Your input requested (and stuff to do)

The City of La Crosse has unveiled its COMMUNITY NEEDS SURVEY to help them decide how to spend community development money. Please note that the survey specifically DOES include community gardens in its choices but does NOT include LIBRARIES and PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION. If you take the survey, please be sure to include these two very important community benefits in your responses. Also, good luck with that map!

Mark your calendar (and, here's a good calendar from which to mark)! 

August 22 - 24 = the 39th Annual Great River Folk Festival. This year, it will be at Riverside Park.

August 29 through September 1 = the La Crosse Area Bike Festival which will included sponsored rides, downtown music festival, safety info, and more!

By the way, the city has openings for Civilian Service Employees (part time citizen police aide). I really take issue with the title "civilian" as if the real police are not civilians. Another sign of the militarization of the police perhaps?

Oil bomb trains and another warning about our fossil fuel ways

And for what? Stop the oil bomb trains. (If I do say so myself.)




And, if you didn't have a chance to hear it, please listen to this great and scary program from Wisconsin Public Radio. Host Kathleen Dunn interviews Paul Erlich (yes, the real Paul Erlich) and Michael Charles Tobias about our dangerous fossil-fueled future and their new book, Hope On Earth. This was the best program this year and one of the best I've heard in 40 years of public radio listening.

What he said

Paul Krugman: Standing Up for Liberal Principles (channeling Mike McCabe, I guess).

"Time was when 'centrist' Democrats would in effect urge appeasement: don't talk about inequality or say nasty things about privatization, or the right will get mad. But now it's clear that no matter what you do, short of destroying the entire legacy of the New Deal, the mere fact of being a Democrat will bring accusations that you're an atheist Islamic communist. So why not stand up for some liberal principles?"

Advocate for sustainability

The Lot C redevelopment has been moving forward without much chance for public comments. Those of us who would like to advocate for sustainability requirements on all new city or county developments will have an opportunity to speak on Tuesday, August 19 at 6:00 p.m.

the "Lot C visioning community team" will get together again to hear from Weber and team. The meeting will be in the basement of the County Building. The public will also have an opportunity to make comments.

Please plan to attend if you can. If you can't please contact your county board representative.

Make tomorrow your DAY OF ACTION!

Tomorrow, August 12, is Wisconsin's partisan primary. Clerks of Court are predicting a 15% turnout. So, 15% of eligible voters will pick our candidates for the November election including our candidates for governor and attorney general. I hope you will VOTE TOMORROW (if you haven't already early voted).

There are some other things that need to be done, so here's a partial list just in case you have nothing to do tomorrow (or EVEN IF you do).

1.  VOLUNTEER to help defeat the criminal Scott Walker in November! With even more limitless campaign cash from who knows where, Walker is still polling even with Mary Burke (we assume Burke will win her primary tomorrow). So, to repeat: Volunteers can come to the Dem office at 126 Fifth Ave. S., La Crosse (across from the Hollywood Theater and three doors south of our 2012 office). The office is open 1 to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and between 5 and 8 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday nights. It will take many people to get out the vote.

2.  READ and COMMENT on the proposed (woefully inadequate) new rail safety regulations. You have until September 30. Note that under the new rules, La Crosse (pop. < 100,000) would not warrant slower speeds and dangerous "pop can" rail cars carrying explosive Bakken crude oil (not for your car, but for the "world market") won't be phased out for years. A new study by the US DOT finds that most freight rail insurance policies wouldn't even cover a "moderate" event let alone a catastrophic explosion like the Lac-Mégantic disaster. And don't expect them to pay any fines either.

3.  URGE your US Senators (Johnson and Baldwin), Representative and President to get serious about climate change. Join the US Catholic Bishops, African leaders, scientists, forest people, island nations, Every day we delay means a worse future for our children and more cost for all of us. Sign up for the September 21 Peoples Climate March in NYC. 

4. READ and COMMENT on the proposed new carbon emissions rules. You have until October 16..Concerned Chippewa Citizen sent a very interesting behind-paid-firewall article about Wisconsin's non-compliance with EPA rules on fine particle emmissions and EPA plans to take over some Wisconsin air quality implementation plans. (Read the Federal Register version here).