Questionnaires and Speeches
- Campaign 2010 Column - Gainesville Sun
- Jack's Answers to the Suwannee-St. Johns Sierra Club Questionnaire
- Police Benevolent Association of Florida County Commission Questionnaire
- Commissioner Donovan's Statement At July 15, 2010 City Commission Meeting about Fire Assessment Fee
- Women for Wise Growth 2010 County Commission Candidate Questionnaire (PDF)
- North Central Florida Central Labor Council -- AFL-CIO 2010 Questionnaire (PDF)
- Jack’s responses to tje Gainesville Sun Questionnaire - 7/26/10 (PDF)
Campaign 2010 Column - Gainesville Sun
I am grateful to have served our community these five years on the Gainesville City Commission. Now I ask to work for you on the Alachua County Commission where positive redirection is urgently needed.
Our wonderful Alachua County is losing ground. Consider the last eight years with the incumbent. We have lost natural resources and beauty. We have lost value in the homes, businesses and public investments in our cities. We have lost contributions from our many struggling families and their children.
There are two reasons why. First, with the vote of the incumbent, the County Commission has permitted undue development over our agricultural and wilderness areas. The recently expanded Oakmont Development is an example. Our townspeople are footing the bill for what adds no value except for developers and large landowners. The incumbent’s votes always weaken our growth management and environmental protection.
Second, the current Commission has done nothing to stem the tide of children being swept out of overwhelmed families and schools into prisons, maternity, and dependency. The incumbent has taken no initiative to shift County priorities to strengthen struggling families so their children grow up to be productive and happy.
On the Gainesville City Commission I have worked to promote our region’s prosperity. I’ve worked to make energy development a matter for local enterprise (with solar power, conservation, and biomass). I’ve worked to protect our water resources and improve our transportation systems. I’ve worked to streamline code enforcement and the permitting process for local entrepreneurship, innovation and job development. I’ve worked to keep big box retailers from suffocating local business. I’ve worked to protect our regional airport as an economic driver unconstrained by poorly placed development.
I’ve stood against misguided financial decisions like the purchase of Mom’s Kitchen, the continuation of the City golf course, and the plan to build a coal-burning power plant. I am independent of narrow interest groups. I’ve worked to improve the quality of life for everyone through affordable housing, the senior recreation center, more community-oriented policing, a strategy to strengthen families, and parks and recreation enhancement from Possum Creek to Cone Park.
My life’s work has centered on community development. I’ve served in Gainesville for 24 years as church pastor and Hospice chaplain. I’ve served as a Peace Corps teacher and organizer in the Pacific Islands, U.S. Foreign Service refugee officer in Vietnam, Community Action Agency organizer in Boston, and consultant on social programs to several federal departments.
I currently serve on the boards of Partnership for Strong Families, Habitat for Humanity, Coalition for Older Adults, and the ACTION Network. Previously I’ve served on the boards of Planned Parenthood, Bread of the Mighty Food Bank, and other community organizations.
I will bring my background, values, and initiative to work for the changes we need. I would be honored to represent you. With one more vote we can correct the County Commission’s wayward course and build the thriving community we all want. Thank you.
Jack's Answers to the Suwannee-St. Johns Sierra Club Questionnaire
Suwannee-St. Johns Group Sierra club Questionnaire for August 24, 2010 primary for Democratic Candidates for Alachua County Commission.
SSJ Sierra Club has about 1000 members in Alachua County who almost always vote. We expect to endorse in the August 24 Democratic primary based on answers to this questionnaire and subsequent interviews. Candidate’s answers will be posted on the Sierra Club website where they may be viewed by our membership and by the public. Please indicate your degree of agreement or disagreement with each statement by inserting in the blanks either: 1-strongly agree, 2-agree, 3-neutral or no opinion, 4-disagree, 5-strongly disagree. Also, you may include a 25-word comment on each statement in the space provided.
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The County must take aggressive action to reduce energy consumption by private automobiles. Just as the University has had dramatic success in improving transit ridership with free passes to all students, faculty and staff, the City and County should provide free bus passes to everyone, funded through a portion of the gas tax.
1 and 3. A) Strongly agree reduce auto energy consumption B) All-free passes via gas tax – great idea – I’d push for analysis and likely favor strongly. -
Transit-oriented developments being promoted by developers and embraced by the County will be inadequate to relieve the traffic that the developments will create.
1. County’s transit plan encourages sprawl and congestion. I favor transit where we want density –well within municipal limits - not to unincorporated area park-and-rides. - Because of budget constraints, the County may not enforce an Airboat Noise Ordinance even if the airboat referendum is approved by voters.
2. I’d seek options such as: A)Strategize with Sheriff; B) Use Code Enforcement officers; C) Stake out landing sites; D) High citation fees. - Alachua County should adopt measures recommended by the Energy Conservation Strategies Commission (ECSC) to meet the new State requirements for 75% recycling of solid waste by 2020.
1. Done in San Francisco, Portland and Seattle, I believe, and Europe – so doable here. Entrepreneur opportunities; Long run waste management savings. - Alachua County should enact an ordinance to control problem waste such as single-use plastic bags, plastic water bottles, and polystyrene containers.
1. Consider San Francisco model of fees for use, substitute containers, education on long-term landfill savings, local economic stimulus. - Alachua County should build new roads throughout the unincorporated areas in order to make these areas accessible for development.
5. Kills investments in municipalities; destroys essential natural resources. Right- of-way purchases for future roads also bad. Instead revise Comprehensive Plan to increase resources protection. - Local governments should not take actions or positions to promote a particular outcome on referenda coming before the voters.
4. Trust problem here. So let LGs publicize analyses of public policy questions – let elected officials state their views -- disallow LG institutional encouragement of particular outcomes. - In order to limit urban sprawl, Alachua County should amend its comprehensive plan to prohibit extension of sewer and water lines outside the urban services boundary.
1. Protective MOUs could be altered by pro-sprawl commissions (eg, Newberry Rd). Municipalities can, I believe, use CRAs to develop water treatment facilities. - Wherever sewer lines exist throughout Gainesville and Alachua County, businesses and residents should be required to connect at their own expense.
2 and 4. Municipalities: Use CRA/TIF for sewers to encourage infill/density; subsidize to eliminate septic tanks. Unincorporated: New development, yes; Old development, provide subsidy incentives and perhaps require as condition for sale. - The County should seek a continuation of the half-cent sales tax for purchasing land for conservation and to improve recreation.
1. Yes, better for natural resources, natural beauty, public health, local agriculture, and rural living.
Police Benevolent Association of Florida County Commission Questionnaire
What do you view as the most important issue facing the county?
- In general, the commission jobs is to secure the safety and happiness of the citizens. Most important are ensuring safety from violent crime and property loss, ensuring opportunities to make a good living, and ensuring access to life-sustaining natural resources. In this context, the most important issue the commission faces is poverty, with its promotion of fear and crime and its destruction of opportunity.
What are the goals and/or what would you like to accomplish as a county commissioner?
- Eliminate underemployment as well as unemployment through economic development and job skill training.
- Enhance staffing and training for community oriented policing, especially to include early COPS interventions to resolve social problems before they become crime problems.
- Protect the safety of the county’s water resources, agriculture, green infrastructure, and public health.
Do you believe the county commission has public safety in its top priorities? Explain.
- My opponent, the incumbent, has taken no active initiative to work on the goals specified above, all of which are key to public safety. Other commissioners have worked for some. I would grade the overall emphasis at the level of barely maintaining the status quo on public safety while the problems and their root causes have gotten worse (eg, the intensifying gang problem in the dense poverty environments of Mike Zone, the child and domestic violence increases, the juvenile truancy/drop out/ crime connection). The research is clear: crime is reduced most by keeping children from growing up in poverty and by putting more police officers on patrol.
More than 50% of the County budget is devoted to public safety, including the jail services, with no commission say in the allocation of these funds. From my observations and conversations, I believe the sheriff and deputies are ready and willing to engage in cooperative strategic planning with the BOCC to engage the Sheriff’s Department in a major partnership to reduce the causes of crime as well as crime itself. I know the Gainesville Police Department is likewise inclined, so widespread police coordination is very feasible. As a member of the City’s Public Safety Committee, Equal Opportunity Committee, the County’s Poverty Reduction Advisory Board, the AC Juvenile Justice Coalition, the Children’s Alliance, the local ministers’ ACTION Network, and Partnership for Strong Families, I know the community is likewise ready to engage.
Do you support your local deputies’ right to enter into a collective bargaining agreement with the sheriff? Explain.
- The deputies already have that right, and I support its continuation. The staff at the jail has chosen not to pursue that right. But unionization is the single greatest influence on securing fair wages and benefits and good working conditions.
Where do you believe the Deputy Sheriffs’ pay should rank compared to other agencies in the surrounding areas and what would you do to ensure that the county staff carried out your policy concerning deputy sheriff pay?
- I believe in equal pay for equal work, with risk-to-life as an important factor in that calculation. As a City Commissioner I have advocated and voted for ensuring that standard is met through pay studies and pay increases to move the averaged salaries of our officers to the middle range of the pay scale. I would continue as a County Commissioner to support the Sheriff in conducting such studies and allocating her revenues accordingly. If, during budget discussions, the Sheriff demonstrated a need for more funding to pay appropriate wages and benefits, I would partner with her in exploring the options to find the money. I would advocate and vote on the commission to direct County staff to help do the studies and to identify funding sources.
How would you, as a county commissioner, ensure that the sheriff carried out your policy concerning deputy sheriff pay?
- The issue of deputy pay is in the control of the sheriff as an elected charter officer. The BOCC might resolve on a position about wage level – but that would not constitute an enforceable policy. Our tools would be analysis and education, cooperation in analysis of the Sheriff’s budget, and work with citizens to identify funding sources.
What is your position on unification of law enforcement services in Alachua County?
- Analysis to date indicates to me that unification would bring an increase in cost without an improvement in service. Moreover, the responsiveness of the law enforcement agencies to the citizens they serve seems to be enhanced by the current system of authority. If new analysis were to indicate that system changes would lower costs or significantly enhance safety and citizen satisfaction, I would support the changes.
If the Association decides to endorse you, do we have your permission to advertise the endorsement?
- Yes.
Commissioner Donovan's Statement At July 15, 2010 City Commission Meeting about Fire Assessment Fee
Our context tonight for deciding on a fire assessment fee is that these are difficult financial times for some of our citizens and for the provision of City services. From 2005 to now, our City’s General Government budget has increased from about $84 million to about $100 million. During the same period, Gainesville’s population has increased from about 95,000 to about 130,000 people. So the growth in budget has fallen somewhat behind the growth in population (16% versus 37%, calculating roughly).
During that time, while the appraised value of taxable property has increased greatly (until this Republican recession), the City Commission has lowered the millage (property tax) rate each year to reduce impact on citizens. Gainesville’s tax and fee charges remain in the bottom 25% of our peer Florida municipalities, while the State of Florida’s taxes per capita remain near the bottom among U.S. states. If you can find a less expensive, high quality of life community in the country, good luck.
I myself am proud to be a public servant on the Gainesville City Commission. Despite some harsh comments from a few citizens tonight, I know this commission to be a responsible, honest and democratic public body. I believe current and past events have shown that representative democracy such as ours to be responsible about people’s pocket books, while the same cannot be said for too many other entities including many American financial and corporate giants.
From our studies, I am convinced that a fire assessment is a good practice and that we have identified a good methodology which assigns costs fairly – more so, it seems to me, than the property tax that has been distorted by the misleading Save Our Homes policies.
I apologize if my fellow commission members and citizens wanted an approach different from going through the decrement list tonight. My view was that this was what would be wise to do so that every citizen would hear and consider the argument for or against each program and position. So, differences in approach.
But I believe we have heard from people of many ideologies and circumstances that times are tough. So I am willing to make more cuts in the fire assessment rate – maybe to 15%, yielding I’d guess about $1.7 million. This low assessment rate would, I think, put helpful pressure on citizens and commissioners alike to decide which programs and positions are worthy of funding and then consider whether a millage increase is warranted.
In that process, I will take the same cost/benefit approach that led me on the one hand to oppose funding the City golf course, the purchase of Mom’s Kitchen, and the construction of a coal power plant -- and that led me on the other hand to support energy conservation practices and investment in business development and neighborhood and environmental protection. I will study the numbers and compare the values of the competing needs.
I will say, in closing, that I do not hold with the position frequently articulated tonight, that fire and police services, valuable though they are, should be held sacrosanct above and beyond other City services. Years of research make it clear that both the safety and happiness of a community are increased most when that community invests in the dignity and productivity of every citizen, especially in struggling families, rather than wait and try belatedly to defend against wayward spirits . That dynamic will be very important in shaping my priorities for both budget cuts and expenditures. Thank you.