Hometown political debate draws heat from candidates
BY PRU SOWERS
KONK LIFE STAFF WRITER
The environment was clearly on the minds of the large crowd that attended the final Hometown political debate on Oct. 17, a political forum that produced several testy exchanges between candidates.
The last of seven public debates organized by Hometown, a Key West nonprofit organization, the forum gave candidates in several local, state and federal races a chance to address questions before early voting begins in Monroe County on Oct. 24. Each debate has featured a selection of races. The last debate focused on the Utility Board District 3 race, state representative, Monroe County State Attorney and United States Representative. The non-binding ballot question over whether to allow the release of genetically modified mosquitos in Key Haven was also on the debate bill.
That ballot question debate drew a vigorous exchange – and some boos from the audience – between Derric Nimno, who would oversee the mosquito release by Oxitec, a for-profit company, and Edward Russo, president of the Florida Keys Environment Coalition. Joining Russo was Barry Ray, the Coalition’s executive director. Questioned on whether more oversight of the controversial program was needed, Russo called Key Haven residents “Guinea pigs.”
“This is a test: no oversight, no guidelines,” Russo said.
But Nimno pointed out that the mosquito release program had been approved by three federal agencies, the Centers for Disease Control, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA has ruled there will be no significant impact on Key Haven residents or animals.
Tempers also got hot in the debate between incumbent Monroe County State Attorney Catherine Vogel and one of her two challengers, former state attorney Dennis Ward, a Republican running to retake his office after Vogel ousted him in 2013. Also running for the job is Libertarian Candidate Shad Neiss.
Neiss stayed calm in his effort to promote judicial reform in the state attorney’s office. But Ward took several shots at Vogel, calling her lazy and saying her office backed away from prosecuting cases that were controversial.
“They’re ducking and weaving more than Mohammad Ali,” he said.
Vogel retorted that Ward liked to try his cases in the media when he was state attorney, something she said she has not done. Vogel was also asked whether her office would take charges of mismanagement at the Florida Keys Medical Center on Stock Island to a grand jury. Vogel said a grand jury can only look at an alleged state crime and her office is still investigating whether it believes a state law was violated.
“If and when we find something that is criminal, we will take it to a grand jury,” she said.
All three state attorney candidates were asked whether they believed the homeless should be jailed for relatively minor infractions, which usually occur daily in Monroe County. All three said they thought it was a waste of resources to jail the homeless. Neiss said it is “much cheaper to provide treatment for the mentally ill,” adding that it costs approximately $6,000 a year to provide medical treatment to a homeless person versus $40,000 a year to jail them. Vogel proposed that a mental health court be created specifically to hear cases against the homeless. But she had no proposal on how to fund what she said would likely be an expensive undertaking.
State Representative Holly Raschein, a Republican, is hoping to fend off Democratic challenger Dan Horton. Both were asked how to protect Florida Keys residents against the soaring cost of windstorm insurance and how to promote solar energy. Raschein said she had joined a group of legislators asking Florida insurance regulators not to approve the recent rate increases requested by Citizens Property Insurance Corporation, but that request fell on deaf ears. As for solar energy, Horton said alternate energy production needed to be opened to small producers. But until campaign finance laws are changed to stop large energy producers from influencing state legislators, the odds are not good, he said.
“Until we solve that problem [campaign finance], solar will never come down the pike,” Horton said, adding, “I will fight for solar as hard as I can.”
Alternate forms of energy were also the focus of the debate between Tim Root, the incumbent on Utility Board 3, and challenger Carol Schreck. Asked by a moderator whether rates charged by Keys Energy Services can be reduced, Root said that because the Lower Keys doesn’t generate its own power, residents are often at the mercy of power companies. The weather is also a cause of rate fluctuations, Root said.
Schreck said that keeping rate fluctuations to a minimum could be helped by encouraging solar and other renewable sources of power, which she said she will do if elected.
“We’re at the end of the line here. What we need to ensure is that we have stable rates. That’s not always the lowest,” Schreck said.
The last debate of the evening was between the three candidates vying for U.S. Representative. Incumbent Republican Carlos Curbelo is running against Democrat Joe Garcia, the former U.S. Representative who was beaten by Curbelo in the last election. The third candidate is Jose Peixoto, running with no party affiliation but who wore a bright red Donald Trump “Make America Great Again” baseball cap. When all three candidates were asked who they were supporting for President, Peixoto took off his cap and waved it around. Curbelo tried to distance himself from his fellow Republican candidate, saying he doesn’t support either Hillary Clinton or Trump.
“No matter who gets elected President, I’m going to stand up to them. No matter who gets elected President, I’m going to work with them,” he said.
Garcia took a firm stance for Clinton, calling her the most qualified.
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Three dozen local doctors aak for a quick cheap safety test and dr nimmos company refuses. How was this left out. The government approval of the GM mosquito is the MINIMUM approval required to do the test in the United States. The doctors want the to-be-released GM mosquitoes cultured to see what bacteria are present due to the use of an important antibiotic in the creation of the GM. Remember the company tried to sell these mosquitoes as sterile, they breed. They stopped saying that. The doctors want to be sure the millions of GM bugs being released don’t have resistant germs all over them because they are made dependent on the antibiotic tetracycline. An antiobiotic our doctors use to treat infections like MRSA. That large part of the debate is completely ignored in the article above. Why?
Please vote NO on the GM mosquito November 8th. Let the company know spending $100000 on marketing is not the same as $100 on the same kind of culture that we do on sore throats.