SULLIVAN'S SALVOS
May 4, 2008
Sullivan’s Salvos 5/6/08
I was pleased to see the Iowa Legislature pass a smoking ban. Other states have done the same thing, with few ill effects. Frankly, this also makes it much easier on local elected officials, who might have been faced with local control. Had the State passed this on to local governments, you could have North Liberty with one set of rules, Coralville with another, and Iowa City with a third. Now the playing field is level, with a couple tiny exceptions.
I feel sorry for smokers. Most would like to quit, but they can’t. I do not want to see these folks treated as second class. But the Legislature needed to weigh the concerns of the smokers versus the health of everyone else. They decided that public health won out; I agree with this decision.
Yes, it is unfair that casinos have an exemption. But future Legislatures can fight that out. It is better that they passed something. Politics is the art of compromise, and sometimes the perfect can be the enemy of the good.
I know this took courage. I know that the people who supported a ban will take some abuse. I hope you will join me in applauding the Legislators who took this on.
As a follow up to Earth Day, I thought it might be interesting to share an interesting exercise our family recently undertook.
We are members at St. Andrew Presbyterian Church in University Heights. Several church Elders decided to look into St. Andrew becoming a Sierra Club “Cool Congregation”. As a part of this process, a few families served as guinea pigs, measuring their carbon footprints.
My family served as one of the test cases, and I found the information quite fascinating.
For starters, it was an eye-opener. Melissa and I work very hard to be green – we specifically chose to live in an area where the kids could easily walk to school K-12. Our home is well insulated, and most of our appliances have an Energy Star rating. All of our light bulbs are compact florescents. We keep the house very cold through the heating season. We recycle pretty much everything, and use only recycled paper products. We reuse grocery sacks. We compost. We have a big garden. We do not buy bottled water. Melissa only drives to work 5 or 6 times per year; she rides her bike or takes the bus the rest of the time. My commute is less than 3 miles each way. But we still have work to do.
One area that hurt us was air travel. Melissa and I visited Costa Rica last fall, and air travel REALLY makes an impact on your carbon footprint. (A note: we each flew to DC for work last year. But that goes on our employer’s carbon footprint rather than ours personally.) Plus our vehicles, while not terrible gas hogs, only get 22-23 mpg each.
The results? Our carbon footprint is only 61% of the average American family our size. (We smoked the other families who participated. Even though they were very conscientious, they had larger homes, and a daily commute to CR is a huge impact.) So we are doing extremely well when compared to other Americans. To reach the Kyoto goals, however, we would need to be at 53% of the footprint of the average American family.
So what steps are we taking? I am commuting to work by bicycle as much as possible. Rachel is taking shorter showers. Jordan is watching less television. BJ is shutting off lights when he leaves a room. We are hanging clothes out to dry when possible. These are not huge changes, but when coupled with the fact that we are unlikely to fly that far again this year, we should dip below the goals set forth in the Kyoto Protocols.
Johnson County is once again offering a year-round clean up program. Through this program, rural residents may take 2,000 pounds per household to the landfill annually free of charge.
Johnson County used to have a week in the spring and a week in the fall where rural residents could dump for free. But those two weeks got very busy at the landfill. We changed this program to year round my first year on the Board, and by all accounts, it has worked quite well.
The County will not reimburse for yard waste, appliances, and electronics. For more information, contact the Landfill at 356-5185.
I have a problem with this whole idea of a one-cent tax for school infrastructure.
First, schools should not be funded by sales taxes, our MOST REGRESSIVE available tax. Sales taxes have a role in society. They should be used when we are trying to discourage a certain behavior, or at least try to get those engaging in the behavior to pay their own way. Examples where a sales tax makes sense are on the sale of cigarettes, gas, and the like. Regressive taxes, which hit poor students the hardest, are a very poor choice for funding schools.
Secondly, all State taxes ought to go toward teachers and equipment. Leave decisions about funding buildings to the locals. The decision to build in a community should be a local call. Put state dollars into teacher salaries, so that a teacher in Lineville-Clio earns the same as a teacher in West Des Moines. Ensure that Lineville has the same technology as West Des Moines. Equal pay and resources will lead more teachers to choose rural districts.
The sales tax is a poor choice as a funding mechanism, and it is a bad idea to use the money for buildings rather than people. I see this as a lose-lose proposition.
DID YOU KNOW? The six county Iowa Valley RC&D region (Benton, Iowa, Johnson, Linn, Powesheik, and Tama Counties) had $730 million in crops and livestock sold in 2002.
Anyone interested in learning more about County government should take a look at the County website-
www.johnson-county.com
"Sullivan’s Salvos" is sent once per week to any interested party. It will give a brief update on issues of interest to Johnson County residents.
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As always, feel free to contact me at 354-7199 or rodsullivan@mchsi.com. I look forward to serving you!
---Rod
posted by Rod Sullivan @ 8:50 PM
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