I happen to know of one other person who is considering running for the Democratic nomination as well. So, the caucus ought to be interesting to watch – for Democrats who can vote, and for other town residents to watch.

The caucus will be held at 7:30 PM on Tuesday, September 6 at the Trumansburg Fire Hall.

Later that evening, blues musician Mike Shaw will be playing the Rongo.

So, what’s the solution our U.S. Representative, Michael Arcuri has come up with? Well, he voted against health care reform, leaving the unemployed, underemployed and self-employed vulnerable to the outrageous rates from insurance companies. Then, Arcuri voted in favor of doing nothing about climate change, which is already draining billions of dollars out of our national economy every year.

But, you may be asking, what has Mike Arcuri done lately? Not much, to be honest. Most of Representative Arcuri’s work on Capitol Hill has been procedural clerking, offering motions to adjourn, or to have someone else’s bill considered, and that sort of thing.

In his re-election campaign, however, Representative Arcuri has shown the kind of leadership that… well, the kind of leadership that we’ve come to expect from Arcuri. Arcuri’s latest big economic idea, sent out in a campaign email this afternoon, is to invite consituents to a big gathering in Ithaca, and then take their money.

Arcuri’s supposed to be working for us in Washington D.C., but it seems that he sees it the other way around. We work at our jobs, and pay our taxes so that he can get a big paycheck, and then Arcuri charges us for the privilege of meeting him for a few seconds.

The going rate that Mike Arcuri has devised for his upcoming gathering: 500 dollars to stand in line waiting to shake his hand, and 1,000 dollars if you want your photograph taken with him to make yourself look important.

In times like these, Congressman Arcuri ought to be meeting with us come up with ways to help us make ends meet, rather than taking our money to meet his own ends.

But what can we do? We’re in Trumansburg, a thousand miles away from the Gulf of Mexico.

It just so happens that we have a person who’s supposed to be working for us, representing people in Trumansburg in the larger affairs of the United States. That person’s name is Mike Arcuri. He’s our voice in the U.S. House of Representatives.

As a member of the House of Representatives, when there’s a national emergency like the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, Congressman Arcuri has the responsibility to act. He doesn’t have to be the author of legislation dealing with the crisis, but when someone else writes such legislation, he has the responsibility to support the legislation or to support an alternative.

Inaction in these circumstances is inexcusable, but inaction is what we’re getting from Michael Arcuri. There’s a good, simple bill in the House right now. It’s H.R. 5248, the No New Drilling Act. The legislation would do what the title suggests: Put a moratorium on expansion of offshore drilling.

Mike Arcuri is not a supporter of the No New Drilling Act. He hasn’t cosponsored the bill, or any other bill that would help our government deal with the current oil spill disaster or prevent future ones.

If you’d like to see Arcuri take action to move Congress forward in dealing with the Deepwater Horizon disaster, you can call Arcuri’s closest local office at: 315 252-2777 .

Roberts says that he’s waiting to see how district Democratic Committees and labor unions sifting out in the aftermath of Mike Arcuri’s move to work with congressional Republicans in voting against Barack Obama’s health care reform legislation. Of course, that vote is not the only reason that growing numbers of Democrats and other progressives oppose the re-election of Congressman Arcuri. Arcuri has a consistent record of opposing progressive legislation. Arcuri voted against climate legislation last year, for example, and just before he voted against health care reform, he voted in favor of extending the worst abuses of George W. Bush’s Patriot Act – without any attempt at reform at all.

Mr. Roberts, if you’re looking for an indication of the attitude of Democrats in our district toward Representative Arcuri right now, I can point out that, although there have been comments here expressing disgust with Arcuri, not one local Democrat has stepped forward to defend Arcuri from criticism. Whether or not you challenge Arcuri from the Working Families Party, Arcuri won’t win this election. He lacks the enthusiastic support from his own party’s voters that he needs to win, especially considering the narrow margin of victory he had in 2008, a year he had Obama’s coattails to ride. There will be no free ride for Michael Arcuri this year. Les Roberts need not worry about being an election “spoiler”. Mike Arcuri has already spoiled it quite well enough for himself.

Three quarters of donations to Congressman Arcuri’s re-election campaign last year came from political action commitees. Only one quarter of donations came from individuals – and a good number of those individuals aren’t even from our district.

For example, there are the two checks Arcuri took from Robert Blancato, who lives in Arlington, Virginia, and has spent 5 of the last 10 years as a registered lobbyist. Also sending money from Arlington were Shawn Bullard, who works for the lobbying firm Duetto Group, and lobbyist Bob Gray, working for Strategic Insight. Arcuri took a $5,000 check from Gilbert Butler, an investment manager in New York City, a check from Patrick Foley, who lobbies for the firm Bolton-St. Johns, and Patricia Guay, lobbying with the Petrizzo Strategic Group for clients such as Agios Pharmaceuticals and Medica Healthcare Plans. The list of lobbyists counted as individual contributors to Arcuri’s re-election campaign continues on, and on. Search through that list, and you’ll see that even the 24 percent of donations that Arcuri took from individuals isn’t wholly comprised of fawning Arcuri constituents in our district.

Of course, many lobbying firms were quite open about handing money to Congressman Arcuri. For example, before he voted against climate change legislation, Arcuri took a check from Kelley, Drye and Warren, a lobbying firm that represents ExxonMobil. Arcuri also took money from the PAC for the lobbying firm Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal, a lobbying firm representing Allstate Insurance, as well as the PAC for the lobbyists of Williams & Jensen, which represents pharmaceuticals giants Novartis, Amgen, and AstraZeneca.

Are you starting to get the picture of how Michael Arcuri could have seen his way to vote against health care reform? Yes, Arcuri certainly got some interesting telephone messages from Tea Party protesters, but perhaps more convincing was the $53,500 he received from medical industry PACs, and $15,000 from insurance industry PACs. That’s in addition to the amounts given by the lobbyists listed above.

Arcuri also took $10,000 in donations from the Blue Dog PAC. Arcuri is a Blue Dog himself, and along with rank-and-file members such as Arcuri, every single leader of the Blue Dog Coalition voted against health care reform.

Did Democratic voters here in Trumansburg think that Representative Arcuri would listen to them on the issue of health care reform, with the loud voices of all that corporate money competing for attention?

Arcuri has justified his decision to vote with the Republicans by saying, “I am not convinced that after months of listening, studying and debating that the current bill benefits the people in my district in the best possible way”. The best possible way?!? What is Congressman Arcuri waiting for? A clause to guarantee house calls accompanied by free pizza delivery?

Consistently, Michael Arcuri has voted with the right wing Blue Dogs, against the progressive values of Trumansburg Democrats. Just a few weeks ago, Arcuri voted to extend the infamous Patriot Act – without any reforms even to its worst provisions. Maybe Arcuri’s growing Republican voting record okay with the political machine up in Utica, but voters down in this corner of the district see things differently.

Problems For Arcuri Update: The Working Families Party is now looking for a candidate to run against Representative Arcuri. The service workers union SEIU is also refusing to grant Arcuri its endorsement in this year’s election.

Les Roberts may be running again. Remember when local Democrats told us that Arcuri was the better choice?

The Patriot Act was set to expire. It was originally supposed to expire years ago, actually. So, the House and Senate judiciary committees went to the trouble of holding hearings, and arguing about the need for reforms. The need for reforms to the Patriot Act are substantial. It’s been revealed through federal government reviews that Patriot Act spying powers are being used not to investigate terrorist plots, but to spy on Americans who aren’t even suspected of having any connection to terrorism. Senator Russ Feingold pointed out during a hearing on the Patriot Act last year that “in fiscal year 2008 only 3 out of the 763 sneak and peek search warrant applications were in terrorism cases. 65 percent were for drug cases.” From last year’s hearings, some reforms were proposed. They weren’t as strong as they could have been, but at least they were a step in the right direction.

Some Republicans in Congress objected to reforming the Patriot Act, however, so this week, the congressional Democratic leadership capitulated, and agreed to extend the Patriot Act without any reforms whatsoever – as quietly as possible, disguised as a Medicare reform amendment, and without any debate or roll call vote in the Senate at all. In the House yesterday, a roll call vote took place, but only someone paying very close attention would have known that the roll call was about the Patriot Act, not Medicare reform. If you want to take a look yourself, here’s the roll call.

Defying their party’s leadership, 87 Democrats in the House decided to do the right thing and vote against the no-reform Patriot Act extension. Our Representative in Congress, Mike Arcuri, was not among that 87. Congressman Arcuri voted yesterday in favor of extending the Patriot Act without reforming it one bit.

Ulysses Democrats, is that what you thought you were voting for in 2008? You can call Arcuri’s office at 315-793-8146 to tell him yourself what you expect.

Current tax law gave an exemption for the first million dollars of this form of income. Under the bill Arcuri voted for, that exemption will be raised to three and a half million dollars.

Middle class and working poor Americans won’t see one single cent of savings from this tax cut. In fact, we’ll be paying for this widened tax loophole for wealthy Americans. It’s going to cost the federal government hundreds of billions of dollars, a debt our taxes will have to pay off – with interest.

For years, when the Republicans were in charge, I heard Democrats complain about tax cuts targeted to benefit the wealthiest Americans. Will Democrats be silent now, when one of their own in Congress has voted in favor of the same sort of scheme?

Congratulations to the Democratic nominees!

It’s important that we have a good turnout in November, to ensure that a last minute write in campaign by the Republicans can not work.

I recorded the meeting.  I will soon have a link to the audio on my blogs at

http://trumansburgambulance.blogspot.com/ and

http://ulyssesdemocrats.blogspot.com/

I had written more than I could read in my alloted time. Here it is in full,

There are several very important issues facing our Town and Village Boards in the months ahead. The threat of serious environmental damage and health risks from the hydrofracturing gas drillers is high on the list, and citizens have an opportunity today to vote for the candidates that they feel are best equipped and inclined to protect Ulysses from this exploitation.

The privatization of our EMS service is a more urgent issue though.  Chris Thomas is once again pushing the board toward hiring a third party billing company to send bills to every recipient of ambulatory care.  This was a big issue last year.  I was quite vocal in my opposition, and I was instrumental in bringing people to board meetings to voice their opposition.  As a result, the Village held a public forum in order to gather input from the community to guide their decision on wether or not to go to billing.  It was well attended and the guidance they were looking for was given very clearly.  More than twice as many people spoke against billing as spoke for it.  Of those speaking against billing, half were current or past members of the EMS or the Fire Department.  No volunteers spoke in favor of billing.

I have two questions for the Village Board members that favor billing.  What part of “NO” don’t you understand?  And. Will you be having another public forum before going to billing so that we can tell you to leave our ambulance service alone.

Legally, this decision is in the hands of the Village Board, but Chris Thomas has said repeatedly, that they would not proceed without the consent of the Town Board, so it is imperative that we elect a Town Board that will help us tell them to leave our ambulance service alone.

It is possible that the Village could move quickly to billing, possibly before a newly elected Town Board takes office, and possibly without a public forum.  Mayor Petrovic could stop this, and I urge you to talk to him.

So why am I so adamantly opposed to billing? A whole host of reasons. But mainly, I am afraid that if we go to billing, someone, someday soon, is going to not call 911 when they should call 911, because of a fear of the cost, and they, or their loved one, is going to die.  Some will say that I am being hyperbolic, but I listened carefully to the volunteers that spoke at the public forum, and this is a very real possibility.( I recorded the forum.  You can listen to it at my blog at trumansburg ambulance funding.blogspotcom.) I realize that our EMS is part of a system that includes the 911 operators and the dispatchers, and the hospitals, and we cannot tell citizens that all of it is free, but we do control wether or not our EMS will bill, and our EMS is likely to be the first contact that a citizen has with trained and equipped medical people in an emergency, and if they call for and accept the help, it could save lives, and that is why we formed the EMS 40 years ago.

Chris Thomas will tell you that he has learned of a municipality that is going to “insurance only billing” I asked him for the name of the municipality and the name of the billing company because this sounds interesting.  He refused to give me the information.  I filed a FOIA request at village hall, but have not gotten an answer.  Chris claims that contract negotiations are taking place and that is why I can’t have the information.  I’m a big fan of open government, and I don’t understand why I can’t talk to these people while contract negotiations are ongoing.  I suspect that what this is, is nothing new.  Chris used to talk of non aggressive billing.  This means that everybody would get a bill regardless of wether or not they were insured, but the village would not have to hound those who don’t have insurance and can’t afford to pay, but if someone refuses help for fear of a bill, it may do them no good from the grave to know that had they lived, the Village would not have pursued collection.

I feel that our current single payer, fully taxpayer supported, non billing, largely volunteer, EMS is a wonderful example of how our entire health care system should be, and I would hate to see it corrupted by entering into business with a private for profit billing company, and a private for profit, health insurance industry, not because there is anything wrong with profit in general, but because there is something very wrong with profit in  health insurance.  Many of our representatives in Washington are fighting for a nonprofit public option, we lost our strongest fighter last week when  Kennedy died.  Let’s not dishonor his memory by allowing the Village Board to privatize our EMS.  There is a bill in the Senate now that was written by Kennedy and  Dodd, that would offer a strong public option and a mandate to ensure universal coverage.  If this bill becomes law, this would impact our decisions here.  We know that law governing insurance and health care is very much in flux in our federal and state legislatures. This would be a crazy time to consider  going  to billing here. Lets let this play out.

About 18% of Ulysses, and the rest of the area served by our EMS, has no health insurance.  Some say that that many again are underinsured.  That’s 1500 to 3000 people of the roughly 8000 in the district.  These are the people that are most likely to fear the cost of help when they need it.  These are our friends and neighbors.  Are we willing to put them at risk to save a few tax dollars?

If we go to billing, we can shift some of the cost of our EMS, (which is rightfully our cost) off of our taxpayers, and onto society at large. When we bill insurance companies, we generate paperwork expenses, a cut for the billing company, and huge profits for insurance company CEO’s like David Hemsley of United Health, who has made 3/4s of a billion dollars in the last 5 years.  Some proponents of billing seem to think that these private insurers are getting a free ride, that’s it not fair, and that the solution is to bill them.  You don’t get it.  They want you to bill them.  They need you to bill them.  If nobody billed them they’d go out of business.  They need that bill, so that they can turn it around, add profit, and bill us back in the form of premiums.

There was a special Village Board meeting last Monday to discuss the “crisis” in funding the EMS.  There was a good deal of talk about what they were calling a “paradigm shift” away from volunteerism.  Apparently there has been a recent unwillingness among the EMS volunteers to sign up for shifts, and as a result, they have projected a 25% EMS budget increase for next year.  They suggest that the district will need to spend $425,000 next year.  $425,000 divided by the 8000 residents in the district = 53 dollars / resident / year.  This is not a crisis.  Let me tell you what a crisis is. The average family of four pays 13,000 dollars (including employer contribution) for health care today.  That is estimated to double to 26,000 in 7 to 8 years if current trends continue. That’s a crisis.  18,000 people die each year in this country because they had no health insurance. That’s a crisis. If the Village board starts EMS billing, they will be contributing to the insane escalation of that cost.  What we have right now requires the least possible amount of paperwork, and no bills to Medicare, or Medicaid, or private for profit companies.  No third party billing company needs to get a cut, and there is no profit involved.  It’s perfect.

I have good news.  I’ve researched this “paradigm shift”, away from volunteerism.  It doesn’t exist.  On April 21, this year, President Barack Obama signed the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act which reauthorizes and expands national service programs administered by the Corporation for National and Community Service, a federal agency created in 1993. They have a website Serve.gov.  You can search for volunteer opportunities, and apply for grants, and they have statistics that prove that volunteerism is increasing not decreasing.  In 2008 61 million americans volunteered 8 billion hours. Over the last year there has been a 31% increase in volunteers pitching in to fix a problem in their community.  There has been a 17% increase in the numbers attending community meetings (like this one here today) The FEMA website says that 87% of Fire Departments in this country are either fully or mostly volunteer.  I have volunteered quite a bit of my time in various ways in this community, as many of you have, but my efforts pale in comparison to the dedicated volunteers at our Fire Department and EMS.  They volunteer the most hours, at the toughest times, and put themselves at risk, in order to help us out in an emergency.  They are required to take many hours of training, and renew their certifications every 3 years. We stand to lose much more than just a few tax dollars, if we lose these volunteers.  Volunteerism fosters a commitment to helping eachother.  It makes us realize that we are all in this together, and that we are responsible for the well being of our neighbors and our environment.  It creates a spirit of cooperation that might even make it possible to find compromises that will be acceptable to those with differing ideologies. There are many ways to increase  volunteerism in our EMS.  If I were elected supervisor I would speak out about it in meetings and forums and schools and I would write about it in our papers and online.  I have been thinking about joining the EMS myself for awhile, but I don’t think I could if our leaders continued to talk about paradigm shifts and the inevitability of billing.  That’s a self fufilling prophecy.

Before I put my name forth as a candidate for supervisor, I tried to talk Roxanne Marino into doing so.  She had mentioned a year ago that she was considering it.  She finally came around late in the game last week and threw her hat in the ring.  I already have the nomination of the Tompkins County Green Party, and I will be on the ballot in November.  If Chris Thomas wins today I will be campaigning hard, and I need your help. Chris is hard working, and well organized, and  has done good work on the board, but I feel his position on this critical EMS issue is entirely wrong.  I don’t want to  split the progressive vote, so if you intended to vote for me, please don’t,  please vote for Roxanne Marino.  She has 4 years of experience on the board, and her knowledge of the issues is voluminous, she is completely ready to take the reins, and she and I are on the same page on this EMS issue.

Allen Carstensen

ps: If anyone agrees with me on this issue, it would be great if you could come to some Village and Town Board meetings and express yourselves.  I’m growing weary of the struggle.

Then, Thomas began to talk about his ideas for the town, including many that make most Democrats here uncomfortable: Privatizing Trumansburg’s ambulance service, to require residents to pay if they don’t have insurance coverage, pushing through another project akin to Water District 5, and describing rural broadband service as something unnecessary for Ulysses residents.

Apparently, these policy positions caused such concern that some Ulysses Democrats began looking for another alternative to Thomas. Roxanne Marino, who has a great deal of experience on the Town Board already, has stepped forward, and intends to seek the nomination at the Democratic caucus.

Carstensen has obtained the endorsement of the Tompkins County Green Party, and having successfully submitted the required number of petition signatures, will be on the ballot regardless of who the Democratic nominee is.

The Ulysses Democratic caucus will be held this coming Monday evening at the Trumansburg Firehouse, open to all registered Democrats in the town. People wishing to vote must sign in between 7:00 and 7:15 PM.

The committee heard from Kevin Romer and Roxanne Marino who are both interested in a spot on the Town Board.  That makes three Democratic candidates (including incumbent Lucia Tyler) vying for 2 Town Board spots, at the Democratic Caucus, on August 31st at 7pm at the Fire Hall. (please come)

The presentations by the candidates at the last two UDC meetings, if they were made available to the public, would be the only time before the caucus, that the public would hear from the folks that might make important decisions for the town for the next 4 years.  Since this is not allowed, the public won’t know that real differences exist, and are therefore less likely to attend the caucus, and without them, democracy suffers.

Allen Carstensen (that’s me) and Chris Thomas, will both ask for the Democratic nomination for Ulysses Town Supervisor, at the Caucus.  Lucia Tyler and I had already addressed the committee and explained why we wanted to serve, so we didn’t speak on Thursday.  Roxanne Marino spoke for a few minutes and it’s a shame I wasn’t allowed to record it.  Her knowledge of all the issues in front of the Town Board is voluminous, and she talks so fast, I’d have to listen to it 3 times for it to sink in.  Her energy and knowledge would be a real asset on the Board.

Chris Thomas spoke, and took questions.  He was asked if billing for ambulance services was still an issue.  He said yes, that it was.  He pointed out that the budget for the EMS for next year would have to be increased by 25% because of falling volunteerism, and the resultant increase in paid staff hours.  I remain completely opposed to billing.  There will be a meeting about the EMS budget at the Village Hall at 7pm tomorrow, Monday 8/24 (I think that’s what he said – it’s not on the online calendar, and I’m not allowed to record these meetings) I’ll be there, and I’ll be writing more about this soon.

Chris was asked if he was in favor of efforts to bring broadband internet service to more of rural Ulysses.  He said that he didn’t feel that highspeed internet was really necessary for most people.  I disagree.  I believe that access to information is critical if we are to have a well informed electorate.  If everyone streamed Youtube clips of Jon Stewart every night…..

Chris was asked what he felt should be done regarding water infrastructure.  He said that he favors laying pipe into the rural areas of Ulysses in a manner similar to WD5.  He said that there was a palpable lack of cooperation during the WD5 years, and that, had there been better cooperation, that a project could have been completed.  Some would call it palpable lack of cooperation.  I would call it Don Ellis, Roxanne Marrino, and Lucia Tyler, standing on principle, and not allowing Doug Austic and Rod Ferintino to push through a project that was unfair to many, and would have enriched some while putting the Town at risk of unwanted development (possibly including concentrated animal feeding operations) A committee recently completed a survey of the water needs of the town.  I look forward to working with members of that committee and the board, to determine the best way to improve access to clean safe water, to as many people as possible, with as few unwanted consequences as possible.

Chris was asked for his thoughts on gas drilling.  He said “I’m not inherently opposed to energy exploration but what I am absolutely opposed to, is the use of undisclosed chemicals in the hydrofracturing solutions”  Well, it seems that the exploration phase has been completed.  The next step is to extract the gas, and I am inherently opposed to the hydrofracturing and horizontal drilling process if it involves large quantities of poisons and carcinogens wether they are disclosed or not.  I have brought two resolutions to the Board, which, if passed into law, would deter these corporations from harming the health of our residents and decimating our environment.  I believe we have to use every tool available to protect  our Town, and if elected that is what I will urge the Board to do.

I have been nominated by the Tompkins County Green Party as their candidate for Ulysses Town Supervisor.  I have collected signatures that the Board of Elections requires, so I will be on the ballot on the Green Party line, on Nov. 3rd.  I registered as a Democrat in 1970 when I turned 18.  I voted for George McGovern in 1972.  What a different world it would be!  I have always been a Democrat, because I believe that within our current electoral system, the Democratic Party is our best hope, for progressive reform.  I have been a registered Democrat for 39 years.  Chris Thomas has been a registered Democrat for 3 years ( He was  a registered Libertarian prior to running on the Democratic Party line for Village Trustee)  The Caucus on 8/31 will be important in determining the future of the Democratic Party in Ulysses.  Please come.

Allen Carstensen

ulyssesdemocrats.blogspot.com

cell – 273-2186

whwoods@lightlink.com