Former Commissioner JoAnn Golden's remarks at the last City Commission meeting (5/5/15)

Ms. Golden throws around a lot of accusations and insinuations in her comments at the podium last week. She seems to dwell on the potential evils of outsourcing city functions and recalls going to a League of Cities convention where there was a booth for a firm that helped to do just that. Ms. Golden was on the dais when the city hired Bob Baldwin as city manager who regularly commuted from his home in Broward County. Many people called him the "drive-by" city manager, as he generally would only show up to warm a seat during Commission meetings and was rarely in his office or available to the public. One time, I did engage Mr. Baldwin in a conversation on the quality and quantity of staffing in the City's Planning Department. He suggested that we really don't need to hire individual people, we could just contract out the services to a planning firm. Huh. I'm glad we did not go down that path.

Later, she wrongly suggests that the current Commission has dismissed the notion of "dark skies" in its consideration of the Siemens proposal, which is part of the workshop discussion tonight. This is a slide from a PowerPoint presentation that is included in the back-up information for tonight's meeting.

So we can see that the new lights being considered are Dark Skies compliant. So much for not letting fiction get in the front of the truth. One of the claims of those in support of the Dark Skies initiative is that exposure to artificial light at night prevents humans from producing melatonin, which increases the probability of developing cancer. And then she goes on to suggest that it is just a matter of time before we outsource the RO plant, the beach and other city responsibilities to private entities.

She talks about turtles but not much about citizens who have to walk dark, unsafe neighborhoods at night.

And as long as it's OK to throw around innuendos in a public forum, Golden Paints produces acrylics (made from polymers) and also have other ingredients; you don't want to leave Golden Paint on your skin for too long. Ms. Golden's family, from which the company takes it names, runs Golden Paints and I believe that JoAnn is head of the family's foundation. Mark Golden, from Earlville, NY, runs the company and was a $1,000 contributor to the Ryan Maier campaign (page 2, #3). Lest we let nothing be overlooked, you can read about "known" cancer causing agents used in Golden Paints which have been linked to cancer, this from their own website.