Alachua Voter Guide

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.

It’s mid-January and we now have a couple of actual contests for the two city commission seats that are up for election. In District One we have the incumbent, Sherwin Henry, challenged by Marcia Wimberly. I have contact information on each of them on the page, “2009 Candidates” but nothing more.

In At-large District One, (so-called because it is an election open to all city voters, as opposed to the other District One race, which is open only to voters living in that district), we have a little more available because both candidates have groups on Facebook. I have made a point of joining both of them.

The incumbent, Jeanna Mastrodicasa, according to her website, is the Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs at the University of Florida, where she manages professional development, assessment, publications, and other support for the Division of Student Affairs. She was elected in 2006 when she defeated Tony Domenech for the open seat. The challenger, Robert Krames, has a website that is under construction, and I have not heard from him yet, although I have only tried to establish contact in the past 12 hours.

That’s about all I have for now. This story is developing, and I hope to have actual candidate input soon. If anyone wants to cover one of these candidates, you are welcome to contact me at dontwc@gmail.com. If anyone wants to post comments, even anonymously, you will only need to have your first comment moderated, and after that they will all be automatically approved.

Here are the links to the Facebook groups for both Jeanna Mastrodicasa and Robert Krames. Get involved.

If 2008 is any indicator, we will definitely be getting less news from the local printed authority, the Gainesville Sun. These are trying times for newspapers across America. The Sun’s own Mothership, the New York Times, is in financial trouble. The Sun also had to combine with the the Ocala Star Banner to stay alive, and it is now in a smaller format, AND it costs more than ever.

This past election cycle the Sun did such an appalling job of covering the local elections that I asked one of their reporters what was going on. I was told they just did not have the manpower anymore. In spite of what some conservatives may think, the Sun’s in-house cartoonist, Jake Fuller, was not let go for ideological reasons. He was just another employee they could not afford to retain.

Newspapers everywhere have been losing ad revenue to the Internet. That does not mean people are spending their ad money on Internet advertising. It means that many people who used to use the classifieds are now taking advantage of free ads on craigslist. Craigslist is all over the country, and the Gainesville chapter is thriving. Since some businesses are also diverting a part of their advertising budgets to the Internet in the form of their own websites and search engine optimization and Google Adwords, and other venues, newspapers are missing more than a few sales.

You may not think that this impacts you because you can get so much information online for free. But, someone is being paid to cover national and international stories because they have a bigger audience, which means it’s easier to sell ads for that market. Our problem is that no one really covers our local politicians adequately. An even bigger problem is that local politicians are an afterthought at best, so there is very little financial reward for advertisers and, by extension, reporters, who would cover local meetings and their associated shenanigans.

The past few years I have offered ALL politicans, no matter what their ideological stripes, free reign to get their messages out at no cost. Cue the crickets. They also seem to have little interest in telling you any more than what makes a flattering bullet list on a shiny brochure. Therefore, I am giving up on their lot. No, that doesn’t mean I will be withholding space from them and denying them the right to get out the word on this site. It just means I am through begging them, and wasting my time chasing them around and asking them to tell YOU what they are up to.

I believe that our last best hope is that a small band of us will start taking up the task of informing our friends and neighbors about local candidates and local issues. In short, I need YOU. We need you. Our local government needs you to stick your nose in its business and write about it here. You don’t need to cover everything; just adopt a cause, an advisory board meeting, a politican, an issue, and write about it here. All I ask is that you try to be fair, try to get both sides of any concerns, and PUT YOUR NAME ON IT.

I love the Internet, but I am weary of the anonymity that allows people to say anything without any accoutability at all. I have no problem with the comments section of each article being that way, but if you are going to report, you should be willing to put your name on it. If we are going to do a good job and replace the Gainesville Sun, we are going to have to set a high water mark for credibility.

Did I say replace the Gainesville Sun? Yes. Fortunately, this is not too tall an order. Not only have they been inadequate; there is no prognosis for them to get better. We cannot wait for things to magically improve. And we cannot continue to let our local politicans and candidates get away with their minimalist leadership.

What will you get out of this? Some measure of gratitude from your many readers, and the satisfaction that comes with doing a public service. I have made nothing at this since 2004 when I started. Yes, I have an innocuous ad for my business, but it’s the least I should get for the trouble. And I cannot say that I have gotten even a single job out of it. Instead, I get a great lift when someone from overseas sends me an email saying that he or she can now make an informed vote on an absentee ballot because of this site. I know that what I am doing matters. I just wish I could do more. But, I am like most of you: a busy person with work, a family, and other obligations. But I will give a small slice of my life, and income, to help make local voters better aware of the issues here in Alachua County. Do you not have a small slice of your life to give to improve our community?

It’s a New Year, and you can engage in a new mission that really matters. Just send me an email and include this information:

Your REAL name
A phone number when I can reach you and verify your existence
A brief resume of what you have to offer, or what you plan to cover

Email this information to me at dontwc@gmail.com. I will get back to you with a username and password and some brief guidelines. They will not be onerous.

So, what will 2009 bring? I am gunning for more accountable leaders, more informed voters, and better solutions for our community’s challenges. Is it too much to hope for?