Heading Across America to See What We Shall See

Come Sunday morning, Elisabeth and I head out for a road trip across the continent. While we visit interesting cities and beautiful parks, we want to learn what different people in America are doing now to prepare for the future.

We hope to bring back ideas we can implement here in North Carolina and share with those we meet strategies that have made NC great.

So we will leave our home in the loving care of two of our adult children, Lysandra and John, reinforced by our dog, Bonnie, and our two cats, Zoe and Cosette.

I am testing out the Blogger app on my phone with this post. If it works, stay tuned for more.

It's time to pay the piper.

Belews Creek Power Station from nearby cove. Photo jkm.

"All of the company's [Duke Energy's] waste ponds — sometimes referred to as ash basins or ash ponds — are in violation of state or federal clean-water laws, leaching or discharging potentially toxic heavy metals into surface water or groundwater.

"Among them is the Belews Creek power plant's massive, unlined ash pond filled with the waste of spent coal. These ponds typically host potential contaminants such as arsenic, cadmium, lead, mercury, chromium and selenium. Health risks posed by these elements include cancer and neurological damage. Conservation groups have warned for years that these unlined pits contaminate groundwater — a risk, they say, that should raise red flags in Stokes County, where many households use well water."

Click here to read Bertrand M. Gutierrez's entire piece in the Wednesday, April 23, 2014 edition of the Winston-Salem Journal.

IT IS TIME TO PAY THE PIPER

As I pointed out in my issue statement on Natural Resources, the North Carolina Constitution sets forth the policy that state has a duty to protect the state's air and its waters from pollution, such as those coming from Duke's coal fired plants.

North Carolina consumers have enjoyed relatively cheap power for decades and utility shareholders excellent dividends for decades, but in doing so have been poisoning our air, water and farmland resources.

See hill of coal (at bottom) waiting to be burned. Photo jkm.

The big question now before the courts, the State Utility Commission, and the legislative and executive branches of state government will be who pays for the cleanup and how much cleanup is necessary? Should Duke and its shareholders bear the cost? They certainly avoided many costs and earned great investment returns from selling abundant, cheap power.

Should the state taxpayers bear the burden? Over the years, regulators had a cozy relationship with the utilities and approved many of the processes used to provide the power. To charge the company, when it was following the rules, would be considered by many unfair and perhaps even unlawful. (As an aside, the company should be required to pay the full cost of any cleanup, remediation, and costs to towns and farmers affected by failures to comply with laws and regulations.)

That leaves the businesses, homeowners, renters and farmers -- the ratepayers -- who benefitted for decades from receiving power below its actual cost, if adequate air and water protections had been in place. But wait, these folks relied on the state and the utilities to create the power in a safe manner. They paid their power bills. They invested in water heaters, homes, and heat pumps based on existing power rates.

This situation came about because of the cozy relationships among: Raleigh politicians who relied on big donations from millionaire investors and utility PACs for re-election; regulators in the

Duke Coal Ash Pond after spill, Photo Gerry Broome, AP.

Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the State Utilities Commission who were
urged or commanded to go easy on utilities whose low power rates helped attract business and industry to the state; and citizens who pushed cutting government and leaving regulation to free market forces.

The one thing we should not do is leave the solution to this dilemma to the crowd of Raleigh politicians who feed at the corporate trough, who give big tax breaks to millionaires and mega-corporations while raising taxes on (and cutting benefits to) working and middle class families. We can be pretty sure where those politicians and their cronies will come down.

As one can see, the answers are not simple. I can only promise you that I will do my best to develop and support a fair and balanced approach to protecting our air, water and land resources, protecting our workers and consumers, all the while making North Carolina the best state in the nation in which to live, work, and do business.

Link to John Motsinger for State Senate web site.

Here's the text of my letter published today in the Winston-Salem Journal:

A higher common ground

Cal Thomas in his Feb. 10 column “Christian film gets shabby treatment in Hollywood”
noted that the film “Alone Yet Not Alone” gives a “message about God not abandoning people in distress.” He continues, “Does the secular left fear such a film might lead some people to rely on a power higher than the federal government?”

The Feb. 9 Moral March on Raleigh brought together what USA Today estimated as 80,000 to 100,000 people. While there, I saw thousands of clergy and congregants from across the religious spectrum, secular and religious humanists, and social action group members who, because of their faiths, want our state government to not abandon people in distress.

Where Cal Thomas sees division, I see a higher common ground arising from the moral imperatives reflected by religious teachings and by political and economic philosophies. Do we not agree that society should enable all people to maximize their inherent potential while providing a safety net for those in distress? By agreeing on the moral imperatives, we can come together to find solutions based not on ideology or party, but on what works in practice. As a mediator, I have witnessed how agreeing on goals instead of wrangling over methods often leads to better, previously unthought-of solutions.

JOHN K. MOTSINGER SR., Walkertown

I just heard a piece on NPR about using haiku for commercial purposes, The following is not a haiku, but it popped into my head while listening to the story.

In a fight?
Fix it right.
Mediate.

Hey mediators out there. You are free to use the ditty with full attribution and link back here. Yes, this is subject to common law copyright 2013.

370 Days

That's right. I last wrote a blog post 370 days ago. In the meantime, I had a stroke on May 15, 2012, one week after primary election day here in North Carolina. The neurosurgeon released me after a couple of months, recovered.

The year flew by, as I worked as Legal and Compliance Director and Treasurer of Elisabeth Motsinger for Congress. Along with our great and diligent bookkeeper, Kathy Milby, we are finishing the regulatory paperwork and closing up the office.  The campaign was a truly remarkable experience, although it consumed us day and night for 14 months. We kept it clean, did very well in a heavily GOP district against an entrenched representative, and made a great number of new friends.  To us, it was a win!

Back to the real world now. Now I can say "yes" to clients who are looking for a better way to resolve life situations such as arranging how to care for elder family members or how to end a marriage without devastating court fights over kids, property and money.  You know, handling the situations as rational, caring adults.

There's still much to do and I must get back to it to meet our January 31 deadline. So this one ends, but I'll have a new post "directly," as my grandmother used to say. As my stalwart Kathy says, "Bye, now!"

Tired? Need motivation to go the distance? NPR can help.

SOURCE: NPR.org 

    

    The holidays are behind us. The Elisabeth Motsinger for Congress campaign has swallowed up my time. I have gone days between workouts and long runs seem a thing of the past. (Actually they aren't, Just fewer and farther between.) To keep up my energy, however, I find it necessary to get out a few times each week to the gym or to run around Salem Lake.
    NPR has made getting and maintaining momentum a little easier. So I have shared below some links that inspire me to keep going when the going gets tough. Check out the stories, video and music below and see if it might help you, too. jkm

Music can help you in going the distance. NPR story tells why music helps and listeners submit suggestions for the NPR Ultimate Workout Mix.   
Read and listen. 
What Makes Newton-John Get 'Physical' At The Gym?  

Listen to and read the whole story from NPR

Or just watch the Olivia Newton-John's video without the story and other suggested music.

And keep it going with The Ultimate NPR Workout Mix

Listen to the Mix Streaming

Read the story and see the playlist

On being unprepared for the long run

A TRAINING DAY FROM THE OTHER PLACE

          It was March. I was halfway through my training to run some marathon or other that coming May. I had set out to run part of the course that morning, As I approached where the start would be, I saw a crowd of hundreds of runners. My panic rose as I realized the event was today--in March--not two months off on the same date in May. I had to run unprepared. Grabbing my number from the table and pinning it on as the starting gun went off, I tried in vain to explain the situation . . . .

          I snapped awake. The "unprepared" nightmare again. Another time I had been unprepared for a trial I had suddenly learned was scheduled for later in the morning.

THEN THE DREAM COMES TRUE

          This morning I was parking the car outside Krankies coffee house in Winston-Salem when my cell phone rang. I answered, the voice asked "Who is this? I was trying to reach Elisabeth Motsinger. This is Travis Fain from the Winston-Salem Journal and I heard she is running for Congress."

          Panic time. I did not even pinch myself to test for wakefulness. I told the reporter he had reached my cell phone, but that I would I would give Elisabeth the message as soon as I saw her.

          I then went on into Krankies to the meeting with Elisabeth and campaign manager Carissa Joines to continue preparing for the official announcement and media conference intended for January 17, yet a week away. Our web site was not ready, just a placeholder page. We had no Facebook or Twitter pages. I had just that morning put the (almost) finishing touches on an ActBlue secure donation page. Clearly we were not ready to go public--but the beans had been spilled as the cat had sprung forth from the bean bag.

 FROM PANIC TO ACTION

          After a quick synchronized panic attack, we regrouped. Elisabeth called back Travis Fain, introduced him to campaign manager Carissa Joines, and I followed with more information. Apparently, Jerry Williamson, a blogger from Watauga County had somehow discovered that we had filed to get a candidate number from the Federal Election Commission. He published the finding in WataugaWatch this morning. Fain picked up the story from the blog, confirmed it with us and published it on the Journalnow Facebook page a few hours later.


THE SUPPORT ROLLS IN

         Within a couple of hours, Carissa, Elisabeth and I had gotten the basics together, all the while answering phone calls from friends and supporters of Elisabeth as a two-term school board member. The news was going viral, shared on Facebook and elsewhere by dozens of individuals. By 10:00 in the evening, the online donation page recorded 11 separate donations. Elisabeth received messages from across the district from numerous people wanting to throw fundraiser and "meet the candidate" events in their communities.

          Clearly, Elisabeth has enjoyed a strong groundswell of support from across the 5th District and the state for her campaign to win the seat now held by conservative Republican Virginia Foxx. After the panic, the reality has set in: Elisabeth can win the primary and, if anyone can, Elisabeth's supporters can and will turn the 5th District from red to blue in November. But to go the distance, we must go from a quartet of planners to a much larger volunteer force and do it quickly.

         If you have some time to invest in a better tomorrow for the 5th District, some space to donate or rent, or can support Elisabeth in other ways, please contact us at connect@nc5th.us. Due to the large outpouring of interest, it may take us awhile to get back in touch. But in touch we will be, because Elisabeth knows the seat belongs to you, the real people of the 5th District, not to any officeholder or big corporate special interest, not to any pollster or any party.

-- John Motsinger

DISCLOSURE: I am currently Legal and Compliance Director/Acting Treasurer of the committee Elisabeth Motsinger for Congress. Contributions and gifts to Elisabeth Motsinger for Congress are not tax deductible. This blog post was my own and not authorized by the candidate.