ME:
Welcome to The FloridaProgressives.Com Podcast, Episode Thirteen, for August 2nd, 2014. I'm Mike Eidson. This show delivers news and updates via interviews with activists around the state on the issues that you, the people of Florida, care about. This episode is about working on campaigns, particularly within the local Democratic Party structures.
Patricia Metro-Patrick and Mike Patrick are members of the Martin County Democratic Executive Committee, or DEC, and Patricia was elected vice chair of that body in late 2012. She is also Chair of the Election Committee. They both became involved in politics, activism, and volunteering in 2008 with OFA, which was Obama For America at the time, now Organizing for Action. In addition to those actions, Mike and Patricia have participated in the Take Down Allen West Campaign of 2012 and in Awake Martin County, they helped start Occupy Martin County, and currently they are working on several campaigns with their DEC.
As a disclaimer: None of the opinions they hold in this interview are necessarily representative of any other organization. Their views are their own.
Patricia and Mike, thanks so much for joining me on the show today.
PMP:
Thank you.
MP:
Thanks for having us.
ME:
For those a little rusty on your geography, Martin County is the fifth-largest county in Florida by land area and on the east coast of Florida, next to Palm Beach, Okeechobee, and St. Lucie Counties. What are some of the main issues facing Martin County right now?
PMP:
Some of the main issues facing Martin County right now are The Indian River Lagoon, it’s been a huge problem since early last century, with the sugar-growing in Florida. But, as of lately, the past few decades, it has been especially worse, with the runoff from the fertilizer in the sugar cane fields going into Lake Okeechobee, then, during the rainy season, Lake Okeechobee basically having to be drained into our St. Lucie Locks. It’s causing the wildlife to die and high bacteria levels that you can’t go swimming in the lagoon or fish out of it or anything. So that’s been the main issue in Martin County, as of the past few years, it’s putting pressure on our local leaders and even our federal leaders to get this mess cleaned up and figure out a way to solve this problem, to get the runoff to be drained south, through the Everglades instead of into our river.
Another issue that is facing us is All Aboard Florida. While we do need high-speed rail in the state of Florida, this is not the way to do it. This is a private enterprise that, despite what the governor and All About Florida says, it is going to cost the Florida taxpayers money and, additionally, this is an unsafe way to do it, as far as Martin County goes. These trains are going to be ripping through Downtown Stuart, which is the historical district in our area, as well as other communities at very fast speeds, with no safety measures, causing traffic delays and what not, when these trains need to be further out west and they’re not going to be going through communities.
ME:
For the first issue that you mentioned, would you say that one of the main problems with the way the Indian River Lagoon is going right now is because of the sugar industry?
PMP:
It is the primary issue. There is other pollution, for instance, from septic tanks and fertilizer in people’s yards, is my understanding, but the main source of pollution is coming from the sugar-growing. Now, obviously, this is an important industry that Florida needs and they do employ a lot of Floridians, so it is an important industry, but a lot of scientists and what not have figured out a way to kind of work something out for everyone involved, so where the flowway would go south, but the sugar industry strongly objects to it, and it’s been a problem that has been facing Martin County and other communities in Florida for a long time, because up until recently, our politicians, locally and federally, were very much afraid to stand up against the sugar industry and talk about the solutions that can go on to solve this, so lately, we do have leaders that are fighting for the river, including a local candidate that we have running for state representative, Mary Higgins, as well as our current congressman, Patrick Murphy. He’s been quite the champion when it comes to securing funding and fighting for our river.
ME:
I want to talk to both of you about how local DECs work, but before we move on, are there any other issues that you would like to mention, local or statewide, that you’re concerned about, that are facing the citizens of your county?
PMP:
We in Martin County have a lot of the same concerns that other Floridians have, in every other county, and that’s Medicaid Expansion, improving our schools -- we’re very concerned about this push towards charter schools that has been happening in the state of Florida -- as well as civil rights issues -- we are very glad to finally see that the courts are ruling in favor of marriage equality here. And we’re also looking to get some people in that are going to reverse some of the crazier laws that we have in the state of Florida, like Stand Your Ground and stuff along those lines. So, basically, everything that most Floridians are concerned about, we are definitely very concerned about in Martin County.
ME:
Okay, so let’s get into the nitty-gritty of the DEC. Some people -- a lot of people, probably -- don’t really know how they work. I have not really participated much in mine, so I’d like to hear from both of you, two questions, really: how do they work, like who shows up and how does the process work, and what kind of work are you guys doing? Is it exclusively about trying to get Democrats into office, or is it any kind of community work?
PMP:
A Democratic Executive Committee serves one function, really, and that is to get Democrats elected. Now, how you do that is by doing numerous, different things. So, first, I’ll just start out with how you get on the DEC.
You run what is called a precinct captain, and anybody in the community, as long as they are a registered Democrat, can run in that precinct to become the precinct captain. It’s one man and one woman that get elected; that way there’s diversity and full representation of every sort of group. You elect one man and one woman, and then there is what you call a precinct captain, which is what gets you onto the DEC.
Your job as a precinct captain is to basically organize your precinct. You make sure that the voters are registered, that you answer all their questions about any candidates or local issues that you’re doing, whatever else is a big concern, like getting people out to vote by mail, this and that. Basically, just making sure that, as far as Democratic policies go, and voting goes, everything is working smoothly in your precinct.
Additionally, you on the DEC then work with other DEC members to do things like help out on campaigns, fundraise, make phone calls, basically do anything and everything that it really takes to get Democrats elected in your community.
Now, another way to get onto the DEC is when there is a vacant precinct, and somebody comes into the DEC and is very involved and wants to help out more, they can get elected-at-large, which means that the voting body of the DEC, the whole DEC itself, votes to elect this person onto the DEC to do the good work as a precinct captain at large, and that’s actually how Mike was elected onto our DEC earlier this year.
MP:
And to be clear, if there are two people, in places like Palm Beach County and larger counties, there are two people of the same gender who want to represent a precinct, they actually do go on the ballot for the public to vote. So, it is an elected position, we are just fortunate enough in Martin County that, most of the time, it doesn’t come to that, because as a small group that can get a little… hmm...
PMP:
I would just say that it’s not fortunate. It’s definitely not fortunate, because we need more people involved.
MP:
Right. [laughs]
PMP:
In Martin County, unfortunately, since we’re a small group, yeah, there’s really no election for the DEC in Martin County.
ME:
And that’s probably true for many counties across Florida. Not too much involvement in voting, let alone this level of commitment.
MP:
And another way that we function to help get Democrats elected is we do fundraisers, we do events. We’ve got an event coming up next month that is a barbecue in the park. It’s going to be a big family event, and it’s going to have people come out and see that Democrats are here, because, historically, Martin County is viewed as a red county, by the state and by people locally.
So we’re really trying to change that around and let people know that we are here, and that we are friendly, and that we support everybody, not just the wealthy, and not just the people that live in the rich areas and things like that. We are for everyone in the county.
ME:
With the primary coming up August 26th, would you work on any Democratic campaigns, or is it more like, wait till the primary’s over and then support whomever whens that primary?
PMP:
Some of the races, there is not going to be a primary. There’s only the one Democrat running. For instance, we have a woman running for state representative, Mary Higgins. We’ve all been very supportive in helping her out. She is the only candidate in that race, so we were able to sort of quickly endorse and get to work on that. We’re also working for a city commissioner. It’s a non-partisan race, but we do have a Democrat in the city commission that is up for re-election, so we’ve been working on that. We’ve been working very hard to get her re-elected. Obviously, our congressman, Patrick Murphy, he is not in a primary.
But when it comes to the other races, such as attorney general and governor, we are remaining neutral and none of us have been doing any work publicly for any of the candidates, and we’ll continue to remain neutral through the primary, but once the primary is over, whomever, for those different races, gets the nomination, we will be coming out in full support and doing everything we can to get them elected.
MP:
Right. DEC by-laws, in general, I don’t know nationally but I know for the state of Florida, as a DEC member, you are not allowed to support one person or the other. There’s even, you’re not supposed to support anybody before the filing date has passed, because you don’t want to discourage and prevent Democrats that live locally from coming forward and running themselves. It’s really hands-off, when you’re on the DEC.
PMP:
You do have to remain neutral and encouraging, before the filing date. Make sure that you’re remaining open that anybody else can also come and say, “I’m also going to run.”
Obviously we all have our strong opinions about the different races, and we all know who we’re going to be voting for in the primary, but as a DEC, we need to remain neutral and not endorse one person over another.
MP:
Right. You can’t write any sort of opinion letters or letters to the editor and signify that you are in any way representative of the DEC. You have to make it very clear that it is your personal vote or your personal opinion. For instance, I support Nan Rich, but I couldn’t write on behalf of the DEC for Nan Rich. I couldn’t work on behalf of the DEC for Nan Rich. Which makes sense.
ME:
Yeah. It’s a good way to delineate between an official endorsement or not.
Okay, I’m really intrigued, looking at your biography, about the Take Down Allen West campaign, 2012. That was successful. Allen West, I probably don’t need to remind many people listening, was a fellow that had a reputation for extreme rhetoric and extreme actions in Congress. Tell me a little bit about working on that campaign, and the victory there.
PMP:
I started volunteering with the group in April of 2012 because as soon as I found out that that man wanted to pack up and move to Palm Beach County from Plantation, FL, which is where he was living, and run to represent the newly formed District 18, I was absolutely appalled. I thought that his rhetoric and his attitude towards his colleagues and his constituents was not representative of the kind of community that we live in. And I certainly do not want that man representing me, especially when it came to his views on women’s health issues and just women in general. I was absolutely appalled and wanted to do everything I could to make sure that this man was not my next congressman, and so I started volunteering on that campaign.
And then, eventually, later on, I became an organizer for the campaign, because I just wanted to make sure that the community was educated. Not just left-leaning Democrats in the area, but even Republicans. I managed to go out there and really get a lot of Republicans to see the light on Allen West, so to speak, and see that he wasn’t going to represent them, either. I don’t know who really a person like that represents…
MP:
The Koch brothers.
PMP:
…[he’s] somebody that has such hostile attitudes towards everyone and everything.
MP:
The interesting thing about working on the Take Down Allen West campaign was that even though CREDO -- the progressive cell phone company -- were running a Super-PAC, but they didn’t spend a single dollar on advertising. It was all put right back into on-the-ground actions.
We knocked on doors, almost every single day. We phone-banked for eight hours a day, every single day. And just made sure that residents of the district knew that Allen West was not right for them, because he’s not right for anybody.
ME:
Right. Patrick Murphy won that election, correct?
PMP:
Yes, he did.
ME:
Okay. Let me push back against him, slightly, because, from what I read in progressive blogs, he is doing some negative things, in terms of Wall-Street-over-Main-Street-type issues. So, what do you say to that kind of criticism of him? Is it more like, “Well, at least we have somebody that’s not Allen West,” or are you more pleased with Patrick Murphy when it comes to issues like you mentioned earlier, with Big Sugar?
PMP:
Overall, we’re very pleased with Congressman Patrick Murphy. A lot of people say, “Oh, he won because he’s not Allen West, and that doesn’t get you anywhere in the long run,” and I just want to say that he won on his own merits. While groups like the one we were involved in, and other groups, came into the community and basically stressed that the not-Allen-West thing, he stressed that he’s Patrick Murphy, and why you should vote for Patrick Murphy, and not just as a not-Allen-West.
So, the man is doing a very great job in Congress. I do understand that, yes, there are votes that I and many other people are not happy with. He has voted with Republicans on some things that he really should not have, but the fact of the matter is, even when he votes badly, he’s voting with his constituents. It’s a very tough district, Congressional District 18. And not only does it lean Republican, but particularly, in Martin County, even the Democrats are far from progressive. I wish they were more progressive.
Sometimes I think it’s up to members of Congress to push their constituents further to the left on issues that they need to be, but unfortunately, Martin County is a very tough county, and some of his votes, even when he votes with Republicans, are in line with the Democrats in his district. And it’s something that we need to work on over time, and maybe educate the voters more [about].
But, overall, while he does have those votes that progressives are not happy with, he has stood up for so many issues, especially our lagoon. Like I said, the lagoon issue is an issue that no elected official has really been willing to take action on, and sadly, that’s both parties. The sugar industry also gives to Democrats, and really great Democrats that fight so hard for the environment and our community overall, but they are still caving when it comes to issues concerning the sugar industry.
And he has fought against it. He did not take any money from the sugar lobby in 2012 and continues to not. And at first he supported All Aboard Florida, but then he said, you know what, I want to listen to what my constituents have to say, and the community came out and spoke to him, and said, “You know what? This is why these trains are not going to be good for our community,” and so now, because of his constituency’s concerns, he is against it.
He really does speak for the community, and while some people are not always happy with his votes, overall, he is doing a good job, and he has fought for things like reauthorizing The Violence Against Women Act, he also has been doing numerous things when it comes to providing more funding and better services for the VA [Veterans’ Affairs], so, I never want to say that bad votes are excusable, but we can’t let that overshadow the good work that he has done. And the sad thing is, if he had run more progressively in 2012, Allen West would be our congressman.
ME:
Right. I think every activist really needs to do that arithmetic, like you consider the political dynamic of the local area. I mean, if you always wish for a utopia, we’re going to lose more; however, if there’s an opportunity for good progressive change, you push more, hopefully get a better candidate into office. And that really segues into something Mike and I were talking about before we started the show.
Mike, you wanted to speak about some issues when it came to… y’know, you take a regular issue, I don’t know if you want to go into specifics or speak in general terms, but you take an issue, and then, all of a sudden, you have a bunch of different activists, and they want to kind of blow off the entire electoral system. Do you want to speak to that at all?
MP:
Yeah, it goes back to Patrick Murphy a little bit. He held a hearing in Washington, D.C., where he invited a bunch of people from the district to come up and speak to members of Congress, any member of Congress who was willing to show up was welcome to come and hear our problems with The Indian River Lagoon. He’s gotten money approved for The Indian River Lagoon. He speaks about it on the floor of Congress. And, y’know, being that he is our federal-level representative, he can’t do a whole lot for it.
But you have these river activists who want to beat up on him, because they say he’s not doing enough or that he’s doing nothing. It really speaks to a lack of paying attention to what is actually happening in the political world, because if you do, then you can’t just continue to live in a state of perpetual outrage. They care about the river, but I don’t think they care as much about talking about actual solutions as much as they care about pointing the finger and saying, “This politician is not doing the right thing, that politician is not doing the right thing.” And some of them are disenfranchised, and some of them are used to our politicians that we’ve had locally for so long that refuse to do anything about it.
Which is understandable, but our DEC has put out a public statement that we will not support any candidate that accepts money from the sugar industry. And we invited the Martin County Republican Party to make the same statement, because this is an across-the-board issue that affects the entire community, it affects the well-being of our fishing industry in Martin County. We have tourism that depends on people want to come and see the river and the ocean and stuff like that.
And when it looks like nasty green/black coffee, basically, and you can’t swim in it, because you’ll get weird infections and lesions on your body, you would think that the Republican Party would say, “Yeah, that sounds good, too,” but no, they wouldn’t sign on to our resolution, because all of their politicians take sugar money, period. We don’t even have someone who has the political courage to stand up and say, “I’m not going to do that, because it’s affecting the people in my area negatively.” So they wouldn’t even join us on making this resolution.
So you have river activists, and I say to them, “Look at the two parties. You have the Democratic Party standing up for the environment, standing up for what you believe in, standing up for what’s right for you, and the Republican Party, who refuses to,” and [the Republicans] even will say, “Well, agriculture is a very important business and very important to our area, we can’t possibly do anything about it,” because they don’t want to dare offend the Fanjul brothers. So, I ask [the river activists], “We are fighting for your side. Why won’t you in turn fight for us?”
There’s a river rally coming up August 3rd, it’s the anniversary of the one we had last year on August 3rd, a protest of the discharges that have ruined the entire summer tourism industry and things in Martin County and northern Palm Beach County. And it’s not an exaggeration when I say, you could not go into the water. There are people going in and getting infections. And all the news would say was, “There’s something wrong with the water, we don’t know what it is, and we don’t know who’s to blame.” We luckily had Eve Samples at Stuart News who just pursued it, endlessly.
So, the second annual protest is coming up, and [the river activists have] said, “No politicians are allowed to speak. Politicians can come if they want to, and listen to us.” And I say, “Politicians are the ones who are going to be able to get regulations passed to stop this kind of thing from happening. Politicians are going to be the ones to put pressure on the Army Corps of Engineers. We’ve already tried citizen pressure. We’ve already tried activist pressure. They don’t care.”
The Army Corps of Engineers don’t care about what we have to say. The Fanjul brothers don’t care about what we have to say. We need regulation in place, we need laws in place, we need money approved for it. Money doesn’t just appear out of thin air. You need politicians to get that money. So, for people to say, “Politicians can’t do anything,” or “They can’t help us,” you’re not electing the right politicians.
PMP:
And I’d like to add to that. Some of the river activists have been talking about, y’know, “We need action, not words.” And for the most part, I really do agree with that, but here’s the thing: we have people running for different offices in the state of Florida that have ideas on how to fix the lagoon. They’re not elected yet, so they haven’t been able to take action. So they need to tell people what they’re going to do. So they need… so those people, all they have is words, not actions yet. So, if you don’t let them get the chance to explain it, then I really feel that that’s troublesome, because if you care about the river, you need to be listening to the people that are running that also care. You need to know who you should vote for, who should get your vote, that is actually going to help the river, and if you don’t give [these candidates] the chance to speak, then you’re never going to know that.
And it’s not just the river. With so many issues in the community, I try to tell people that yes, we, the activists, are very important. We are the ones that essentially make the changes. But, the changes we want, those laws need to be passed by these lawmakers, and they need to be written by our lawmakers, so we do have to have that dialogue and put the pressure on the politicians, because we can only go so far. They have to actually do it.
So you have people that -- and again, there seems to be this internal war with some of the activists, because we had a bunch of activists who went to Tallahassee, and spoke to our Florida state lawmakers, and put pressure on them. And then you have the ones that went to D.C., where Patrick Murphy got to speak to other members of Congress, and what not. And some of them are looked at [by other activists] as part of the problem. And I just really don’t get that.
MP:
And I want to say one more thing. [The river activists] expect some kind of huge turnout on August 3rd. In the organizers’ estimate, it’s going to be thousands and thousands of people. I think, if you really are concerned with the health of the river, and you really want to see the change happen, and things actually happen, then you should say, “Well, we have a candidate who is running to replace an ineffectual member of the State House.” You know, MaryLynn Magar is currently representing part of Martin County. And she’s not horrible, but she basically does nothing. She doesn’t come out to anything, she doesn’t seem to care about much of anything, she doesn’t care about her constituents, it seems, and you have a woman that’s been on the campaign trail for a year and a half, talking to everybody at every river event and everything like that, and you don’t say, “Hey, let’s get her in front of these 5,000 people and tell them why they should vote for her,” it’s the perfect platform for us to actually get an ally in the state legislature, if you don’t think that’s a good idea, then what are you even really even fighting for?
ME:
Mm-hmm. Mike, earlier, you mentioned two brothers. Who were they?
MP:
ME:
I haven’t heard of them, can you…
MP:
Is it FANjul or FONjul, Trish?
PMP:
It’s pronounced FONjul.
ME:
Who are they?
MP:
The Fanjul brothers are Cuban refugees who came to this country, fled Cuba, I believe when Castro came into power.
PMP:
Yes.
MP:
And one joined the Democratic Party, one joined the Republican Party. They built up the sugar industry in the United States and worked with elected officials to keep embargos on Cuba, to keep Cuban sugar from coming into the United States, and have long since had their fingers deep into American politics. They have a personal relationship with Bill Clinton. Marco Rubio thanks them personally in his biography. Their companies gave as much money to Bill Nelson in 2012 as they gave to Obama, and they also gave equal amounts to Mitt Romney. They spread their money everywhere, and they make sure that everybody -- even Bernie Sanders takes money from them, because either he doesn’t understand or he just likes money, we don’t know --
ME:
[laughs]
MP:
-- why, but everybody seems to be on the take. So, for us, we are one of two counties in the entire state who is willing to stand up and say, we [as the DEC] will not endorse anyone who takes money from the sugar industry, and the other county is our neighbor directly to the west -- or, all the way on the west coast, I should say, who has the same problems with their river from discharges coming out of Lake Okeechobee. The same exact problem.
ME:
So, Okeechobee County?
MP:
No, what is it?
PMP:
No, to the west coast of Florida.
ME:
Oh.
PMP:
I do have to apologize, I forget the county’s name, but it’s where the Caloosahatchee River goes into. They’re also seeing the discharges, going in.
ME:
Okay, I’ll put that information at the end of the show. [editor’s note: It’s Lee County.]
For the final question, I just wanted both of you to think about the news lately, kind of put your pundit hat on more than your activist hat, although you may or may not be doing activist work related to these issues. But, just as an observer of the news, I was thinking the other day that this is probably one of the worst summers I’ve ever seen, in terms of news. Whether it’s Hobby Lobby, or foreign policy, or other environmental issues, this question is basically a grab bag. If you would like, go ahead and rant. Let me know what you guys are thinking about lately.
PMP:
I do agree, it’s been an especially rough summer, between the Hobby Lobby decision, our Attorney General here in Florida trying to fight the courts on their decision about marriage equality, to the conflict with Israel and Palestine, Russia and Ukraine, the airplanes going down, it’s just been… I can’t even wrap my head around it all, sometimes.
But one issue that has been especially troubling for me is the issue with the children at the border. It’s beyond heartbreaking to think that we have thousands upon thousands of kids that are being basically detained, almost like criminals, at the border, because their parents are sending them over the border, or, in many cases, and I feel not enough people are willing to talk about this, they’re being trafficked.
The issue of human trafficking is something that concerns me and I’ve been working with different leaders and what not, contacting them to reach out to find solutions for this. And I am glad when I see some people talk about immigration in regards to human trafficking, because the sad thing is, while a lot of these kids are sent over to live with family, some of them are being sent over to work illegally on farms. Or sex trafficking. And it’s a wide range of nightmare going on at the border, and I feel like no one is really willing to come up with a decent solution.
I personally disagree with the president that they just need to be sent back, because I feel like they are being sent back to a nightmare in their country of [for example] Honduras.
ME:
And I feel like it didn’t always used to be this way, for the United States. Y’know, that level of compassion seems to not exist as much anymore. These children want asylum from dangerous situations, like you were just saying.
MP:
A lot of the times, they don’t know what’s going on. Their parents say, “Walk that way,” and the next thing they know they’re across the border and sitting in a room. They don’t know any better. So, what are we sending them back to? We don’t even know what is there for them to go back to. Rather than just shuttling them off and saying, “Not our problem,” like, whatever happened to, I don’t remember the saying… what is it? “Give us your sick…” The Ellis Island saying. I’ve flubbed that whole thing. [laughs]
ME:
[laughs] You’re tired, you’re sick, you’re huddled masses, all this. [editor’s note: the full quote.]
MP:
There you go. Well, was that only for white people? I mean, come on, all these people… That really bothers me a lot, with the Tea Party and a lot of these other fringe elements I see on the right, in that there’s just this undercurrent of racism in the way that we handle immigration in this country. There’s definitely an undercurrent of, “We only want your immigrants if they’re from Western Europe.”
PMP:
And I don’t know where this nonsense got started that people come over here illegally and don’t want to work and take our taxpayer money and all this stuff. I know for a fact that if you’re in need, and you need any sort of social service, or anything, you have to prove that you’re an American citizen. In no way are we just giving things to people that are coming over here. These people come over here and they’re willing to work and to do things the right way, and I think overall we need a reform. I’ve known people that came over here on work visas, student visas, and it expired, this and that, and they’re willing to be great, productive members of the American society, but the immigration process takes forever.
MP:
Yeah, I’m not going to name any names, but we knew a guy, he was on a student visa, he would have loved to become an American citizen, but the immigration process was so long and arduous that he ended up contributing nothing. He ended up hiding in his apartment for the next several years until he could move back to where he came from. Until his family could get the money to put him on a plane, because once he was gone, he wasn’t going to be allowed back without some other kind of visa. What kind of solution is that? If people want to live here and want to work here and want to contribute to the tax base -- which I know is a big no-no in politics, we’re not supposed to talk about how important taxes actually are.
You know, I see on my Facebook, I see people saying, “Oh, I tried to go to the Social Security office today, and it’s only open till noon.” And it’s like, “Where do you think the money to keep that open 9am to 5pm comes from?” I don’t know if people think they are just slashing budgets for fun, or if it’s because they don’t have the tax revenue to support this stuff, but it’s political suicide for a candidate to talk that way.
ME:
Well, I feel like, if you can argue with a conservative in good faith, conservatives and liberals can both agree that we want our tax money well spent, which is why liberals tend to be, like, “Yeah, let’s raise the taxes a bit more,” which is kind of that third rail in politics you were just talking about.
Okay, well, I don’t want to rant here -- I just started ranting --
MP:
[laughs]
ME:
-- Any other issues you two want to talk about before we close the show?
MP:
Well, let’s see. Trish mentioned All Aboard Florida a little bit, but…
ME:
Oh, yeah.
MP:
...we went to a rally about it. It was “Florida Not All Aboard.” And something that we have seen is the main organization against [the high-speed rail] is backed by our local Tea Party, which is troubling because it is an issue that affects everybody in the area, and people are going the way of this organization, which, if you look at their postings and things -- even though I’ve asked, I’ve said, “Are you against high-speed rail in general?” And they said, “No.” But if you look at their postings, it’s very clear that they are against high-speed rail in general.
But that’s a completely different thing than the thing I wanted to say, which was that one of the speakers at the rally mentioned something that I find very interesting. Everybody wants to talk about how this All Aboard Florida, you know, “Why are they doing it? Passenger rail doesn’t turn a profit. It’s doomed to fail.” “No one even wants passenger rail,” all this stuff. All of this talk about how bad an idea it is from that angle, and someone said, one of the terminus points, in South Florida, is a new port that they’re building. So I think that All Aboard Florida is a way to get some really good upgrades to the rail line, under the guise of, “Oh, we’re going to do passenger trains,” and once that inevitably fails, the actual increased -- y’know, doubled, tripled, whatever -- freight traffic is the actual end goal. But now that I’ve seen all these plans for all these huge stations they’re putting in, in Palm Beach and Broward Counties, I do have to wonder, but I don’t know, it just seems like, if they know it’s not going to turn a good, tidy profit, why do it?
ME:
Just to be clear, both of you are in favor of or opposed to this rail?
PMP:
Opposed to this.
MP:
I’m opposed to it because, if you go to… even here in Martin County, or northern Palm Beach County, even some places in Fort Lauderdale, the places where the rail intersects are main drags from I-95 to US-1, or in Stuart, in the middle of downtown, there’s a place we call, it’s named Confusion Corner. And five roads converge on this one intersection. You know, you can go to any of the five roads from any of the other four. And the tracks run directly through the center of Confusion Corner. And anybody who says that that’s not going to cause safety concerns, that that’s not going to cause traffic concerns, that that’s not going to cause all manner of headaches, is deluded. And that’s why it’s so unpopular in Martin County, because you just have to take a look around, y’know, downtown Stuart, and you see how a big of a problem it will be.
PMP:
And the bottom line is that there’s a lot of weird issues with this. Documents have uncovered some shady investments, including a Chinese casino firm. Rick Scott is actually in some hot water over this, because his chief of staff has ties to one of the companies that is involved with All Aboard Florida. And a lot of us were really raising the question, how come, a couple of years back, we could have had a federally funded rail service that would have created jobs and enable high-speed travel to work at multiple parts of the state, with no cost to the Florida taxpayers, yet our governor rejects that, but is more than willing to basically support this idea of a privately owned rail service that is not going to create jobs. They say it’s for tourism, but I really don’t see that many people traveling, I think it’s 16 times a day from Miami to Orlando. I don’t see that happening, especially as they’re floating around the cost. It’s going to be a lot cheaper to drive your family. They want to say that it’s going to take about three hours from Miami to Orlando. That’s not fast. That’s not much faster than your car.
So there’s a lot of stuff going on with this rail project that… it just doesn’t seem to be what they’re saying it is. So, the community is asking, “Why are they doing this?” Because nothing makes sense. It’s not fast. It’s expensive, per ticket. And it’s just not being what they’re saying it’s going to be, as well as being pretty dangerous for our community, as far as where the rail lines are.
ME:
It’s almost as if they are more concerned with getting it built and not really putting any thought into it so that they’re -- I’m going to be really cynical here [laughs] -- so that their business partners can have a boondoggle on the American taxpayers.
PMP:
It is. And if you look at these stations, they’re beautiful, the plans that they have. And I believe they also want to put entertainment and restaurants in these stations, so it would be these shopping-and-entertainment hubs with these trains that are going where? Where, exactly? Like, what are you doing with these trains. 16 round trips a day. That seems completely excessive.
And I do want to add, and this is something we’ve had to explain, as the Martin County Democratic Executive Committee, because we did take a stance against this, is that we support rail. We understand that we need high-speed rail in this state to benefit tourism and the economy and jobs, but this is not the way to do it. We want to see a proper high-speed rail that is affordable, actually goes fast, that is going to take you to jobs and different things like that. Not this.
MP:
The biggest benefit of this one over the high-speed rail a few years ago is that Rick Scott’s buddies can make some coin off of it, which as we all know is what’s most important, is enriching the friends of Republican politicians, apparently, considering how we do business in this state. [laughs]
ME:
And I think it’s a conflicting thing for us, because I think both proposals had their boondoggles attached, but as liberals, we are in favor of this type of transportation. It’s better for the environment and things like that, last time I checked, at least.
MP:
And just like a lot of things that end up political and really shouldn’t be, we are one of the few civilized countries that still thinks high-speed rail is still some kind of thing still worth debating and isn’t just an obvious idea that we definitely should do, especially considering that we’re one of the largest countries in the world, geographically, yet England can manage to say, “Yeah, yeah, let’s get some 200-mile-an-hour trains, that sounds fine.” And yet we could definitely benefit from high-speed rail crisscrossing this entire country. And yet, nope, because people want to make it a political thing, because how dare a Democratic president suggest such an absurd idea.
ME:
I’m trying to remember, but I think Obama [and Congress] had some stimulus funds as part of the package, for the last time [a high-speed rail was proposed in Florida].
PMP:
Yeah, that’s what it was --
MP:
Several billion dollars per state --
PMP:
I believe it was $2.4 billion the state of Florida was getting from the stimulus package to fund high-speed rail --
MP:
-- That’s gone.
PMP:
Yeah, that’s gone. Rick Scott gave it away, rejected it. And it went to other states. I believe California is getting a rail service instead of us.
MP:
Nan Rich likes to tell a story of a woman -- she went to a conference -- and a woman from California came up and thanked her, and she said, “What?” And the lady said, “Because your governor rejected high-speed rail, that allowed us to double the funding to our high-speed rail.” So the money, it didn’t go back into the taxpayer pocket or whatever sort of nonsense the Republican Party or anybody likes to think.
The high-speed rail rejection is the same as the Medicaid Expansion rejection, in that Rick Scott rejected the money for both things, denying services to Floridians, under the assumption, or under the guise of saving the taxpayers money, when that money, it didn’t go into taxpayer pockets anywhere. It went into other places. It got redistributed to other states, in both cases, so this sort of narrative that they like to push, that they are saving money… it’s just moving the money to other states that will gladly accept it.
ME:
That’s a good point.
MP:
So we just lose out on services for no reason at all.
ME:
Okay. Well, Patricia, Mike, thanks so much for joining me today, and thanks for all the work you do on behalf of Florida.
PMP:
Thank you for having us.
MP:
Thank you.
----
ME:
Tomorrow, on August 3rd, at the Phipps Park Campground, 2175 SW Locks Rd, Stuart, Florida 34997 is a huge rally in support of cleaning up The Indian River Lagoon. If you live in the area, go out and show your support.
The other county with the DEC that will not endorse anyone who takes money from the sugar industry is Lee County. Together, with Martin County, they are the only two DECs to have done so.
For more info on the topics discussed in the show, check the links throughout the transcript of this podcast at FloridaProgressives.Com.
You can find me on Facebook at The FloridaProgressives.Com Podcast. You can find me on Twitter at mike eidson, spelled e i d s o n. This is the fourth podcast out of five, in five days. If you want to promote the podcast on social media, you can use the hashtag #5interviews5days .
This music is by Kevin MacLeod at incompetech.com . It is licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Thanks for listening.
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