forget coal AND biomass and to limp along on solar energy and conservation and belt-tightening. Solar currently costs more than coal generated power and can only be had during the day. And it better be a sunny day. This will also lead to higher costs, fewer jobs, less tax revenue, and fewer reasons for anyone to stick around here.

I am Don Marsh, and I am the only candidate in this race that knows we need more generating capacity so we can have cheaper, more plentiful electricity, so that businesses will want to move here, and existing businesses can stay in business. Coal, although it will not last forever, is the only sensible fuel source until new technologies mature and become cheap enough to compete and produce power for the rest of the 21st century.

Remember: scarcity will cause prices to rise, and opportunities to shrink. Deciding to stop using coal is a decision to suffer lack. It is the error of politicians to distort the free market and create shortages with unnecessary, ideologically driven regulations. When Barack Obama said that he would bankrupt the coal industry, he set in motion false shortages as investments ran away from coal production. Then Florida stopped all coal plants and this lead to higher prices still. THIS MUST BE REVERSED. But first we must save the coal plant we have!

In the meantime, I will stop hiding Gainesville’s city taxes on your utility bill and cut the budget down to core services like police, fire, roads, and other basic infrastructure. I will get rid of the tiered pricing that punishes families. And I will stop the feed-in tariff that subsidizes solar panels on the homes of people who can afford them, while you are doing without!

Vote for me March 16 for sensible solutions and honest, transparent government.

Nathaniel Sperling for Gainesville City Commission

On March 16^th, the voters of the City of Gainesville will be able to send a glaring message to our local elected officials: we are sick and tired of the irresponsibility that seems to pass for governance these days. Right now, the City of Gainesville is current over $7 Million in the red with no end in sight.

Instead of cutting costs where possible (oh, Mayor Hanrahan has claimed that the city has tried cut all the fat off this year’s budget, but I will show where that is just flat out wrong), the city is just finding nifty little ways of getting our money into their empty coffers. For example, did you know that, since GRU is owned by the City of Gainesville, our utility company has become a giant cash cow to the tune of $34 Million (plus another $9 Million in collected utility taxes) in this year alone? Have your utility rates gone up in the past few months? If so, blame the City Commission and its continued mismanagement of the budget. Is this responsible governance? Oh, we have a shortage of funds…I know, we’ll just spend more and leave the citizenry to foot the bill? It certainly is not realistic…only in government can one legally seize other people’s money to make up for poor spending decisions.

Now, where is all this money going? How about $600k per year for Ironwood Golf Course (another $450K is being spent this year to renovate it…thus, over $1 Million this year is going to pay for a golf course). Approximately $900K per year is being spent so that city employees have access to three fully-equipped and staffed private fitness centers (these centers are only for city employees and their families, the general public who is footing the bill is not welcome) and Proclub services. Then there is half a million dollars being spent per year on a City Communications office. If this office is so indispensable, why did our City Commission function just fine for decades without it? Right here I have mentioned easy ways to eliminate over half the current deficit. I have not even touched on the Mom’s Kitchen boondoggle or the Biomass issue (high startup costs plus potentially high cost of “dead stuff” equals a hefty bill for the taxpayer to foot).

How about all that money that the city is going to waste on a one-stop homeless shelter? Instead of working with local charities (i.e. St. Francis House) and making use of existing social organizations, the city is going to spend a lot of money to put this one-stop center out in the middle of nowhere (how much is it then going to cost to get the homeless out there?) and likely continue to squelch private sector attempts to help alleviate the problem. How much do you think the lawsuits are going to end up costing when something goes terribly and tragically wrong at this one-stop center–what usually happens when you put single mothers and young children in a poorly supervised area with potentially dangerous derelicts?

As Mayor Hanrahan wastes our money on a golf course, she condemns our police and fire fighters for wanting to be treated fairly and the city manager wants to lay off a few dozen police officers. That seems like a fair trade: an unprofitable golf course but a more dangerous and crime-ridden city. Perhaps the only group to benefit from this cut in police officers will be the less responsible members of our college student community who will now be able to party and drink and play loud music because you can bet ‘party patrol’ units will take a hit in these foolish across-the-board cuts the city manager is proposing–sort of like doing brain surgery with a meat cleaver.

At the same time as we waste money, we scare businesses away with draconian regulations and an air of unfriendliness. Now, we have an even weaker tax base and serious underemployment problems. Unless you work for UF or Shands, it is very difficult to find a good paying job with benefits. Our city’s unfriendliness to business hurts our working families and professionals by denying them access to good job opportunities and forces small businesses out of business.

The City Commission shows a great disconnect to the people of Gainesville. It is time we change this. The irresponsibility of our local government seems downright criminal: endangering the welfare of young children by exposing them to dangerous elements of society in a poorly conceived one-stop center, endangering our residents with unnecessary cuts to public safety services, failing to address the Koppers Superfund site and putting the surrounding neighborhoods and the aquifer at extreme risk, even increasing congestion by narrowing major thoroughfares (it will be infuriatingly interesting to see if the number of accidents and road rage incidents increase as the number of lanes on Main Street and University Avenue decrease).

There are those who say that we need people experienced in the working of local government to serve as our new District 4 City Commissioner and Mayor, but I say we need individuals with common sense and a firm grasp of reality. Political experience just means they know how to play the game and we see where that has gotten us: HUGE deficits, underemployment, a severe environmental catastrophe in the making and burdensome regulations and fee.

The reality is that:

1) We need to stop wasting money on boondoggles (i.e. Ironwood Golf course, Mom’s Kitchen, etc.)

2) We need to strengthen our business community and promote greater job development through intelligent deregulation and ending the air of unfriendliness toward business that permeates our local government. The jobs and the businesses are there: look at the town of Alachua, they are doing quite well because their city government shows some common sense.

3) We need to live within our means and stop just increasing taxes and fees (i.e. through siphoning money from GRU)

4) We need to keep our city safe and functional by responsibly allocating our funds (i.e. for police and fire protection)

This is what needs to be done to make our city prosperous and safe. The City Commission needs to stop buying into the failed dogma of New Urbanism and instead listen to the concerns of the people: we want good jobs, we want government to stop wasting money and then hitting us with the bill, we want the government to show the same managerial responsibility that any head of a household or business owner must show in order to survive.

On March 16th, the voters of this city can send a message that even our City Commissioners (who seem to consistently have their head in a land of fantasy) will hear: WE ARE SICK AND TIRED OF IRRESPONSIBILITY AND UNREALISTIC GOVERNANCE AND WE WILL BE HEARD!

Call and e-mail your candidates and ask the tough questions and demand a straight answer. No circumspection, obfuscation or pontification allowed. I can be reached by phone at 352-214-3170 and my e-mail address is nathanielsperling@yahoo.com. Other candidates’ contact information can be found at the Alachua County Supervisor of Elections website.

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There are three ways to cast your ballot in the City of Gainesville elections:

1) Regular voting will occur on March 16th. You can find your polling place on the Supervisor of Elections webiste.

2) Early voting: March 8th-13th at the Alachua County Administration Building (12 SE 1st Street, Gainesville, FL). Hours of operation are 9 AM to 5 PM each day.

3) Absentee voting: Contact the Supervisor of Elections at 352-374-5252 to learn more and request an absentee ballot.

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If you want responsibility and a sense of reality back on your City Commission, if you want a person who will truly listen to your concerns and approach city government with an air of common sense, then please consider voting for me, Nathaniel Sperling, for Gainesville City Commission (District 4).

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Political advertisement paid for and approved by Nathaniel Sperling for Gainesviille City Commission District 4.

Organizers prepare for "Senate in the City" event

It was pretty darned cold yesterday when I got to the Plaza of the Americas, but it warmed up a little bit. The students who stopped by my table were interested in the local issues and wanted to make a responsible choice. I felt like I was very well received. I was asked if I expected students to turn out in large numbers, and I told him that I was counting on a larger turnout from everyone. City elections are notorious for their 9-12% voter turnouts.

Student Senate candidates were there as well, and their tables got a lot of traffic. A WUFT-FM reporter asked me if I had any advice for Senate candidates. I shared my story of how I was in student government in 1977. It was where I first learned how powerful it felt to spend other people’s money. We had begun our political tenures being really cheap, and making every student club and activity justify every expense. Toward the end of the year, we had so much money left over that we started throwing it around on frivolous things, like keg parties and wine and cheese events. We even brought in Steve Martin and charged only 50 cents admission to make sure we lost money. I guess you could say we had subsidized stand-up comedy that year. In the final analysis, I wanted to remind them that those student activity fees are the taxes students pay to the student government, and that their clubs deserve to be funded.

It was a lot of fun, and I gave away a lot of window clings!

At some of my events and interviews I have said that it is important for the city to cultivate a working relationship with the churches because they are the city’s natural allies in confronting homelessness and other societal ills. I recently said that, as Mayor, I would go to the churches to tell them that they are welcome and that their participation is needed to make Gainesville a better place. Although I have not yet been challenged on this, I will anticipate and answer two potential questions in this space.

1. Will churches respond to such a call? First, I want to tell you that this is not a setup. I have not held any meetings with pastors to formulate how they would respond to my election. My presumption upon their good works potential comes from my own three decades of ministry work as a volunteer. There are many people in the church who are motivated to feed, clothe and shelter the homeless, visit the sick and incarcerated, and mentor the fatherless. Some of that is already getting done at the expense of those who do the work. It is hard to say how much worse things would be if they weren’t. But I know they could do a lot more if it were not for the ambivalence of both church and civic leaders. The evolving ethos of “church-state separation” has created a hostile environment for people of faith who are told that their faith is not welcome. My opponent, City Commissioner Craig Lowe, has been quoted as saying, “ Our community cannot afford to discard any talent or intellect due to discrimination.” Yet, we discard the talent and intellect of a vast number of Gainesville residents. This must be actively challenged.
2. Is it appropriate to do so? It is unjust to tell people, “You cannot participate as fully as anyone else in civic life and discourse because of the beliefs you hold.” A part of the American experience throughout history has been the need to demand the rights that you possess only on paper. It took almost 200 years for African Americans to begin to possess the promises of the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution, and it did not happen because they waited patiently to be called on. It had to be demanded. Likewise, the men and women in our churches, who have become timid under the disapproving glare of the Statists who have come to power, must make their demand to be included. It will be much easier for them, however. All they have to do is vote on March 16. Then they have to follow through by living up to the things they believe in.

Do not confuse my call to action with a desire to Christianize the local government. I am just trying to desegregate it. Anyone should be able to take his faith, whether you are Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Wiccan or Atheist, with him into the service of his community. It’s also a good opportunity for us all to interact and learn from one another instead of isolating and writing each other off.

I will be the People's Mayor!

The Tea Party movement is evidence that government has gotten so bad that it has inspired Independent voters to organize. It is easy to see how Washington has so terrified its citizens by answering its own out-of-control spending with yet more of the same. But now we are seeing the same hammer-headed arrogance from our local officials. Instead of confining themselves to their mission of public safety, roads and sensible codes enforcement, they try to make a name for themselves in Copenhagen by forcing their ideology on the rest of us.

• The biomass plant. Our city commission became enamored with saving the planet (from something that seems more illusory every day) and decided that it would be far better to burn trees than coal. They began with giving people the option of signing up to have their electricity generated through wood-burning means. The only city commissioner who signed up for it was Rick Bryant! None of the others, including Craig Lowe, made the planet-saving choice! They had the option and decided that it was too expensive! We will not have the option once they shut down the coal plant. By the way, trees do not burn “cleaner” than coal.
• Koppers. When it comes time to oppose environmental hazards that are NOT figments of their imagination, Craig Lowe and the other commissioners have failed to take action. The city does not have to wait for the EPA to stop the Koppers plant from operating because the city has a legal inherent interest in preventing the spreading of poisonous fugitive dust into the Stephen Foster neighborhood. Yet, the city can do no more than wring its hands before turning away to fight against a nemesis they fear even more: Wal-Mart.
• Wal-Mart. In spite of the fact that it enjoys widespread public support from its customers, Wal-Mart seems to be the sum of all fears for a city commission that does not recognize the limitations of its own mission. After demonizing the Wal-Mart Supercenter as a polluting sweatshop and overall blight on the land, they finally agreed to let them build it in East Gainesville, where they must think a polluting sweatshop is a nice fit with that community.
• Stupid spending leads to higher taxes. When the city insists on staying in a losing golf course business, inexplicably buys real estate of questionable value (Mom’s Kitchen), loses your money in avoidable lawsuits, and is a revolving door of high-priced consultants who tell them how to spend more and more of your money, it is no surprise that your electric bill gets higher and higher. After all, GRU is a revenue source for the city, and if you were paying reasonable rates, they would be even deeper in the hole than they already are.

I am asking you to elect me to be your next mayor.  And I am asking you to help me get as many people to the polls as possible this March 16th. Our typical 9-12% turnouts have led our officials to believe that no one is watching them! If we have a resounding victory (which would not take a Herculean effort), the 2 commissioners who face re-election next year will become more attuned to the public mood. And that’s not all. Another one is resigning this year to run for the county commission. There will likely be a special election this year to fill that seat with another reasonable person. And this is going to be a very good year for reasonable people.

Hi I am Walt Boyer and as the title states I am running for Alachua County Commissiner District 2. I need 1547 signed petitions from Alachua County registered voters to be on Novembers ballot. I am an Independent but have a more conservative view on issues. I also believe that as an Independent, I can better serve the residents of Alachua County without being a pawn to party politics. I would be able to concentrate on all the best ideas to work towards lowering our taxes, putting a stop to wasteful spending, improve our public safety, and enhancing our educational system. I appreciate the opportunity to serve the community and the County. You can Email me at wboyer64@yahoo.com to ask questions or express your concerns about where we are currently heading. I believe its time we put common sense to work for us.

It appears that I will need a co-administrator to take over the mundane tasks at Alachua Voter Guide so that I can run for Mayor of Gainesville. Yes, I did say that I would not run back in October, but I have felt more and more compelled to do so. I plan on using this site as much as I have encouraged EVERY candidate to use this site. No opponent will be shut out of AVG. I have never denied any candidate his or her space here, and have never censored them. (I have occasionally fixed an email link for someone who did not know how to make one.)

If you have a problem with my imitation of Bret Favre, my dithering between running and not running, just remember that it’s the worst thing you can say about him this year. And if that’s the worst thing you can say about me, then I can live with that.

Web site coming soon!

Don Marsh