We need to remember that our city commissioners insisted on keeping Iron Wood Golf Course, even though it is projected to lose $300,000 per year.  They have just committed to borrow millions of dollars to renovate this money pit and to build a one-stop homeless center. And what will they do when these losing propositions go south? They can just keep raising your electric and water bills because they will need more and more money transferred to the general fund from GRU.

Or, they can just create a new fee, like the one they hit us with for fire services. Because they overspent on Ironwood, they had to switch to a new fee to pay what your property taxes used to pay for.

About 100 people had come out for the 6pm meeting in some lousy weather. Most of them had come to complain about high taxes or some other injury they felt they were suffering, which is the very purpose of a meeting like this. Someone should have told the city commissioners. Instead, it was another chance to tell the citizens why they were ill-informed and just wrong.

After the first citizen commenter finished, there was a few seconds of scattered applause. Mayor Lowe, who has very high standards for decorum, warned the people not to applaud because applause disparities might, “make people feel bad.” However, when one of they city’s plants took her turn to speak, she spent most of her comment time scolding the citizens for, “not doing their homework before speaking.”  She said this several times without rebuke from the Mayor for making anyone “feel bad”.

No matter what complaint about higher taxes and fees, which are very real things, the city commissioners blew off the concerns of the citizens as if they were imaginary. Only one man came out and said what most of us were thinking: “This is a waste of time. We just need to vote you people out.”  Amen, brother!

It seems to me that this was the intention all along. But churches and non-profits were trotted out as the “someone else” that the public could accept as the victim of a higher tax burden.  As long as it’s someone else that gets hit, it doesn’t move us. Now that people who live in the unincorporated area are getting their bills from the county, all property owners get to be that special “someone else”. Ah, yes. To borrow from Martin Niemoller, “When they came for the churches and non-profits, I did nothing.”

Now that the election is over, and reality is setting in, we need to consider why this new fee, and all the higher fees and higher utility rates happen. Simply put, it is the city’s addiction to meet needs that are not their responsibility. For instance, it is going to cost millions to narrow streets in Gainesville to make them more “pedestrian-friendly”. Then we are going to clog those marrow streets with nearly-empty buses and trolley cars. The money spent on this Soviet-style central planning is what SHOULD have been spent on the fire department. But selling people on “the street narrowing tax” would be a harder sell, so they deceive you by telling you that fire services must be cut if they don’t have the fee. The truth is, stupid planning adventurism must be cut!

We recently had to pass a bond to build the One-Stop Homeless Center and to refurbish a golf course that the city admits WILL NEVER MAKE MONEY. Every other golf course in the county makes money, but we need to take out a loan to keep this one running UNprofitably. Instead of whipping out the city’s Visa card, why not pass a Homeless Shelter and Golf Course Assessment Fee? Instead, we are baited and switched again. This expense will show up under “debt service” or something else that hides its meaning next year, when we have to make the payments. None of this stuff is free. And it’s all part of the reason you’re getting hit with a new fee.

And let’s not forget our glorious electric bills. In the city’s budget summary, they even tell us that rates must be raised because of the rate-payers’ conservation measures. It only makes sense. When they depend on tens of millions of dollars to flow in from GRU, and their customers cut back on how many kilowatt hours they use, they have to raise what they are charging per kilowatt hour! So, if you are like me, trying to implement cost savings by paying for new windows and solar tubes and solar hot water heaters out of my own pocket, and you wonder why your rates keep climbing, wonder no more! What you do means nothing! It’s all about the city and their appetite for your money!

Next time, elect people who want to do less with the power of city government. Elect people who want to cut back on government, cut back on fees and taxes, and have fewer needs to harass you. Elect me, Don Marsh, to be your at large city commissioner next March.

The Gainesville Sun reported that, “the assessment — which technically is not a fee or a tax — would raise $7,166,675 next fiscal year”. This is the kind of lying that is done to try and fool the public into thinking that their taxes are not being raised. Call it what you want; it’s a tax. Likewise, when GRU raises its rates another 3% as promised, its purpose is to insure a larger transfer to the general fund. It’s also a tax. And when traffic fines are raised and policing becomes more and more aggressive, it’s a tax. The city needs more and more money because it spends more and more money. Yet, some blinking incumbent will sit and tell you next year that he didn’t raise taxes. Don’t you believe it!

The real issue is, as usual, runaway spending. That is WHY they need to increase your cost of living. Fire service is a fundamental thing that your property taxes are supposed to be paying for! To charge you extra for this service is like going to Subway to buy the $5 foot long, and getting charged $6 at the register because there is a Meat Assessment!

At the same meeting, Commissioners voted 6-1 to issue $5.3Million in bonds to pay for their unpopular One Stop Homeless Center and Ironwood Golf Course and Money Pit. For the uninitiated, this means they borrowed the money and that you will be assessed, fined or taxed at a later date.

This picture tells the story

This past spring I went from zero to over 6000 votes in about 90 days in the Mayor’s race. Many said this was unwinnable. But thanks to many donors and volunteers and the voters who were just fed up with the city’s business as usual, we showed it was winnable without actually winning it. A spread of 42 votes is a very thin margin in a race like this one. It will take a lot of work to get those 6000 back out again, and then some more to make sure we can beat the incumbent. But it can be done! And it is likely if you help us early.

Those 60,000 registered voters who did not show up in April are our mission field. I am sure we can get many of these people to come out if we reach them early and often. Can you help?

Please make your check out and mail it to:

The Marsh Campaign
3904 NW 15 ST
Gainesville, FL 32605

Please remember that the limit for contributions is $250 per individual or business entity. And contributions over $100 must list your occupation.

Thanks You!

Don Marsh

Since Mayor Craig Lowe has been sworn in, it appears that the city is unwilling to deal with it’s current emergencies, and is seeking to place new burdens upon its citizens. Although it is not the purview of city government, the Mayor is placing a priority on education and is looking forward to being an ambassador to other cities. Meanwhile, citizens near the contaminated Koppers site are still concerned that the clean up will be given the same level of neglect that it has received for decades.

I look forward to a promising future for this campaign. We came very close to winning this year. We have no other choice but to win if we want change!

As I have been taking a break and getting back to making a living, my friends have been looking into those pesky last-day address changes that were written about in the Sunday Gainesville Sun. As the Sun reported, there is no evidence required to prove that you have actually moved into the Gainesville city limits on election day, and so anyone in Florida can actually come here and say so…and VOTE. If I had known that, I might have told those hundreds of county voters, who expressed remorse over not being able to vote for me, that they could move in with me that day, and move out that night on the grounds that it was too crowded!

My campaign workers have also been checking into absentee ballots. This appears to be a rich vein of voters who don’t really live here, but still vote here regularly. We know that over 40 of these phantom voters voted on March 16th, but we cannot get the April 13th voter data from the Supervisor of Elections until AFTER the 10 day period in which we are allowed to protest. That seems to be a pretty convenient rule to shut down investigations before they can even start. It seems to me that voters who want to commit fraud are on the honor system, but if you are a victim of fraud, you have very stringent guidelines.

At the end of the day, all we will probably know for sure is that according to the rules that I have to follow, I lost my race against Craig Lowe by 42 votes. But we will also have a cautionary tale for other candidates that run against the Democratic Machine in Gainesville FL: You had better make sure you beat them by a few hundred votes to cover the ones that you will be spotting them before Election Day.

Now you might ask, “Don, why are you so put out with Westboro Baptist Church?” It’s because they ruin God and Jesus for so many people. These ignoramuses go traveling around the country as if they are some sort of prophets setting the rest of the church straight by showing how mad we are supposed to be at the rest of the world. They rub salt in the wounds of the very people God has commanded us to heal and to whom we should show compassion. Then they rebuke everyone who is not like them. Is this really the Great Commission Christ gave to the church? Is this the example set by Jesus? Of course not.

So how should we respond to these modern day Pharisees? In the New Testament, those were the very people for whom He reserved His harshest criticism. Likewise, these frauds deserve our strongest condemnation. They do not belong to the Kingdom of God at all. They are (wait for it) of the Devil.

I know that it is a popular feeling that they should be ignored by the mainstream church. I believe this is a mistake. I believe this is the time to stand up and be counted. If the church is serious about reaching people in the LGBT community, then they need to stand with them and show them the love.

I am not saying you have to sell out all your beliefs. After all, many Christians disagree about major issues of eternal consequences, but DON’T hate each other! In fact, you are good neighbors and look out for one another. That’s all I’m saying: be a good neighbor and stand up with them against these clowns that you KNOW are dead wrong. And you know they are.

So, look at that schedule. I challenge you to come out and protest them at one of these locations, or more.