Konk Life’s Political Questionnaire:

Konk Life has invited every candidate in the upcoming elections to answer the following questions about themselves and their candidacy.

Roger Cousineau

Interview conducted by Mark Howell

Tell us your age, what office you’re running for and any previous offices held.

I’m 55 years old and running for Mosquito Control Board District 2 commissioner. I’ve not held elected office.

Explain your platform in and why you are running. The Florida Keys Mosquito Control District, operating as directed by Florida Statute Chapter 388, is such an important partner to the residents and visitors of the Keys. It makes our environment safe and enjoyable for everyone. As a 20-year resident of the Keys, I’ve watched Mosquito Control develop into a first class, 21st-Century operation with tools and resources that have raised it from amateur status to a model for the entire United States and beyond. That’s quite an impressive sea change in a short time.

My partner and I have several honeybee hives at our property on Little Torch Key. As you can imagine, we have a very practical interest in keeping our bees productive and alive! When I first arrived in the Keys, there was far greater emphasis on using pesticides to kill mature mosquitoes. However, with better delivery technologies that reduce the lethality of these pesticides to larger insects such as bees, and more emphasis on stopping the mosquitoes where they breed, we have a far better habitat for our honeybee community as well as the people community. In fact, killing mosquitoes at the larval stage is estimated to stop as much as 80 percent of mosquitoes from ever maturing to a stage where they could spread disease.

I am running on a platform to ensure that Florida Keys Mosquito Control remains one of the most innovative in the country. I want to stop any privatization schemes that would undermine progress, inhibit transparency and would end up sticking the citizens with undue, burdensome costs. Florida Keys Mosquito Control functions to protect public health and manage mosquito populations. Let’s stay on track in achieving these goals as efficiently as possible.

 

Detail how you differ from your competing candidates.

The incumbent and I have several differences. I would not denigrate staff and my co-commissioners in the press. That is unprofessional and creates a dysfunctional work environment. I learned some important organizational skills as a classroom teacher (grade 8 language arts). I gained a tolerance for conflict while developing skills to be successful through compromise and consensus. Not always easy, but always yielding the best possible results. Adults working together isn’t really so different from junior high group work with all its messiness and grumbling.

I will make full use of all available educational materials and training opportunities so that I can successfully guide the efforts of Mosquito Control with the most effective technologies and resources available. Although not mandated, I believe every commissioner should acquire the knowledge available to them for making informed, thoughtful decisions; otherwise, what exactly is their purpose? Decisions are best made with full consideration of the best information available. The current appointee to this seat has only attended one training session in three years!

I’d like to promise to introduce technology to Mosquito Control, but it would be an incredibly hollow talking point as our Mosquito Control is one of the most innovative districts in the world – well before anyone currently running for office had anything to do with it. Bug Board commissioners are not tasked with micromanaging the fine details of the agency; it’s for us to provide oversight, adequately fund, hire a responsible director and ensure the appropriate resources are available for the professionals to do their job. The Keys Mosquito Control was the first to make use of liquid larviciding over Key West for dengue control in 2010. It worked with Valent BioSciences to design a product and a dispersal method specifically to use over a populated area. What’s often maligned as “old fashioned” is actually the most effective method of dealing with mosquitoes that, as a species, have been here long before us. Although I will remain open minded to new technologies and possibilities, they would have to prove themselves more efficient and more effective for me to consider replacing existing practices. I would not trade out what I know works for what possibly may work.

Unlike the current District 2 Mosquito Control Commissioner, Phil Goodman, I have never been appointed to anything by Gov. Rick Scott. I make pragmatic decisions based on common sense and evidence; unencumbered by seeing the world through a lens of extremist political ideology. I want to be elected as the District 2 Mosquito Control Commissioner by the citizens of the Keys with their full confidence that I have no political ideology or fiscal agenda other than our common interest of controlling mosquitoes, doing what’s necessary to protect public health in the most fiscally responsible manner possible, and keeping an open door policy to their questions and concerns.

 

Tell us your personal history — education; professional career; family life and how long you’ve lived in the Keys or the county and your relationship to the Florida Keys and/or Key West.

The youngest of six children, I grew up in Brunswick, Maine. Graduating from the College of Steubenville with a BA in English, I enlisted in the U.S. Army as a signals intelligence cryptologist and was stationed in Augsburg, Germany, for my full tour of duty. Getting my bearings together, I worked for several years with the New England Telephone Company before furthering my education in pursuit of a teaching certificate. I taught grade 8 language arts in rural Maine and then, 20 years ago, I took a scuba-diving trip in December to John Pennekamp State Park and that, combined with flipping two cars on icy roads in Maine the previous winter, convinced me that the Keys was where I wanted to stay.

After a year of substituting and then filling an emergency special education vacancy at the high school, there was no opening in my field the following year. I then got a real estate salesperson license and as soon as possible my broker’s license. I currently hang my license with Century 21 Schwartz Realty, selling real estate in the Lower Keys.

After living in Key West for a time, my partner and I eventually settled on Little Torch Key where, in addition to my work in real estate, we also maintain a handful of honey bee hives, have a wedding services business and photograph homes for other real estate agents.

I volunteered with AIDS Brigade when they were active in Key West several years ago and currently serve as a patient volunteer with Hospice of the Florida Keys. As an aside, the time I spend with my patients is second only to spending time with my partner.

In the past 20 years, I’ve had intermittent associations with the Key West Chamber of Commerce and Key West Business Guild. When I’m able to retire, I’ll certainly dive into other worthy causes in the Keys.

 

Touch on your personal passions in addition to the above.

I like people. I like talking with people and learning what motivates them and makes them tick. I enjoy talking politics and religion and discovering what causes them to think and behave as they do. I want to understand what informs them, what they read and watch, what gets them up in the morning and what gets them through the day. I want to learn their source of pride and their cause of sadness and joy.

I like to learn new things. I like to think of myself as a lifelong learner, and I’m pretty good at it. Mosquito Control is a many-tiered and complex operation using cutting-edge science and resources. I’ve already informed the executive director that I’m no micromanager but I’m definitely micro-curious.

If elected, I will do everything I can to partner with Fish and Wildlife as well as the residents of the Keys to make sure we’re doing everything possible to knock out mosquitoes where they breed.

 

Describe where, in your view, we might be going wrong in the Keys and/or Key West.

I reject the premise of the question. The only thing “going wrong” in the Keys, or Brunswick or Peoria or [insert your own hometown] for that matter is that it’s changing. It all changes, and that’s just the way it is. We want to hold on to what we found 10 or 20 or 50 years ago. It’s changed but that’s not wrong. There’s a lot going right!

 

Tell us the political flash points you expect to encounter if elected.

The citizens of the Keys want effective and dependable mosquito control. As a government agency operating in the “sunshine,” everything about Mosquito Control can be scrutinized and dissected – a not-so-bad system. But another alternative is offered by folks stoking discontent and that is privatization. Goodbye to “sunshine,” we’d get what most profits special interests, without any oversight or knowledge of what’s lining the pockets of shareholders and no answers as to why the mosquitoes are worse than ever. Too often when the results of privatization are finally realized, the local infrastructure is long-ago sold off and we’re stuck with what we got.

If elected, I will do all I can to ensure that Mosquito Control remains independent, strong, and fully accountable to the citizens of the Keys.

 

Tell us anything you feel you need to explain or any misapprehension you believe voters may have of you.

I’m running on a platform of ensuring quality, effective mosquito control using the best technologies and resources available. And, of course, thoughtfully funding and monitoring the service in a fiscally responsible manner. Other than to malign public services in general or to think a private sector operation would have our better interests at heart, I’m unsure of what about my campaign or me personally that would cause voter apprehension.

 

Give us your view on the partisan divisiveness in politics today and any solution to it you might have.

MSNBC and Fox News – both highly partisan and divisive – provide a smorgasbord of unending, scripted rage. Unfortunately, in some cases this results in viewing the world through polarized, extremist ideologies limiting the chances for compromise or finding pragmatic solutions to very real problems. The solution as I see it is to turn off and tune out partisan media and find more neutral sources.

 

Name your favorite movie.

It has to be three or none: “The Jerk” with Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters; Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” and Ingmar Bergman’s “The Seventh Seal.”

 

Your favorite TV show.

I always stay tuned for a rerun of “Keeping Up Appearances,” “Absolutely Fabulous” or pretty much any British Sitcom.

 

Your favorite TV talking head.

The closest I can come to a talking head would be Bill Moyers or Diane Rehm.

 

Your favorite newspaper columnist.

Carl Hiaasen of the Miami Herald.

 

Your favorite book.

“A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn.

 

Q: Your favorite character in American history:

A: Abraham Lincoln and Rosa Parks

 

Your favorite person in Florida Keys and/or Key West history.

Henry Flagler. Not for any of his personal life or beliefs but for his tenacity in bringing rail service to Key West.

 

Your favorite quote or proverb.

“If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly” — G.K. Chesterton. (If we only did things worth doing well we’d never have known the likes of Beethoven, Edison, van Gogh or Michael Phelps. The way to Carnegie Hall isn’t by doing well; it’s practice, practice, practice!

 

Is there any secret strength you’d like to reveal about yourself at this point?

Aside from able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, I have incredible patience with human error… not willfully bad behavior but genuine, honest error. I’ll work tirelessly to find common ground with those whom I disagree.

 

 

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