Mistele, Blaska, wrong for Dane County

I've been busy with things other than blogging lately and feeling relatively uninspired to post anything--until good ol' Dave Blaska came along to save me. Thanks Dave! Your continued ignorance on matters of government and politics has cured my writer's block.

Blaska's newest screed over at The Daily Page has him playing a fairly tired tune: Kathleen Falk is history's greatest monster, Nancy Mistele will be our supervisorial savior, boo to funding for commuter rail and environmentally & economically friendly projects, etc. etc.

His fresh spin on this old refrain comes in the form of maligning the current move to provide state funding (mostly coming from its share of stimulus money) for two manure digesters. These machines help to remove phosphorous--that thing that so pollutes our lakes and makes them nearly impossible to swim in--from cow manure on area farms. In the process, they also use the bacteria on manure to create methane gas, which is then used to power generators and provide electricity.

Each digester also will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 12,000 tons each year and generate $900,000 a year in renewable energy...

Still, this is somehow a terrible idea to Blaska, who claims that Falk and co. should be focusing their attention on more "urgent priorities" and that the digesters are a "project better left to the farm co-ops." Because farm co-ops have buckets of money to spare, and because apparently the quality of our local watersheds and renewable energy aren't urgent enough priorities for Blaska.

I, for one, rather miss being able to swim in lakes. I'm also rather keen on passing on a planet to my children that's in better shape than how I found it. Guess that's the old Girl Scout in me talking again.

Blaska goes on to point to the current pothole-a-riffic situation on University Ave. as further proof of Falk's incompetence. He completely fails to mention the fact that Falk recently announced a major reconstruction project on that very road. But! Both he and Mistele would much rather see the county go forward with a far more invasive project: The North Mendota Beltway. Can we say boondoggle?

Instead of adding more space for more cars and more emissions and increased traffic and higher pavement pollution run-off rates, how about we actually invest in mass transit? It cuts down on all of the aforementioned problems, and benefits people with lower incomes who might not otherwise have a way to get around town.

Falk is by no means perfect. In fact, I've been calling her on the failings surrounding the 911 center and other things for some time. But Mistele? Definitely worse. And quite a bit of a one-note wonder (OK, two if you count the NMB idea) with her incessent "noun-verb-911-center" prattle.

We should absolutely work to hold Falk and those associated more accountable for incidents like what happened with the Zimmermann case. We should foster better future leaders. We should be able to focus our attention on multiple priorities at once (unlike Blaska and Mistele's insistence on one thing at a time, but only if it has everything to do with "public safety" and nothing to do with conservation, etc.).

We should not vote Nancy Mistele into office.


(with apologies for the terrible Photoshop at top)