Whose Riverside?

[UPDATE: The mayor has vetoed for cost and design. The original council vote was 7 to 4. Please email them with your opinions.]

This is a guest post from Mark Kastel of the Cornucopia Institute. He has written to the city council about the proposal to spend nearly $50 million on expanding the La Crosse Center, including a large box like thing that will sit over part of the park. There's a good letter about this in today's La Crosse Tribune about this. I sent my letter this afternoon. In addition to putting a big ugly box on our most beautiful park, I feel this expensive project is too exclusive and there are other uses for $49 million that would benefit more of the people who will be paying it.

Consider that taxpayers will be paying for this for many years. Are there other things that taxpayers might pay for that would benefit more taxpayers? Consider that the La Crosse Center is one of the biggest energy users in the city. Will this proposed addition be super efficient or make the rest of the center more efficient or otherwise reduce it's energy use/carbon footprint? Consider that Riverside Park is one of our public treasures that the whole of the public gets to enjoy for free. Will this proposed addition enhance the park or detract from its benefit for the public's use and enjoyment? 

The Council will vote on Thursday. You can email them your thoughts at council at cityoflacrosse dot org.

Dear Friends,

We all have a connection to La Crosse. It's "our" city and important to the vitality of our region. If you value Riverside Park for its beauty and want to protect it in the future for your family's enjoyment I hope you will take just a minute or two to write an email to the La Crosse city Council and Mayor:

City Council: council@cityoflacrosse.org 

Mayor Kabat: kabatt@cityoflacrosse.org

The vote in the city Council is scheduled for tomorrow, Thursday. And then I assume the mayor has to sign-off on the project as well.

Their plan, which is moving forward quickly, is to expand the La Crosse convention center in a manner where they will build a large addition to the second floor .... Which will tower above a portion of the park. Please see photo and La Crosse Tribune story: https://lacrossetribune.com/news/local/committee-approves-funding-for-million-la-crosse-center-expansion/article_b91d81c6-c488-527f-8953-bdb8c93bc2c9.html

Mark's letter:

Dear councilmembers,

I run a national nonprofit organization. We are officially headquartered in Cornucopia, Wisconsin with staff, virtually-officed, throughout the country. A good percentage of our employees and contractors, such as our certified public accountant, are here in the Driftless Region. La Crosse is our center for culture and commerce. We are the type of people and organizations you want to attract to spend our hard earned money in your city (I live in the Vernon County community of La Farge and most of our other local staff are in Viroqua/Westby).

This past March we held our annual meeting in La Crosse flying in our Board of Directors and staff from around the country. We also held a reception inviting hundreds of members in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa to join us.

I have always viewed the park along the river as your city's "front yard." With friends, business to conduct, yoga classes and sailing I am in La Crosse 1-3 times every week. Many times, throughout most of the year, those visits include a walk in the park and I see lots of tourists enjoying the same experience.

As Will Rogers once said, "Buy land. They're not making any more of it."

The people of La Crosse already own this exquisitely beautiful piece of land. There are many other options for buildings. Because I have attended the Upper Midwest Organic Farming Conference (MOSES conference) every year since it has been hosted in La Crosse I can imagine the advantages of the expansion and the beauty of the view overlooking the river. But this would come at the great expense of degrading part of the park directly and irreparably impacting the "viewscape" of much of the remaining park.

Don't do it!

Sincerely yours,

Mark Kastel

The Cornucopia Institute

Help BLACK inspire middle school students

from the La Crosse Public Education Foundation:

The La Crosse Public Education Foundation is joining with other community organizations and individuals in supporting a trip designed to provide a transformational and inspiring educational experience for some La Crosse middle school students.

LPEF has awarded a $4,100 grant to Black Leaders Acquiring Collective Knowledge (BLACK), a nonprofit formed last year with a goal of finding ways to bring the La Crosse Black community together. LPEF’s grant complements a major $50,000 grant approved in late May by the La Crosse Community Foundation. One of the leaders of BLACK is Shaundel Spivey, a cultural liaison for the School District of La Crosse.

The group is organizing an ambitious program in collaboration with another nonprofit, the Legacy Keepers Institute, and is scheduled to take nearly 50 students on a 7-day trip in mid-August. Students will travel to Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., including tours of the National Civil Rights Museum in Greensboro, N.C., and the National African American Museum in Washington, as well as several leading Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

The trip is designed to inspire academic achievement among black, biracial and multiracial students. They hope to encourage leadership development, STEM careers and economic empowerment, in part by exposing students to the contributions, inventions, and achievements of African Americans in STEM fields and entrepreneurship.

Legacy Keepers’ mission is to empower youth, families, and communities of color to continue to push forward and build toward collective goals in education, economics, and wellness.
BLACK is organizing several fundraising events this summer and continues to accept donations to support trip expenses. For more information, follow BLACK on Facebook at www.facebook.com/BLACKLAX16/. Donations can be accepted through PayPal or by a check. To make a tax-deductible donation, call (608) 352-8082; or email: blacklax16@gmail.com

Ready for 100 - The sooner the better

Cross posted from Coulee Region Sierra Club:

The CRSC Ready for 100 team is ready to take the next step toward helping Coulee Region communities commit to going 100% renewable by 2050 or sooner as nearly 100 US communities and counties (including the Wisconsin cities of Eau Claire and Madison) have done over the past couple of years.

The most recent reports on carbon emissions are not good. We have now surpassed 410 parts per million (350 ppm is the target for sustainability). The Trump administration is considering using cold war era rules to require subsidies of the fossil fuel industry, is preparing the path toward letting oil exploration leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and "quietly killed" the $10 million annual budget for NASA's carbon monitoring program. And Trump tariffs have reportedly shut down billions in new solar projects.

The R4100 local team wants the City of La Crosse and other communities to pledge to renewable energy. We are working on a presentation to educate community members about the issues and the initiative and to motivate them to contact their elected officials and push for a formal commitment. We will also help Coulee Region  Sierra Club members to start a Ready for 100 effort in their communities and possibly in Coulee Region counties as well.

If you would like to help create the presentation, please email us (crsierraclub at gmail)*. If you know of a community group where we could present (or if you would like to do or help with a presentation) please email. If you would like to contact your community leaders to get an initiative started or to help with the La Crosse initiative, please contact us.

*Next meeting week of June 11.

At a recent meeting Pope Francis held with fossil fuel industry executives, the choice was made clear. "Our desire to ensure energy for all must not lead to the undesired effect of a spiral of extreme climate changes due to a catastrophic rise in global temperatures, harsher environments and increased levels of poverty.”

Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, recently wrote,

"The biggest climate summit since Paris will happen this fall in California, but it may get lost amid season three of 'Unpatriotic Football Players' or what ever new provocation Trump dreams up. And that would be terrible, because this is time we’ll never get back. Even if a new president someday takes up climate seriously, the carbon we’re spewing now will still be in the atmosphere to haunt us over geological time. Time is the trouble."

Sit at the table

One reason it is so hard to encourage new active and well informed people to join (and change) the Democratic Party to make it more representative, more diverse, more progressive is stuff (to be polite) like this.

If we want better representation, we have to fight for it. We have to show up. We have to stay informed and active. We have to find good primary challengers. We have to support good candidates (** see below for an easy way you can support two good candidates running on June 12 in two Wisconsin special elections! **)

Over and over and over.

Yes, it can be tiring and frustrating. We have busy lives with work and other commitments and families and 10 million little things pulling our energies and attentions.

As we sort through the many things vying for that attention and energy, let's prioritize. Let's put making political change near the top of the list. Let's stay informed about and attend  important local actions. (And please, if you joined a party to change it and now think that because a few new people are on a board, mission accomplished and you no longer have to be interested or involved, rethink that conclusion. Nothing could be further from the truth).

Do you want another term of Scott Walker and Republican rule in Wisconsin? Do you want the DNR to totally shrivel up and blow away as frac mines and metallic mines and CAFOs and Foxconn and high capacity wells and CWD irreparably harm our environment and pollute our vital natural resources? Do you want our state's transportation money to continue to be spent on mega highways that serve crony contributors and school spending to favor well off children in private schools? Do you think we should make life even more difficult for our state's working poor?Think about it. What do you want for your and your kids' future? If you like the way things are going, then do nothing.

If you think things need to change, things will not change if you do nothing or even if you do just a little bit. We all need to do a lot - as much as we can. How much do you want things to change and what can you do to be most effective in making change happen? And it's going to be 100 times harder if we let it slide.

Without doubt, rallies, speeches, blog posts, and marches raise awareness and help inform and connect people. But what we really need are good candidates and good elected legislators who will do the right thing because it is the right thing to do. And that means getting a seat at the table where candidates and priorities are decided. That means, I strongly believe, joining and actively working within a political party.

Parties are the entities that offer the candidates we vote for and the legislation that gets us closer to or further from a just, equitable, positive, progressive future. If we have good candidates to vote for, we'll have good representatives who won't require phone campaigns, tweet storms, office sit ins, marches, rallies, and countless other tiring and frustrating organizing and group groveling sessions to convince someone to do the right thing (who then doesn't do the right thing anyway).

If you are not a party member, you are not really helping to change the policies and priorities. My opinion. You are letting others pick and dictate our choices and giving up power to those already in power.

A great quote attributed to many politicians including, recently, Senator Elizabeth Warren, goes If you don't have a seat at the table, you are probably on the menu.

How true.

** What you CAN do right now or over the next few days from the privacy of your own home or with some friends is PHONE BANK FOR TWO DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES who are running to win seats most recently held by Republicans in the Wisconsin legislature. The election is on Tuesday, June 12 and you can get more info here. Even spending one hour calling for one or both of these candidates can make a difference. Many people in these districts don't even know there is an election on Tuesday. 

And then find and do the next thing. And bring two friends. Attend the La Crosse County Dem Party picnic/fundraiser on June 18 at 5 pm at Copeland Park or volunteer at the election HQ at 115 Fifth Avenue South or donate to a candidate. Please.

Call for CLIMATE ACTION!

From Citizens' Climate Lobby:

On June 12, more than 1,300 Citizens' Climate Lobby members from across the nation will meet with their members of Congress in Washington, DC asking them to pass Carbon Fee and Dividend legislation.

We need YOU to call your legislators on Wednesday, June 6th to amplify our voices and help move Congress closer to passing revenue-neutral carbon fee and dividend legislation. If you can’t get through on Wednesday, try leaving a message in the evening or try again on Thursday, June 7th.

Click on the link below, enter your address, and click "Go" to find your Representative and Senators and make your calls.

https://citizensclimatelobby.org/call-congress-to-act-on-climate/#/38/

Thanks so much for taking action!