The Pinal County Greens today passed a resolution supporting the candidacy of Green Party candidate Beryl Baker for the Tucson City Council.
"Beryl Baker's experience in civic life as a longtime community activist and her sensible, progressive positions on the issues facing the Tucson community will make her a crucial addition to the city council," said Pinal County Greens co-chair Richard Grayson. "She will work relentlessly to protect Tucson's quality of life, grow the local economy, and ensure fiscal responsibility and an end to the mismanagement of the city's old boy network."
"We urge Arizona households to donate ten dollars to Beryl Baker's campaign so that she can qualify for matching funds," said the resolution of the Pinal County Greens, members of the Green Party in Pinal County, which includes some Tucson suburbs. "To avoid the appearance of undue influence, Beryl is not accepting contributions from corporations, special interests, or political action committees (PACs) - just regular people from Arizona families."
Today the Pinal County Greens passed a resolution calling for a nationwide ban on hydraulic fracturing (hydrofracking). This action was spurred by the Green Party of New York State, which earlier denounced a report by that state's Department of Environmental Conservation clearing the way "for the petrochemical industry to reap enormous profits, cloaked in the language of the potential economic benefit to workers." Richard Grayson, co-chair of the Pinal County Greens, members of the Arizona Green Party in the nation's second-fastest-growing county, said the group wanted to express solidarity with the New York Greens and Greens in other states who have been actively involved from the beginning in resisting and fighting the gas and oil industry, promoting legislation to ban hydrofracing and, in the words of Green Party of New York co-chair and 2010 gubernatorial candidate Howie Hawkins, "educating the public about this very ungreen process." Grayson urged people to educate themselves on the health and environmental problems of hydrofracking, such as this livestream of a Green Party of the United States interview on the topic
Grayson said that members of the Pinal County Greens saw filmmaker John Fox’s award-winning, Oscar-nominated documentary Gaslandat the Community Movie Night in Tempe's Changing Hands Bookstore last May 27 and felt that the film exposed the aftermath of hydrofracking: groundwater contamination, permanent brain damage, air pollution, cancer and other detrimental effects to the health and environment of Americans. "We stand with Greens and other activists around the nation in condemning this practice," said Grayson. "To protect our health, safety and homes, the Pinal County Greens favor a nationwide ban on hydraulic fracturing."
One day after President Obama announced without warning that his administration was walking away from stricter ozone pollution standards that it had been promising for three years and instead sticking with Bush-era standards, the Pinal County Greens passed a resolution condemning the President's "cowardly retreat" on environmental protection.
"This action on ozone comes just weeks after President Obama's State Department gave a crucial go-ahead on an environmentally catastrophic pipeline to bring tar sands oil from Canada to the Gulf Coast," said Richard Grayson, co-chair of Pinal County Greens, members of the Arizona Green Party in Pinal County.
"We strongly condemn and protest these brazen political sellouts to business interests and the anti-environment Republican Party, which has been aggressively moving to curtail protections for endangered species and regulations for clean air and water, and which opposes any government effort to address climate change," the Pinal County Greens' resolution said.
"This is why America needs a Green Party," said Grayson. "We urge voters to consider a pro-environmental alternative to the clear weak record of the federal Democratic administration and the hostility to the environment displayed by Republican members of Congress and presidential candidates. With the urgency of climate change, we cannot keep walking this environmental tightrope."
The Pinal County Greens today passed a resolution congratulating Mary DeCamp on her overwhelming victory in the Green Party primary on Tuesday and enthusiastically supporting her candidacy for Mayor of Tucson.
"As Tucson's first Green and first female mayor, Mary DeCamp will boldly adress the economic and environmental issues facing the city," said Pinal County Greens co-chair Richard Grayson. "The initiatives she proposes will help create hundreds of small and mid-sized local businesses which are the economic engine that can create thousands of living-wage jobs for Tucson's working families."
"We congratulate Mary on her primary win and will do everything we can to support her campaign to be Tucson mayor," said the resolution of the Pinal County Greens, members of the Green Party in Pinal County, which includes some Tucson suburbs. "Mary DeCamp's background in politics, education and community service make her far superior to the Republican and Democratic candidates in this race."
