On April 13th, there will be a run off for City Mayor in Gator Country, aka Gainesville, FL. Turnout is expected to be low, since there are no other ballot issues or no other major campaigns for voters to turn out for. This is why it is important for every voter to participate, because your vote will weigh heavily, more so than it is during a "normal" election cycle.
At the beginning of the campaign, there were 4 candidates, and one of them was Selwach. I supported him. He only received 400 votes and I suspect that was largely due to the fact that 1. He was not affiliated with any political party and 2. He supported legalization of medical marijuana. The run-off now is between Craig Lowe and Don Marsh.
Gainesville is a strange town politically. Our Hero, Tim Tebow, is a much revered celebrity who is often compared to Superman, because of his accomplishments on the football field, and his Christian character and ministries comes close to being worshipped by even those who are not professed Christians. He once relayed a story where coach Urban Meyer told him that ‘phone calls to God from Gainesville are local calls.’ There is practically a church on every corner. Yet, because of the global status of the institution that Tebow represents, the University of Florida, there is also a very progressive, very open, very "pro-environmental" and one could say, "liberal" attitude about the town. In fact, in many elections where the State has voted conservatively, Alachua County has voted the exact opposite. It’s enough to make politicians and pundits "pull their hair out."
With regards to this particular election, with the exception of Selwach, as a voter, I am also a study in contradictions. I consider myself a "progressively liberal" Christian, and normally that is how I vote – at a minimum I will vote democrat, when I know nothing more about the candidate. However; those instances are rare as I try to remain an informed voter. I also try not to be a "single issue candidate" but this election is quite different.
I have decided to vote for Don Marsh. Primarily, it has to do with one single issue: the transgender ordinance passed by the City Commission, which Craig Lowe was instrumental in helping pass. Indeed, I sympathize with this population. It must be quite painful to struggle with an identity so personal as sexual orientation, to most likely be ridiculed by the large majority of the population, and not to mention the extensive therapy and expensive medications and procedures these individuals face. In Gainesville, this is 1% of the population. But the City Commission felt it necessary to pass a controversial ordinance, basically stating that if someone suddenly felt an urge that they were of the opposite sex, it was legal for them to use the opposite sex’s restroom. Translation, if a pedophile "suddenly felt the urge" they could walk into the opposite sex’s restroom, with the full backing of the law, and exposing a highly vulnerable population.
There are other reasons to support Don Marsh instead of Craig Lowe as well. Craig Lowe is running as the "experienced candidate."
His experience includes: backing a budget that caused Gainesville to buck a statewide trend: crime has increased 36% since 2005, whereas the Department of Law Enforcement issued a report http://donaldmarsh.com/... that celebrated a statewide crime decrease of 6.4% to a 39 year low. According to Don Marsh’s website http://donaldmarsh.com/...
"this is a town where law enforcement has to compete with a failing golf course for funding. Our city commission (of which Craig Lowe is a member) has asked police and fire to expect a 15% cut at a time when we are experiencing a crime wave. This is symptomatic of a city infested with a cult of over planning. Millions are spent to make Gainesville "pedestrian friendly" while it becomes less safe to actually walk the streets."
Craig Lowe rubs the salt in the wound further by touting on his website http://www.craiglowe.com:
"Take on tough budget challenges with the proven ability to weigh fiscal constraints and responsibilities along with the cultural, historic, and natural qualities which give our city its unique character.
"With seven budget cycles of experience on both the city commission and the library district governing board, I know the impact of budget choices on taxpayers and programs that benefit our citizens. I have the experience to make the tough choices necessary to keep our city on track. Over the next three years we will have to make difficult choices about our top financial priorities, but I am ready to use my combined understanding of the values that make Gainesville great and the budgetary process in order to move Gainesville forward through this turbulent time."
Well, here is one of the reasons he has such a tough budget challenge, of his own making (from Don Marsh’s website):
"Pension obligations are met primarily through three sources of funds. Employee contributions to the fund are set at a fixed percentage of pay. Investment returns on pension assets comprise a substantial portion of pension funding, and the balance of funding required comes from contributions from the employer. Therefore, poor investment return years require higher contributions from the employer to meet required funding levels." From http://www.cityofgainesville.org/...
In case you are missing something here, we, the taxpayers, are the employers. The other important thing to notice is that you, the employer, are obligated to meet funding obligations when investments have a bad year. So, all of you who took a hit in 2008, losing about 40% of your retirement investments, have to bite the bullet to keep the city pension fund from failing to make money.
Keeping in mind that this is, after all, a defined benefits plan, we will not get into the details of whether such an expensively insured plan is mitigated with below average return on investment anyway. But it does indicate that the city should hire employees and create new departments only when the gravest need arises. There are not many companies that can survive not only an economic downturn, but having to insulate its employees from this effect with money it no longer has.
City employees who like this arrangement (and who wouldn’t?) should want to insure this arrangement’s long term viability by helping its employer to NOT incur deficits. But deficits are what we have, and that could be the case for years to come if we do not get some hard-times discipline.
Just in comparing the 2 websites, Craig Lowe’s site does not cover the issues in depth, and when you are counting talking points alone, the score is Craig Lowe 4, Don Marsh 8. In fact, on some issues, Craig Lowe and Don Marsh are in agreement, particularly regarding the Koppers Site (if you are from Gainesville, you know this is a "Superfund" Site that the government still has not cleaned up) and so those who care about the environment will not lose by supporting Don Marsh. Don has been self-employed for a number of years, whereas Craig Lowe has been a career politician.
Let’s continue the historic change we began with electing President Obama. Change can continue in Gainesville, FL and it begins with electing Don Marsh for Mayor on April 13th.