over 400 pages!

Homework time…

Know a high traffic location in the Precinct? Drop us the intersection/address!

1. Under Calendar -> Early Voting Dates/Locations
2. Under Extras -> Downloads – added a four to page, letter-sized, double-sided, campaign flyer that you can download and print if you have the means. It is in color, but prints just fine in b/w.

Since I don’t have the capital, winning requires people power. Any and everything you can do to help spread the word that there is another option for County Commissioner Pct. 2 is appreciated.

Contact me if you need ideas or campaign materials to distribute!

Now to work on modifying some old signs…

I think this quote speaks for itself.

Transparency is vital for democracy and open records requests are a vehicle for that transparency.

Having recently had some work emails subpoenaed in a lawsuit, I can understand why people get a little edgy when asked to turn such information over. This information was about to become public information. Was I unprofessional in my “private” communications with my employers?

This was a new experience for me, not having ever experienced a subpoena before. Since then I have been conscious of how I speak in my email communication for my work email account – is this professional and work related? I’ve had to increase my personal responsibility and think before hitting that send button in addition to ensuring any personal communications were sent from my personal account.

If an elected official isn’t already doing this after 24+ yrs in office, what are we to think? What is your concern Commissioner?

⁽¹⁾Open government folly at Commissioners Court, Veronica Flores-Paniagua, Web Posted: 08/17/2010 12:00 CDT, mysanantonio.com

He’s part of the group of politicians who have made a fortune off the taxpayers ($103k/yr salary + $6k/yr car allowance) and gives lipservice to the voters. Nothing he has done in 24yrs has made the county government more responsible to the public good or fiscally responsible in doing their work. (if he has, i can’t find it anywhere!)

His campaign announcement says he still has “the passion for public service and a desire to effect change.” What change has he effected in my lifetime (he’s been an elected official since I was 5yrs old)?

“I am proud to say, I have helped usher Bexar County government into the 21st century,” he continued. What does this mean? Is he referring to his approving the purchase of electronic voting machines that are owned by corporations and provide no ability for recounts or proof or not of vote tampering? If that is what he is talking about, then yes, he has ushered us further into 21st century corporatocracy – rule by corporations not the people.

His rhetorical jargon is meaningless and without action to back it up.

I have spent the last decade actively working to protect air & water quality in San Antonio (various local coalitions), getting voters the ability to trust the ballot box (voterescue.org), reforming campaign finance laws (Clean Money SA working w/SA’s Blue Ribbon Commission) to prevent the wealthy and transnational corporations from participating in democracy (MoveToAmend.org), opening up the ballot so other choices are available to the voters, implementing Approval Voting (rangevoting.org), and many more systemic changes that need to be implemented to give us the democracy we were promised in school.

As your county commissioner, i will take this work with me and ensure that all of my votes go to ensuring we have a county we are able live in and raise future generations who will be healthy and well educated with meaningful work waiting for them. This is a radical move from where we are now: poor air quality, rising childhood obesity and diabetes, prisons instead of schools, and low-wage service jobs to look forward to.

public funding of elections and campaigns

closing the corporate loophole in Texas Election Code that allows corporate donations to political parties for operating costs (and on larger scale: movetoamend.org) On August 26th at 1:30p at the capitol, there will be hearings on how to change the portions of campaign finance laws in TX to comply with the illegitimate decision of the US Supreme Court that says that corporations can spend whatever they want on campaigns. Tell your State legislators that you don’t want them to make such changes – corporations do not need to be allowed to give money to campaigns, free speech is not money.

paying all our public servants a living wage, not just some of them (e.g. SA city council vs County Commissioners)

video-monitored hand-counted paper ballots – VoteRescue.org

free & equal access to the ballot

and preference voting that ends the “plurality” and “spoiler” “problems” as well as eliminating need for separate & costly runoff elections- i.e. Approval voting – rangevoting.org

Does this piss you off?

Then sign our petition!

We’ve put up an online petition for you to sign to get the Green Party and all of our candidates, including me, on the ballot in November 2010.

Please visit BallotAccess.TxGreens.org today to sign the petition and tell everyone you know to do the same!

Thanks….kat

Ballot Access begins March 10th with the Precinct Conventions (more info later on locations) from 7-9pm.  All attendees count toward the requirement.  You must not have voted in a Dem/Rep party primary to be eligible to attend as a voting member. (Everyone is welcome as observers!)

The following day, March 11, is the first day to begin petition gathering for the next 75 days.

From now until March, we’re asking for you to consider volunteering to help on this effort and to consider if you’d be willing to get paid to petition as funds become available.  Let us know as soon as you know you are willing to do either!

We need all sorts of people, party planners, organizers, petitioners, thing doers, etc.  Join the Party that knows how to party and still get work done!

Thanks!

kat

Yet there is no stark change in our Nuclear Mayor.

Last night Nuclear Mayor Castro declared that he had made up his mind on the nuclear option for CPS Energy’s and San Antonio’s future. He proceeded to outline the reasons why.

He sounded like a mouthpiece for CPS Energy and the Nuclear Industry, continuing the rhetoric and attempting to pass it off as “a decision based on merit.”

The Nuclear Mayor and I are only a year apart in age, yet it is obvious we are a world apart in logic. He had and still has the opportunity to be a statesman and leader for our community on this issue, which will define a generation in this country. Others look to the youth to make better choices than our forefathers, yet this youth, our Nuclear Mayor Castro, is falling lock step with those forefathers in remaining in the box of close-minded, rhetorical politicians who care more about their ascent to power and prominence in the short term and even less about the long term results of their decisions on the world community.

Why do I make these charges?

* San Antonio is first on the list for getting a permit to build the first nuclear reactor in the U.S. in 30 years.
* Wall Street won’t finance the building of nuclear reactors,
* the federal government is only providing loan guarantees of $18.5 billion for all the nuclear reactors to be built (divided equally at this point, we’re looking at about $4.6 billion for us if there are only four),
* we have no cost guarantees and the cost estimate has gone up from $5.4 billion to $13 billion in the last two years,
* we have no way to deal with the waste generated by the existing nuclear reactors the world over let alone new ones,
* we’re talking about spending $500 million on PAPERWORK for these new nuclear reactors – an amount of money that could bolster existing renewable energy plans and give us a return on our $
* we have a plan – Mission Verde – nuclear is not sustainable and therefore does not fit into the plan
* a nationally renowned nuclear fusion engineer, Dr. Arjun Makhijani, President of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research and author of Carbon Free Nuclear Free: A Roadmap for U.S. Energy Policy, offered his services free of charge to the City of San Antonio if our mayor would become El Alcalde Verde and LEAD SA into a sustainable future, it only takes political will.
* independent analysis and research has shown CPS Energy is misrepresenting, obfuscating, and omitting pertinent information – see energiamia.org and nukefreetexas.org for studies and more
* Drought conditions have prevailed, but CPS wants to use another 23,170 gallons of water per minute to generate power, most of which, ~2/3rds, will be lost to evaporation – http://nukefreetexas.org/downloads/ross_report.pdf
* From Moody’s Global…New Nuclear Generation: Ratings Pressure Increasing
..from a credit perspective, the risks of building a new nuclear generation are hard to ignore, entailing significantly higher business and operating risk profiles, with construction risk, huge capital costs, and continual shifts in national energy policy… Moody’s has said repeatedly that they will downgrade any utility who builds new nuclear – this in turn will effect our bond interest rates for all City bonds in existence and in the future resulting in higher taxes to pay the difference!
* this deal involves getting into bed with a company, NRG, that is rated speculative or “junk” grade – Ba3 (questionable credit quality) -Read more here
* On August 27th the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB) Panel found that the nuclear applicant, South Texas Project Nuclear Operating Company (STPNOC), had failed to adequately analyze issues raised by concerned citizens in their Petition to Intervene in the proposed expansion at STP.

What of the above makes the decision to go new nuclear a good idea for residents of San Antonio?

What are these “merits” that Nuclear Mayor Castro keeps referring to?

Will we ever find out?

Not likely! – yet i can be proven wrong…