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Address to NCCo Library Advisory Board - 10/6/04
FOP Forum - 9/27/04
Newark Methodist Women's Group Candidate Forum - 9/18/04
Introduction for David Cobb - 8/27/04
Minquadale Fire Hall Forum on Public Safety 8/17/04
Making the Vision of Universal Health Care a Reality Now 5/27/04
Cannon 2004 GPDE Convention Speech 5/22/04
GreenViews TV Appearance 4/18/04
Address to Joint Sunset Committee on DSWA 4/13/04
Salem Nuclear Power Plant 3/28/04
GreenViews TV Appearance 4/18/04Thank you Sara. My campaign for NCC Council in the 9th district is driven by the issues that I think face the people of the county.
I wont’ be able to address all the important issues in the kind of detail they deserve today.
Let me begin by saying:
- I think it’s vital to see how all the issues are tied into and related to each other. While my campaign is solution focused, we must keep in mind the interrelatedness of the problems as we seek solutions. We must see how things are connected to develop real, long-lasting solutions, not just band-aid remedies.
- We must remember that any solutions we develop need to address not just the short term problems but the longer term problems as well.
- We must remember that these solutions are pointless and, ultimately, doomed to failure without the grassroots involvement in the decision making process by the people in the community that are most impacted.
It is also important to build on the strengths we have in NCC.
- We are blessed with a beautiful city and countryside with diverse, vibrant, and committed people.
- We have an infrastructure that provides many possibilities as we look to the future.
- We have many businesses who are excellent and responsible community members.
As we move forward, let’s not forget that NCC has a lot going for it and build on these strengths.
Soon my website will be up for you to look at my position on the issues in depth. After this show, you can call me at 738-9963 or email me at jcannon11@comcast.net and ask me questions. I want to answer any questions you may have about my views on the issues and to hear your ideas.
Let me list a few of the important issues facing NCC as I see them:
- Ending suburban sprawl to create and preserve more open space.
The county budget surplus we now have a result of the extensive overdevelopment policies of NCC government. This surplus WILL end. Maybe not this year or even the next but it is a bubble that will burst. Why, because the money comes from the fees the county gets from the unsustainable expansion of land development we have engaged in the past 10 years. The Unified Development Plan is not enough to bring an end to this short sighted and potentially disastrous policy.
- Establishing ‘sunshine’ policies allowing for greater local grassroots input and, where possible, control of local issues.
- Insisting that NCC businesses be responsible ‘good neighbors’ with living wages, supporting worker safety and management respect for workers.
Living wage laws are a priority when I’m elected to NCC council. We must keep businesses to their promises to not downsize and outsource after granting them tax breaks or other incentives. NCC Council should set an example of how others should treat workers by insisting that living wages be paid by any county contractor.
- The need for alternative and improved transportation including better public transportation, walk and bike paths, and high milage county vehicles.
Building more roads is not the answer - it is, at best, only a temporary solution to the problem of traffic congestion. We must begin to plan for better public mass transportation that includes more easily assessable buses train service. Unless we do so, the quality of life in NCC will become intolerable with increasing longer commutes and poisoning of our air. As way of a small example, I plan to introduce legislation to NCC council that will replace the existing fleet of cars and trucks with high milage gas-elect irc hybrid vehicles.
- Addressing racial, gender and sexual preference inequities in hiring, wage and other practices.
- Establishing mandatory curbside recycling.
- Improvement and expansion of NCC libraries free of the Bill of Rights busting Patriot Act.
One basic issue facing NCC government is the unethical, even illegal behavior by current NCC Council members. (this issue was pointed out with most of the below details)
- In past years NCC Council members have gone to jail for taking bribes from fat-cat developer.
- A county auditor was caught using the county credit card illegally.
- County employees were used to campaign for particular candidates on county time.
- Important decisions are made in backrooms without real public input into the problem or the solutions.
In NCC government, there is a culture that unethical and illegal behavior is OK. “It’s just the way we have always done things here.” - even if they are wrong.
One of the reasons I am running for office is to say ‘no’ to this type of behavior and return county government back to the citizens of NCC.
During this campaign and as a member of NCC Council I will:
- Act with integrity.
You know, I have worked as a counselor for some 30 years, mostly with children and their families. THE first and most vital question from my clients is, “Can I trust you”. Even when they don’t say it outloud, they are often asking “Can I trust you?”
I think many voters and especially nonvoters are asking themselves the same question when they look at a candidate. So I’ll tell you the same thing I sometimes share with my clients, especially the kids when I first see them in counseling:
“You have no reason to trust me. You don’t know me and I could be a rotten person for all you know. I’m not a rotten person, but let me SHOW you I’m on your side, that I want to help you. DON’T take my word for it. I know many people have lied, cheated, and hurt you over the years. Let me SHOW you that I won’t be one of them.”
On the issue of ethics:
- I will be a whistle blower every time I see or hear of unethical and illegal behavior in county government.
- I will work to establish ‘sunshine’ laws to get NCC government out of the smoke filled back rooms and into the light of public input, scrutiny and decision making input.
- I will introduce legislation to create a board for ethical oversight of county government that is truely independent and responsible to the people of NCC.
During the campaign and later as your NCC Council representative, I plan to show you that I can be trusted to do these and other things. Let me SHOW you my commitment to a restored and protected environment, to social and economic justice, and to grassroots democracy. I am deeply committed to these ‘roots’ of the Green Party.
In conclusion, I ask the people of NCC to look at the history of the past and present Democratic and Republican parties in NCC county and ask:
- “Do I really want to the ‘same ‘ol, same ‘ol’ bull crap I have been shoveled all my life?”
- “Is it worth the risk to vote for someone new to politics, a Green Party candidate committed to a set of key values to lead us out of this quagmire of unethical and illegal behavior by the ‘good ‘ol boys’?”
- “Do the issues Greens bring out make sense to me as I consider what I want the future to be like for me and my family?”
We think my candidacy, the candidacy of the Tres Amigos Verde, John Atkeison, Vince Sottile and I, and the terrific people supporting it represent A BREATH OF FRESH AIR FOR NCC COUNTY. Think about it. Thank you.Address to Joint Sunset Committee on DSWA 4/13/04
Madame Chair, Committee members and people of the audience, good evening. My name is J. Roy Cannon. I'm the Green Party of Delaware's candidate for the 9th District seat on New Castle County Council. Thank you for hearing me this evening.
The solid waste authority has a dirty history and not ust because they deal with our trash.
People haven't forgotten that DSWA pushed to allow trash incineration in Delaware. One proposed site was near where my wife works in a 700 kid strong elementary school in Bear Delaware. DSWA and its supporters apparently care little that garbage incinerators will not solve Delaware's trash problems. In a very dirty way, DSWA would allow for the belching out of millions of pounds of health-threatening air pollutants for our children - and my wife - to breath and get sick. Because of truly heroic efforts by the people in the community, many hear again tonight, trash incineration was banned from Delaware. It should not be resurrected.
But DSWA isn't done. No, recently it facilitates a trip by some of our
representatives to visit trash incinerators in Pennsylvania in some kind of dirty scheme to bring incinerators back to Delaware for the profit of a select few and to the detriment of average citizens.
Let's look briefly at another part of DSWA's dirty history. Not so long
ago, DSWA proposed to nearly double the size of the 'Cherry Mountain' landfill despite the on going and repeated pollution of the air and ground water the current site creates. DSWA again shows little concern for the people of Wilmington who suffer from the repeated and substantial exposure to this pollution.
Is DSWA really concerned, you may ask, when mostly disadvantaged people of color live in the immediate area. They don't have much money. They feel so powerless they don't vote in high numbers. So, does DSWA really care about them? In my opinion, no, they don't! They try to ignore the people's need for a healthy environment in which to live and raise their children. They try to ignore the problem even though you can smell the pollution, with the right wind direction, all over Wilmington. Again, only with heartfelt opposition to the expansion of the landfill was this dirty proposal by DSWA defeated.
DSWA has clearly shown by example that it does not have the health and welfare of the people of Wilmington and New Castle County in mind. DSWA has demonstrated by its actions gross misconduct and mismanagement in various ways, some of which I have tried to point out tonight.
I think DSWA lacks the commitment to implement a safe, robust plan to deal effectively with NCC waste. Here’s why - Its minuscule recycling program reclaims only 6% of recoverable materials. Its composting program has failed utterly. Even DSWA's dirty landfill is repeatedly cited and fined for environmental violations!
DSWA appears to be in a stinking quagmire of its own making by using pollution generating policies that favor fat-cats to the detriment of the ordinary citizen - citizens who are literally sick from the pollution and tired of the shenanigans of DSWA officials.
DSWA should be scraped and, if you will, recycled as a pro-people/pro-environment agency responsible to the people in the community. An agency that will work hard and effectively to established sustainable solutions to the challenge of waste management.
Thank you for an opportunity to express my views on this very important issue.
Sunday, 3/28 at the Salem nuclear power plant. The protest is called "No TMI On the Delaware"
Hi - my name is J. Roy Cannon. I’m running for NCC Council in Delaware on the Green Party ticket. I’m here today to mark the disaster at TMI and to join you in calling for the closing down of Salem’s nuclear power plant.
I’m also here calling for other things:
- Like you, I want the government to stop its policy of corporate welfare for the nuclear power industry, an industry that would not survive without the millions given to it by Washington.
- Like you, I’m here calling for the end of a system of power production that is not only unsafe for its workers but, as in the case of Salem, is unsafe for the hundreds of thousands of people living within a 20 mile radius, including my family and your families and our friends’ families.
- Like you, I’m here with you today knowing that the nuclear power industry must be bought to an end because we are faced with the 500 thousand year dilemma of what to do with all the nuclear waste that has been produced in the last 50 years and - yes - Yucca Mountain is NOT safe - no place on earth is safe to store the deadly byproducts of the nuclear power and nuclear war industries.
This is a very serious issue, one that we must take seriously, not just because nuclear commerce is a greed-driven, people-threatening disaster waiting to happen, but also because of what it symbolizes, and what it symbolizes is this: that we currently have a government and political/economic system so out of touch with the people and so under corporate control that risking peoples lives and health seems like an okay gamble to the two political parties with the most power.
This is why we have to see the Salem nuclear issue for what it is -- not an isolated problem but a problem linked to other problems, all of them having to do with the power structure’s willingness to play games with OUR lives in order to increase THEIR wealth and control of the country.
- When, against our will, the Salem nuclear power plant slowly poisons the local environment through low level radiation and the killing of millions of fish in the Delaware River every year, this represents the death of democracy and I, just like you, don’t like it.
- And when, against our will, odor-spewing landfills and air-contaminating chemical plants are built primarily in poor and people of color communities, this represents the death of democracy and I, just like you, don’t like it.
- And when, against our will, the two major political parties -- parties that are in part controlled by oil and nuclear interests -- when these parties organize an unjustified war in Iraq that increases terrorism rather than decreases it, this also represents the death of democracy and just like you, I don’t like it.
For all of these reasons, I am here today to say that the struggle to close the Salem nuclear plant is not only important to us locally, but is a crucial part of the of the struggle that millions of people are waging nation-wide to recreate democracy in America.
As a father and husband who wants a better future for my family and friends - a non-nuclear future, a more democratic future -- I am proud to be with you here today. Like you, I want the millions of dollars currently being poured into this black hole of a nuclear power industry to be put to better use -- let’s put it into universal health care, into better education for our children, into housing for the homeless, into living wages for working people. Yes, let’s take the millions given in corporate welfare to the nuclear power industry and use it to restore our devastated environment and protect it for future generations. Let’s use it to further develop renewable and clean sources of energy - solar and wind power - so we can end our fossil fuel addiction, which is the single most important reason we are constantly at war in the world and which is also the cause of global warming.
In closing, let me say this: those of us who are here today are not alone. Thousands, hundred of thousands, millions of others like us are also saying no to the nuclear power industry. Untied with the City of Clifton calling for the immediate decommissioning and closure of all nuclear power plants in NJ. Additionally, they are saying . .
No to environmental devastation.
No to lack of democracy.
No to all infringements on justice.
No to another TMI or Chernobyl.
Once again, I’m proud to be here with you today, with over a dozen other groups all united in a broad-ranging movement for a ‘new’ politics of ‘we the people.”
Let’s UNPLUG Salem’s nuclear power plants!
Thank you.